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California’s greenhouse gas reductions could be wiped out by 2020 wildfires
- user_7832 4y agoI think the title should be edited to clarify that it wiped out 20Y of California's emissions. (The current title is "2020 California wildfires wiped out 20Y of greenhouse gas emission reductions")
- giuliomagnifico 4y agoOk, I edited it. By the way is the original title from USA Today: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/18/california-wildfires-2020-greenhouse-gas-emissions/10524398002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/18/califor...
- redleggedfrog 4y agoAlso could be thought of that the emissions aren't somewhere around double, thanks to CA's efforts.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoDon't get confused by this. The takeaway isn't "See how useless our efforts are; greenhouse gas is a load of bunk!" The takeaway is "We're doing a shit job of reducing greenhouse gasses."
- themark 4y agoand a shit job of managing wildfires.
- NDizzle 4y agoI mean, we're fighting wildfires about as good as anyone could. What CA doesn't do well is manage forests.
- hindsightbias 4y agoThe vast majority of burns are on federal land. CA does not manage national forests.
- NDizzle 4y agoLast I knew (as I lived right by areas that were constantly burning) Cal Fire had the contacts to maintain the majority of the federal land in northern California.
- nomel 4y agoThe only real tool for managing wildfires is controlled burns. The problem is, California isn't burning often enough [1]. The question is, if these areas were managed properly, with controlled burns, what would the greenhouse gas emissions be? I imagine proper management wasn't included in the emissions goals. Related, we have some endangered pyrophytic [2] plants near where I live. I imagine they'll be extinct, within my lifetime. 1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-signs-fire-law-paving-way-for-more-prescribed-burns https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-s... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte edit: perhaps you had this in mind with "managing wildfires".
- eastbound 4y ago> what would the greenhouse gas emissions be? Zero or minus, because you’re still burning a carbon capture tool. It’s not a joke, it’s important. In Australia they forbade controlled burnings for 10 years. Result: A 10-year burn. CO2 emissions: Still 0 over 10 years, but lots of homesteads burnt.
- melling 4y agoI hear all kinds of narratives on this. According to this EPA article, US emissions are down 20% since 2005. https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... Of course, global emissions are way up but we were warned 40 years ago about global coal use. https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI
- bombcar 4y agoThe US has continued to export emissions to other countries, as we export more and more manufacturing.
- melling 4y agoYes, everyone knows this. China built the second largest economy, the second largest military, and 3x as much greenhouse gas on the back of US consumer spending. But hey, people on HN don’t like it when you point out stuff like this. I think people are hoping for plausible deniability. With half a century of warning, how did we end up in this climate mess? “ hey, let’s blame the oil companies“
- ch4s3 4y agoOnly 16% of US imports come from China. The majority of US imports are from nations with falling emissions. Obviously that isn't perfectly illustrative of exact shares of CO2 represented by those imports, but it's a useful proxy.
- melling 4y agoChina is responsible for 27% of total global emissions. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/06/chinas-greenhouse-gas-emissions-exceed-us-developed-world-report.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/06/chinas-greenhouse-gas-em... Some of it can be tied directly to US trade, and some of it can be tied to taking the all those profits and building internally. We exported all that manufacturing which used a lot of dirty coal The US is 11% of the total.
- onepointsixC 4y agoI don't think that's the take away as much as "were doing a shit job at forestry and that's just as important as green initiatives".
- eastbound 4y agoAnd maintaining the electrical network. Anyone knows why the electricity companies didn’t do a good job to avoid sparks and contact with trees?
- mistrial9 4y agoone document you could read is: Pacific Northwest Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment: Methods and Results; PyroLogix/ USFS 27Aug2018
- akira2501 4y agoAnd in the same period of time being considered, California's population got 18% larger. Perhaps the takeaway should be "be wary of non-per-capita figures when trying to measure the totality of a problem."
- lupire 4y agoWhat do you mean? Pollution effect is per habitat, not per capita. Population growth is a baseline goal for emissions. If we can't cut pollution generation faster than population growth, we are losing.
- akira2501 4y ago> What do you mean? Pollution effect is per habitat, not per capita. What I mean is that you can still see higher total pollution even if you reduce per capita rates while experiencing population growth. Focusing solely on outputs while ignoring input considerations is bad engineering. > Population growth is a baseline goal for emissions. If we can't cut pollution generation faster than population growth, we are losing. Does the article suggest that's happening? Or is it just looking at a year in isolation of all other facts?
- lupire 4y agoYour logic implies that the efforts we made so far are useless, and we should be doing something else.
