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How much carbon does one year of fires in California produce? For all the regulations on reducing usage, the wise politicians enabled conditions through neglect

How much carbon does one year of fires in California produce? For all the regulations on reducing usage, the wise politicians enabled conditions through neglect of forest care and trimming to allow fires so large, the plume could be seen from space and darkened skies as far north as Seattle. The point here is, what is good for the climate isn’t the purview of these simplistic views of climate science. Drilling a well doesn’t automatically kill everything Mother Nature created or anything. . . The economic shift that Tesla single handful brought about to get all of traditional auto to move to electric cannot be overstated. So stop using “The Environment” as a battering ram that only your point of view protects. It is wrong.

ahmedalsudani 5y ago
Filed under non sequitur.
- DisjointedHunt 5y ago
  There are four paragraphs in the comment. If you have the patience to read through to at least the third , you’d see the comparison. It’s amazing to see the standard of debate in a thread on HN slip so bad that people don’t have conversations anymore, but walk in with the “know it all” mentality to downvote .
  - ahmedalsudani 5y ago
    For the record I'm not against using fossil fuels for any purpose. No matter how many paragraphs you turn it into, the forest fires in California have nothing to do with fracking gas. Don't turn a discussion of a private company's behaviour into a culture war.
jeffbee 5y ago
Carbon from forest fires is part of the short-term carbon cycle because it came out of the atmosphere quite recently. It is fundamentally different from carbon found underground that was deposited before humans existed.
- DisjointedHunt 5y ago
  [Edit]: You’re a coward if you downvote to suppress an opinion without having the decency to engage in debate. Jesus. . You actually think carbon released from burning wood is exempt from the whole “making the planet unlivable” effect? Repeat that to yourself while you watch the skies turn red. That’s a ridiculous statement to make.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Forest fires are part of forests' natural life cycles and are, in general, carbon neutral. Forests fixate atmospheric carbon and release it through cellular respiration, decomposition and fires. That atmospheric carbon is then fixated again via vegetative growth. The issue is burning hydrocarbons we pump out of the ground, because doing so interrupts the equilibrium between atmospheric carbon and natural carbon sinks like forests in the carbon cycle.
    - bleh123 5y ago
      Can you cite a single reputable source that backs your claim that, specifically, the forest fires in California that released enough smoke and carbon that they reddened skies as far north as Seattle are part of the "Natural cycle" and are "Carbon Neutral"?
    - TigeriusKirk 5y ago
      Where did you come across this idea?
      - heavyset_go 5y ago
        Multiple classes and professors I've had in college, and textbooks I've read. This is basic environmental science. Here's a short slideshow about the carbon cycle from a meteorology course[1], under short-term carbon cycle you'll see wildfires, decomposition, cellular respiration etc. Here's research from NASA[2]. Here's a paper that cites numerous references to these facts[3]. Here's what the state of CA says[4]: > Fire is an important part of the carbon cycle. Fire consumes organic matter, releasing greenhouse gases including CO2, methane, carbon monoxide, and other materials. Trees and plants not immediately consumed in the fire may be killed and decompose rapidly, releasing CO2. > Although fire produces carbon emissions, it is also a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem, especially in California where plants are adapted to fire. Rather than eliminate fire, the goal is to maintain historical fire regimes and thus avoid catastrophic fires that occur when fuels build up to unnatural levels. [1] https://www.sjsu.edu/people/frank.freedman/courses/metr113/s1/Met113_Spring11_Lect3.pdf https://www.sjsu.edu/people/frank.freedman/courses/metr113/s... [2] https://icp.giss.nasa.gov/research/ppa/2001/tpenafort/ https://icp.giss.nasa.gov/research/ppa/2001/tpenafort/ [3] https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2014_loehman_r001.pdf https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2014_loehman_r001.p... [4] https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/resource-management/resource-protection-improvement/wildfire-resilience/forest-stewardship/carbon-sequestration-and-a-changing-climate/ https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/resource-management/resourc...
idiotsecant 5y ago
>the wise politicians enabled conditions through neglect of forest care and trimming It baffles me that this is so often repeated when it is quite clearly inaccurate if you just think about it for a second. First of all, you don't "trim" a forest the size of many small countries. This isn't a city park. It would take every man, woman, and child's sum efforts to 'landscape' even a fraction of the forests in the PNW. That's like saying that the reason the sea is rising is that nobody is running an ice cube maker to refreeze the ice caps. But to speak to the real origination of this point - resource extraction for the benefit of those who control the cable news narrative: You don't prevent forest fires by logging. That is an old meme from the resource extraction industry - not only does it not prevent wildfires, it also destroys biodiversity of the ecosystems where old, diverse growth is replaced with pine stands. Forest fires are required for the natural lifecycle of a forest - there are species that cannot reproduce without a forest fire. Not only small brush type plants that thrive in the absence of overgrowth but also the largest organisms in the forest- the trees themselves! Vast areas of the PNW are dominated by so-called 'serotinous cone' deciduous trees whose cones will lay dormant for years, coated in a thick plastic-like resin layer that only allows the cone to release seeds after the resin is melted away by forest fire (when the chances of successfully growing are highest) Forests require fires to be healthy. A big part of why wildfires are so bad now is that we haven't let them happen for so long because there are more and more people moving into the areas that previously experienced healthy burns. This lead practices to try to prevent fires from happening. Meanwhile, brush built up year after year after year and eventually the fires that do happen are orders of magnitude worse. Climate change and the resulting temperatures and changes in the 'moisture battery' throughout the year are also massive contributors, but that is a whole other post.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Thanks. Do you have any good sources on the topic that I can read? I would love to cut through all the politicized BS.

ahmedalsudani 5y ago

Filed under non sequitur.

