5 ms·

Logging for profit is not the panacea that people criticizing environmental groups thinks it is. Here in Australia, at least (where we do a lot more controlled

Logging for profit is not the panacea that people criticizing environmental groups thinks it is. Here in Australia, at least (where we do a lot more controlled burns and let fires burn out a lot more) commercial logging tends to leave a huge amount of combustible waste behind. There's clearly a good middle ground, but there's a lot of simplistic theorizing about this from folks with ideological axes to grind.

SilverRed 5y ago
I would have assumed that logging clears out the old dense wood which does not burn so readily while leaving the shrub which is the most of the problem. The easiest solution IMO is to stop trying to control every single fire and designate some zones as essentially wild and focus all efforts at protecting a smaller city area with a buffer zone between buildings and the nature reserve. Problem is people want to live right in the middle of a forest but also do not want to face the reality that fires happen and that they are at risk.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  As Northern California is currently demonstrating, wait and see can be unpredictable in historic drought conditions.
- babesh 5y ago
  Smoke travels pretty far and causes obvious health issues. The undergrowth due to suppressing previous fires and the additional fuel from dead trees due to droughts result in very hot fires that grow huge. The Dixie fire that is ongoing is 762 sq miles and is 25% contained. It is the largest fire started from a single source and second largest overall in California history. If we let a fire just burn, will it just get so large that it can’t be contained and will just burn till there is nothing left? I read about natural fires that would span states and would burn till the rainy season. The fires currently burning in Siberia cover 4000 sq miles. The Bay Area is about 7000 sq miles. Alameda County is about the same size as the Dixie fire.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- giantrobot 5y ago
  The problem with letting fires just burn is they don't obey the demarcation of "zones". They generate super heated gases that can cause adjacent areas to spontaneously combust even if no embers land there. A fire break that works in no/low wind is completely ineffective in high winds which can be generated by the fire. Managing fires is very complex and takes a lot of resources but importantly political will. There's groups that don't want to spend federal money on infrastructure even though the federal government is responsible for significant amounts of infrastructure.
joe_the_user 5y ago
Indeed, In Oregon, there's no real limits to logging and Oregon fires in the last two years has had horrible on par with California. The reason is that the kind of logging that's economical is not good fire suppression. IE, clear cutting is going leave a thicken of young trees and undergrowth in ten year that's a huge fire hazard but not economical to log. The state would have to pay for sort of logging that could effectively cut fire and that's usually not not called but logging but ground clearing. And it's done a bit but not affordable around every little town in the Sierras.
- Trisell 5y ago
  Oregon has a significant amount of private forest land in the southwest. I would be interested to see the amount of fires that are on private forest land vs public forest land as the private land it clear cut and then planted, grown, thinned and then clear cut again. I would guess that based on growing up in that state and it’s extreme environmental political undercurrent(Oregon has spawned a few eco-terror groups in its time) that most public land doesn’t get properly logged in Oregon.
  - glangdale 5y ago
    Maybe you should look this stuff up and figure it out, as opposed to guessing that it's based on "extreme environmental political undercurrents". It's not like the location of the fires is a state secret. Effectively you're promulgating a conspiracy theory. As I've stated elsewhere, it's well understood that commercially viable logging on public land (here in Australia at least) is not particularly effective for fire suppression (due to what's left over and what's left on the ground) and it wouldn't surprise me if it's true elsewhere. Maybe it's different in Oregon but there seems to be a surfeit of people "guessing" that it's somehow all the Greenies' fault.
    - Trisell 5y ago
      A single google search[1] turned this up. As I hypothizied Oregon's forest, like most western states are majority owned by the Federal Government. Which makes them susceptible to the issues I brought up. As for eco-terrorists. This is from 2002[2] but it highlights that eco-terrorism in Oregon has been a long standing issue. [1] https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9228/html https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9228/html [2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg77615/html/CHRG-107hhrg77615.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg77615/html/C...
gibba999 5y ago
Regulated logging is. Establish regulations to allow logging if a healthy forest is left behind, and the free market will fix everything else.
- simtel20 5y ago
  The term free market seems oddly incompatible with what you propose. Is a regulated market with oversight and checks and balances?ls "free market"? It seems the opposite to me.
  - gibba999 5y ago
    Free markets are always regulated. I can't have slaves. In California, I can't have non-competes. I'm not allowed to dump toxic waste in the water supply. I need to take care of injured employees. I can't sell toxic food. Etc. Free market capitalism is really good algorithm at approximating an optimal solution to the problem posed to it. Regulation is needed to define the problem. Regulation is really poor at coming up with solutions to problems, and free market capitalism is really poor at defining problems. I'd recommend a quick re-read of Adam Smith. Building codes are an example of a bad regulations. They require e.g. a specific spacing of wooden beams, and specific materials used. That's regulation defining a solution. When people come up with better ways to achieve the same level of safety, it's banned. In contrast, for example, a lot of codes around EMI and consumer electronics are good regulations. They require bounds on how much EMI is emitted, but leave the free market to solve the problem. That works well. Fines and mandatory insurance are another example of good regulation, whereas bans are usually bad regulation. If there is an externality, a fine places a cost on it, and a free market can optimize to it. A ban distorts a free market. Mandatory insurance too allows us to price in the cost of externalities with market mechanisms. In this case, if you allow logging where: - Underbush has to be removed to within some level - Trees ought to be left to a specific spacing ... and so on, things will work out okay. If you require loggers to have insurance, such that if a fire breaks out where they logged within some time window, insurance covers the damage, very smart finance people will figure out which things are high ROI and which are low ROI, and things will work out even better.