- draw_down 4y ago
- imranq 4y agoThe title seems to imply that if we had not done any greenhouse gas reduction over the past 20Y, then there would be no California wildfires Put another way, its the wildfires that we should prevent and improve how we reduce greenhouse gases
- smallnix 4y agoSensationalized title
- willio58 4y agoAgreed. Sensationalization about important things like this are not only falsy, it tends to make people feel helpless about climate change. This sense of helplessness only serves those that gain by continuing to destroy our planet.
- wwweston 4y agoResponses to 2020 (or subsequent) Wildfires in California & the US West by HOGWARTS HOUSE: GRYFFINDOR: Hop on Nimbus 2000, cast "Aguamenti" a heroic and potentially effective number of times until suffering the effects of smoke inhalation, get rescued by friends. HUFFLEPUFF: Check on friends and neighbors close to fire. Volunteer for group castings of "Accio Pluvia" and "Venit Inber" to bring rain, possibly "Defodio" firebreaks. Teach each other bubble charms for easier/safer breathing (also handy for airborne illness outbreaks). RAVENCLAW: Read all 120 pages of thorough California governance report on Forest Management[0]. Try to organize herbology faculty, students, and community members into task force on controlled burns and forest restoration, begin research into long-term climate magic. SLYTHERIN: Invest in private goblin enterprises specializing in lucrative airdrops of large amounts of fire-retardant potion. Circulate prospectus for wood-clearing companies. Talk angrily to anyone who will listen about how terrible political opponents are at fire management and how it just goes to show they should never be in charge. [0] https://lhc.ca.gov/report/fire-mountain-rethinking-forest-management-sierra-nevada https://lhc.ca.gov/report/fire-mountain-rethinking-forest-ma... (Please read the report!) EDIT: can someone explain the downvotes here? Fire response/management and the politics surrounding it are going to be very relevant to the topic and an inevitable part of the discussion, and while I may have made some pop-culture whimsy a part of my comment, it's done hand-in-hand with serious observations about how politics play out, not to mention a link that contains a trove of essential solid information about policy considerations.
- erehweb 4y agoThe pop-culture whimsy is the major part of your comment. You may have some interesting ideas on how the politics would play out, but the reader has to decode them from the HP framing. Maybe try just giving the political analysis straight and giving a quick summary of the LHC report.
- nomel 4y ago> while I may have made some pop-culture whimsy a part of my comment I believe this is the entire reason. I almost didn't read your comment, thinking it was a distracting troll, but found it informative and distracting. ;)
- 4y ago
- mabbo 4y agoCurious: will the regrowth of the burned forests have an opposite effect? It will take a while, but it should be capable of growing just as large, right?
- ocbyc 4y agoThat's why the externalities of CO2 management are too great for us to make a meaningful impact with legislation. We share an atmosphere with China, India, and everyone else. Game theory abounds.
- lupire 4y agoNot automatically. The fires might destroy the ecosystem. Forests don't grow back in a dessert, for example.
- DisjointedHunt 4y agoI wish more people start holding politicians accountable for their promises. All these sacrifices that residents of California have had to make under the premise of a better environmental future, banning straws, forcing a specific complex fuel mix forcing refineries in state to go out of business and thus people at the pump paying a lot more for this imported complex blend etc . . . all of these are decisions that have consequences. The premise thus far has never been challenged that the "Good" outweighs the "bad" in these decisions by the legislature in California.
- ocbyc 4y agoMismanagement of forests.
- lupire 4y agoDid the wildfires burn more than a "natural" amount in total, or just did a bunch of years of burn all at once?
- mistrial9 4y agothe title is not the information here -- a read over the papers show that one year of wildfires in California emitted more greenhouse gases than were saved by concerted means, over about 17 years. The paper is meant to get attention. Unfortunately, the wildfires situation is quite a bit worse, since 2017, 2019 and 2020 were all record years for wildfire in California, not just 2020. People who measure such things knew this quite some time ago, and the Elsevier-version of this had an egregious typo in the plain language summary section, suggesting a hasty edit job somewhere. Also notable is that yesterday was the California State Summit on Extreme Heat Events, led by presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom. Here at YNews, maybe the angle ought to be the quantitative aspects of the measurement. I suggest that California is not the worst of it, worldwide, and that the science and data handling in California can serve as a lab of sorts, for less-able places around the globe facing new wildfires going into the future.
- nomel 4y ago> facing new wildfires going into the future. I think this is a misunderstanding of California. Wildfires are an ecological necessity here (and I doubt we're unique). In the last 25 years or so, the national forestry service has been failing [1], regarding controlled burns. The laws were changed, just recently, to make them easier to perform, to get the partially man made/unnatural conditions back under control [2]. There may be some climate change involved, but the primary reason is incompetence/mismanagement. 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/decades-mismanagement-led-choked-forests-now-it-s-time-clear-n1243599 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/decades-mismanagement-l... 2. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-signs-fire-law-paving-way-for-more-prescribed-burns https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-s...
