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The reason you don’t oversell your case is because that isn’t persuasive. In this case, it’s not “a few fires a century ago” it’s consistently suppressing fire

by SllX 4y ago

The reason you don’t oversell your case is because that isn’t persuasive. In this case, it’s not “a few fires a century ago” it’s consistently suppressing fires over the course of a century. California has an environment that wants to burn, and we just live in it. If we suppress the fires that can be suppressed, we leave around more material that otherwise would have burnt away, leaving mass around that is prone to burn anyway but will now continue to accumulate in the same space for a while longer until fires we can’t suppress burns it all away. Those fires are massive, and threaten entire towns and are much more difficult to control. So yeah, our forestry policy has left a lot to be desired.

bombcar 4y ago
People also don't understand that it is not additive! If brush burns off as it is "supposed" to do, the large trees can survive the fire, because the fire is relatively "contained". But once there's enough brush built up, the fire is NOT as limited, and now it will burn all the accumulated brush AND the large trees, leaving nothing behind. That's a lot more burning.
Wyoming23 4y ago
Again, everything you said is technically true... And functionality irrelevant. California's over-suppression of fires is a bad thing that made the problem worse. But that's still only a tiny fraction of the problem compared to the 800lb gorilla in the room, which is climate change. We're focusing on the 1% and ignoring the 99% here, in terms of casual factors.
- SllX 4y ago
  If California had a different climate with different native species, you would have a point. By over-emphasizing climate change as the causal factor, you’re completely disregarding the conditions that existed prior. Wildfires were going to happen even without climate change. Probably the same wildfires, with the same amount of brush. It’s not that climate change isn’t a problem, it’s that you’re not persuading anyone that it is by over-selling it, nor would fixing climate change actually fix the issues caused by poor forest management in California. It also takes away from the fact that our forest policy is poor and as an issue also needs to be resolved independent of any actions we take to resolve climate change.

by SllX 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

People also don't understand that it is not additive! If brush burns off as it is "supposed" to do, the large trees can survive the fire, because the fire is relatively "contained". But once there's enough brush built up, the fire is NOT as limited, and now it will burn all the accumulated brush AND the large trees, leaving nothing behind. That's a lot more burning.

Wyoming23 4y ago

Again, everything you said is technically true... And functionality irrelevant. California's over-suppression of fires is a bad thing that made the problem worse. But that's still only a tiny fraction of the problem compared to the 800lb gorilla in the room, which is climate change. We're focusing on the 1% and ignoring the 99% here, in terms of casual factors.

SllX 4y ago
If California had a different climate with different native species, you would have a point. By over-emphasizing climate change as the causal factor, you’re completely disregarding the conditions that existed prior. Wildfires were going to happen even without climate change. Probably the same wildfires, with the same amount of brush. It’s not that climate change isn’t a problem, it’s that you’re not persuading anyone that it is by over-selling it, nor would fixing climate change actually fix the issues caused by poor forest management in California. It also takes away from the fact that our forest policy is poor and as an issue also needs to be resolved independent of any actions we take to resolve climate change.