SilverRed 5y ago

I would have assumed that logging clears out the old dense wood which does not burn so readily while leaving the shrub which is the most of the problem. The easiest solution IMO is to stop trying to control every single fire and designate some zones as essentially wild and focus all efforts at protecting a smaller city area with a buffer zone between buildings and the nature reserve. Problem is people want to live right in the middle of a forest but also do not want to face the reality that fires happen and that they are at risk.

emodendroket 5y ago
As Northern California is currently demonstrating, wait and see can be unpredictable in historic drought conditions.
babesh 5y ago
Smoke travels pretty far and causes obvious health issues. The undergrowth due to suppressing previous fires and the additional fuel from dead trees due to droughts result in very hot fires that grow huge. The Dixie fire that is ongoing is 762 sq miles and is 25% contained. It is the largest fire started from a single source and second largest overall in California history. If we let a fire just burn, will it just get so large that it can’t be contained and will just burn till there is nothing left? I read about natural fires that would span states and would burn till the rainy season. The fires currently burning in Siberia cover 4000 sq miles. The Bay Area is about 7000 sq miles. Alameda County is about the same size as the Dixie fire.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
giantrobot 5y ago
The problem with letting fires just burn is they don't obey the demarcation of "zones". They generate super heated gases that can cause adjacent areas to spontaneously combust even if no embers land there. A fire break that works in no/low wind is completely ineffective in high winds which can be generated by the fire. Managing fires is very complex and takes a lot of resources but importantly political will. There's groups that don't want to spend federal money on infrastructure even though the federal government is responsible for significant amounts of infrastructure.

joe_the_user 5y ago

Indeed, In Oregon, there's no real limits to logging and Oregon fires in the last two years has had horrible on par with California. The reason is that the kind of logging that's economical is not good fire suppression. IE, clear cutting is going leave a thicken of young trees and undergrowth in ten year that's a huge fire hazard but not economical to log. The state would have to pay for sort of logging that could effectively cut fire and that's usually not not called but logging but ground clearing. And it's done a bit but not affordable around every little town in the Sierras.

Trisell 5y ago
Oregon has a significant amount of private forest land in the southwest. I would be interested to see the amount of fires that are on private forest land vs public forest land as the private land it clear cut and then planted, grown, thinned and then clear cut again. I would guess that based on growing up in that state and it’s extreme environmental political undercurrent(Oregon has spawned a few eco-terror groups in its time) that most public land doesn’t get properly logged in Oregon.
- glangdale 5y ago
  Maybe you should look this stuff up and figure it out, as opposed to guessing that it's based on "extreme environmental political undercurrents". It's not like the location of the fires is a state secret. Effectively you're promulgating a conspiracy theory. As I've stated elsewhere, it's well understood that commercially viable logging on public land (here in Australia at least) is not particularly effective for fire suppression (due to what's left over and what's left on the ground) and it wouldn't surprise me if it's true elsewhere. Maybe it's different in Oregon but there seems to be a surfeit of people "guessing" that it's somehow all the Greenies' fault.
  - Trisell 5y ago
    A single google search[1] turned this up. As I hypothizied Oregon's forest, like most western states are majority owned by the Federal Government. Which makes them susceptible to the issues I brought up. As for eco-terrorists. This is from 2002[2] but it highlights that eco-terrorism in Oregon has been a long standing issue. [1] https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9228/html https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9228/html [2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg77615/html/CHRG-107hhrg77615.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg77615/html/C...

gibba999 5y ago

Regulated logging is. Establish regulations to allow logging if a healthy forest is left behind, and the free market will fix everything else.

simtel20 5y ago
The term free market seems oddly incompatible with what you propose. Is a regulated market with oversight and checks and balances?ls "free market"? It seems the opposite to me.
- gibba999 5y ago
  Free markets are always regulated. I can't have slaves. In California, I can't have non-competes. I'm not allowed to dump toxic waste in the water supply. I need to take care of injured employees. I can't sell toxic food. Etc. Free market capitalism is really good algorithm at approximating an optimal solution to the problem posed to it. Regulation is needed to define the problem. Regulation is really poor at coming up with solutions to problems, and free market capitalism is really poor at defining problems. I'd recommend a quick re-read of Adam Smith. Building codes are an example of a bad regulations. They require e.g. a specific spacing of wooden beams, and specific materials used. That's regulation defining a solution. When people come up with better ways to achieve the same level of safety, it's banned. In contrast, for example, a lot of codes around EMI and consumer electronics are good regulations. They require bounds on how much EMI is emitted, but leave the free market to solve the problem. That works well. Fines and mandatory insurance are another example of good regulation, whereas bans are usually bad regulation. If there is an externality, a fine places a cost on it, and a free market can optimize to it. A ban distorts a free market. Mandatory insurance too allows us to price in the cost of externalities with market mechanisms. In this case, if you allow logging where: - Underbush has to be removed to within some level - Trees ought to be left to a specific spacing ... and so on, things will work out okay. If you require loggers to have insurance, such that if a fire breaks out where they logged within some time window, insurance covers the damage, very smart finance people will figure out which things are high ROI and which are low ROI, and things will work out even better.