- mistrial9 4y agothank you- yes I am quite aware of that, maybe I could have added more to clarify that part
- lupire 4y ago"California's emissions" is a vanity metric of in-state emissions, not emissions elsewhere performed in service of Californians' consumption, right?
- TSiege 4y agoI worry that this is the beginning of something more troubling in terms of the climate crisis. We've been lucky so far that most of the carbon budget has been spent by human activities, lucky that is because we can change that However, this is the start of a worrying global trend. We're currently seeing the West Coast ecosystems shift into something new, maybe grasslands maybe deserts. The Amazon Rainforest is next. Currently it's started emitting more CO2 than it takes in. We've been warned by scientists that if no land use policies change we can expect it flip from being a rain forest to a savannah. What that means in concrete terms are megafires and mass species die off for most of the amazon. What's next? Cold and rainy England is expected to have the climate of Spain by 2050. Nothing native in England can adapt to that. So much of the world is going through rapid climate shifts that are devastating ecosystems. We're on the verge of flipping to a hot house earth and we're doing less than the bare minimum to stop it
- akiselev 4y ago> What's next? Cold and rainy England is expected to have the climate of Spain by 2050. Nothing native in England can adapt to that. So much of the world is going through rapid climate shifts that are devastating ecosystems. We're on the verge of flipping to a hot house earth and we're doing less than the bare minimum to stop it Alternatively, the Gulf Stream could collapse leading to a massive drop in temperatures over Europe, which would collapse their agriculture faster than the current warming trends.
- TSiege 4y agoYes that's possible, but it's unclear to me how long that trend would last. The artic will be ice free in a decade or so. I've never been able to square that with the cold descending over Europe. Quite frankly, I don't hold much confidence in that theory given the heat we've seen over Canada and Siberia
- antisthenes 4y ago> However, this is the start of a worrying global trend. We're currently seeing the West Coast ecosystems shift into something new, maybe grasslands maybe deserts. The Amazon Rainforest is next. The scary part is that it's not "either or" or "this first, this next". It's going to be happening at the same time. Greenland glacier melts, Siberian wildfires and methane ejections, North American West desertification, Indian peninsula becoming too hot in parts, etc. etc. etc. Sure, some parts might become more habitable, but overall, there will be far less hospitable areas to live.
- xenadu02 4y agoWestern forests burn and regrow regularly... so much so that some species of plants rely on or optimize for the fire cycle. Things like having seeds that only open after a fire, fire-resistant bark, and so on. Unless we pave over the locations the carbon released by the fires will be re-captured when those areas re-grow. It is nothing like digging up buried carbon and spewing it into the air.
- downrightmike 4y agoIt took 400 million years for fungus to figure out how to digest wood. Those plants are what we are burning at probably 100's of thousands of years per year at this point.
- hedora 4y agoThe article addresses this: > Over the long to very long term, regrowth of vegetation in burned areas could alleviate some of the emissions, but will not occur quickly enough to avert highly dangerous levels of increased pollutions, temperatures, and climate change, the researchers said. Note the use of the word "could". There is much less water in these areas than there was before (due to climate change). It is extremely unlikely these forests will regrow any time soon.
- reducesuffering 4y agoI frequently see people get the temporary vs. permanent emissions conflated. Like the argument that burning fallen wood for heat, that is going to disintegrate anyway, is more environmentally unfriendly than burning natural gas.
- wizofaus 4y agoWho's ever made that argument? It's probably worse for your health (depending on what sort of fireplace you use), and sure, fallen wood can act as a home for various species, but I'd think only a fossil fuel company's PR department could come up with an argument that burning fallen wood is worse for the environment.
- matt3210 4y agothe fires would have happened irrelevant of CA doing emissions control so the fires didn't undo anything.
- purpleblue 4y agoThe fires happened because of the disastrous mismanagement of California's "Wildfire Prevention" efforts. By cutting back significantly on prescribed burns for decades because of perceived emissions, all the growth in the forests has created the perfect conditions for extended and humongous wildfires that we have seen in the past several years.
- kotlin2 4y agoNot related to emissions policy, however.
- rnk 4y agoMost of the fires were on national forest land, therefore not managed by California. The US govt's forestry management has been mismanaged of course. Blame the right people. US govt federal management is the issue.
- landemva 4y agoWould be a good discussion if the Feds should sell say 1/2 of the federal owned western lands so States can manage it.