DisjointedHunt 5y ago
There are four paragraphs in the comment. If you have the patience to read through to at least the third , you’d see the comparison. It’s amazing to see the standard of debate in a thread on HN slip so bad that people don’t have conversations anymore, but walk in with the “know it all” mentality to downvote .
- ahmedalsudani 5y ago
  For the record I'm not against using fossil fuels for any purpose. No matter how many paragraphs you turn it into, the forest fires in California have nothing to do with fracking gas. Don't turn a discussion of a private company's behaviour into a culture war.

jeffbee 5y ago

Carbon from forest fires is part of the short-term carbon cycle because it came out of the atmosphere quite recently. It is fundamentally different from carbon found underground that was deposited before humans existed.

DisjointedHunt 5y ago
[Edit]: You’re a coward if you downvote to suppress an opinion without having the decency to engage in debate. Jesus. . You actually think carbon released from burning wood is exempt from the whole “making the planet unlivable” effect? Repeat that to yourself while you watch the skies turn red. That’s a ridiculous statement to make.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Forest fires are part of forests' natural life cycles and are, in general, carbon neutral. Forests fixate atmospheric carbon and release it through cellular respiration, decomposition and fires. That atmospheric carbon is then fixated again via vegetative growth. The issue is burning hydrocarbons we pump out of the ground, because doing so interrupts the equilibrium between atmospheric carbon and natural carbon sinks like forests in the carbon cycle.
  - bleh123 5y ago
    Can you cite a single reputable source that backs your claim that, specifically, the forest fires in California that released enough smoke and carbon that they reddened skies as far north as Seattle are part of the "Natural cycle" and are "Carbon Neutral"?
  - TigeriusKirk 5y ago
    Where did you come across this idea?
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      Multiple classes and professors I've had in college, and textbooks I've read. This is basic environmental science. Here's a short slideshow about the carbon cycle from a meteorology course[1], under short-term carbon cycle you'll see wildfires, decomposition, cellular respiration etc. Here's research from NASA[2]. Here's a paper that cites numerous references to these facts[3]. Here's what the state of CA says[4]: > Fire is an important part of the carbon cycle. Fire consumes organic matter, releasing greenhouse gases including CO2, methane, carbon monoxide, and other materials. Trees and plants not immediately consumed in the fire may be killed and decompose rapidly, releasing CO2. > Although fire produces carbon emissions, it is also a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem, especially in California where plants are adapted to fire. Rather than eliminate fire, the goal is to maintain historical fire regimes and thus avoid catastrophic fires that occur when fuels build up to unnatural levels. [1] https://www.sjsu.edu/people/frank.freedman/courses/metr113/s1/Met113_Spring11_Lect3.pdf https://www.sjsu.edu/people/frank.freedman/courses/metr113/s... [2] https://icp.giss.nasa.gov/research/ppa/2001/tpenafort/ https://icp.giss.nasa.gov/research/ppa/2001/tpenafort/ [3] https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2014_loehman_r001.pdf https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2014_loehman_r001.p... [4] https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/resource-management/resource-protection-improvement/wildfire-resilience/forest-stewardship/carbon-sequestration-and-a-changing-climate/ https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/resource-management/resourc...

idiotsecant 5y ago

>the wise politicians enabled conditions through neglect of forest care and trimming It baffles me that this is so often repeated when it is quite clearly inaccurate if you just think about it for a second. First of all, you don't "trim" a forest the size of many small countries. This isn't a city park. It would take every man, woman, and child's sum efforts to 'landscape' even a fraction of the forests in the PNW. That's like saying that the reason the sea is rising is that nobody is running an ice cube maker to refreeze the ice caps. But to speak to the real origination of this point - resource extraction for the benefit of those who control the cable news narrative: You don't prevent forest fires by logging. That is an old meme from the resource extraction industry - not only does it not prevent wildfires, it also destroys biodiversity of the ecosystems where old, diverse growth is replaced with pine stands. Forest fires are required for the natural lifecycle of a forest - there are species that cannot reproduce without a forest fire. Not only small brush type plants that thrive in the absence of overgrowth but also the largest organisms in the forest- the trees themselves! Vast areas of the PNW are dominated by so-called 'serotinous cone' deciduous trees whose cones will lay dormant for years, coated in a thick plastic-like resin layer that only allows the cone to release seeds after the resin is melted away by forest fire (when the chances of successfully growing are highest) Forests require fires to be healthy. A big part of why wildfires are so bad now is that we haven't let them happen for so long because there are more and more people moving into the areas that previously experienced healthy burns. This lead practices to try to prevent fires from happening. Meanwhile, brush built up year after year after year and eventually the fires that do happen are orders of magnitude worse. Climate change and the resulting temperatures and changes in the 'moisture battery' throughout the year are also massive contributors, but that is a whole other post.

wolverine876 5y ago
Thanks. Do you have any good sources on the topic that I can read? I would love to cut through all the politicized BS.