- mistrial9 4y ago... add the tree deaths in the Western Sierra .. Study : The fire frequency-severity relationship and the legacy of fire suppression in California forests. Steel, Z. L., H. D. Safford, and J. H. Viers. 2015. Ecosphere 6(1):8. dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES14-00224.1 Nature Scientific Reports published a study called "Spatial and temporal pattern of wildfires in California from 2000 to 2019" with code and data IIR doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88131-9
- solardev 4y ago
- jmathai 4y agoThe title's use of "undid" takes away from the point which is that one year of wildfires created A LOT of emissions. Earning $300 and having to buy food for $300 is a lot better than having to buy the food without earning any money.
- mordymoop 4y agoMy stupid question is, shouldn’t plants grow back relatively quickly (within a few years) and lock up the same quantity of carbon?
- hcurtiss 4y agoYou're right that the trees will eventually grow back and replace that carbon (presuming they do not burn again), but it takes many decades. Am I misunderstanding your question?
- dexwiz 4y agoDepends on the tree. Younger trees capture carbon faster.
- hcurtiss 4y agoYes, this is true. For instance, the periodic annual increment in a western Oregon douglas fir forest peaks around forty years, and if each year you average the annual growth of all preceding years, the mean annual increment peaks somewhere between 60 and 80 years depending on site class. I only mean to suggest that regrowing a 40 year old stand takes 40 years.
- CameronNemo 4y agoTrees won't necessarily grow back. In a lot of cases native forest species are pushed out by non-native grasses. And some of the non-native grasses like to catch fire.
- hcurtiss 4y agoFire is a natural part of the landscape. We are seeing today the consequence of 100 years of aggressive suppression combined with forty years of failed management. There are those arguing today that we should accommodate fire, harden our homes, and live with the consequences, including terrible air quality. But there's another way. We can actively manage our forests. Mechanical thinning combined with fire in the shoulder seasons can return our overstocked forests to healthy condition. While we could let nature run its course, it will take decades of catastrophic wildfire to get there, with the attendant loss of life and livability. We should support active management of our federal forests to produce better outcomes more quickly.
- trhr 4y agoActively managed forests sound good, but be rational. Are you willing to risk several hundred years of the region's health on the government doing something right? We know that natural fire works. It ain't pretty, and it can be dangerous, but at least it's more likely to resolve the problem than "40 years of failed management" is to not turn into another "40 years of failed management."
- hcurtiss 4y agoI live near the towns of Detroit and Gates in Oregon, both burned to the ground in the 2020 labor day fires. Many people died. Hundreds of homes destroyed. I think it's worth trying better management.
- teslabox 4y agoNatural fire is incompatible with houses built with sticks. Either you figure out how to build fireproof houses, or you manage the forests in the Wildland-urban interface [0]. [0] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/wui/ https://www.usfa.fema.gov/wui/ > Actively managed forests sound good, but be rational. It can work. The U.S. Forest Service does a pretty good job of managing the forests around my part of Northern Arizona. 20 years ago a fire got out of control and we lost a few homes, but they've been diligently mowing the underbrush ever since. ~5 years ago a fire started. I went to their briefing. They were honest: "this is a worst-case-scenario location for a fire", because it was burning in an area that hadn't been burned or treated in 40+ years. They contract for companies with brush mowers to shred the underbrush, and keep track of when each section of the forest gets mowed. No fires this summer, on account of a crazy amount of rain. It'll be 10 years before this summer's growth dies out and becomes a fire hazard.
- egberts1 4y agoMeanwhile, onerous California forestry regulation is reducing the management of wildfire through the virtue of not culling (thinning) the forest often enough, either in form of firelines or lumberjacking. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-88131-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-88131-9
- socialismisok 4y agoIt most certainly did not undo it. If that policy were not there, California would have far far more emissions.
- WirelessGigabit 4y agoThe gardeners with their leaf blowers and 20 year old unmaintained pickup trucks are not helping either. Every one I pass by has a bunch of empty oil jugs in the bed. I’m sure all of that isn’t helping…
- namecheapTA 4y agoA 20 year old pickup is fuel injected, has a catalytic converter, and is checked by it's OBD2 controls constantly. Unless the pickup is failing its smog tests, and driving around with expired registration, it's operating pretty well I promise. Regarding oil consumption, that might be possible, but would eventually clog up the catalytic converters with an oily residue and also cause OBD2 faults for bad catalytic converter efficiency. Maybe they're leaking it on the ground I suppose. Or it's two stroke oil for the leaf blower.
- robomartin 4y agoI have written about this and other climate change realities often on HN. It is always met with what I usually refer to as violent rejection. Of course, I understand why this is so. With so many players in this game seeking to benefit from selling a narrative (be it political or financial) it is nearly impossible to counter the carpet-bombing of distorted information that hits the masses on this topic day after day. It's the old adage about about what happens if you repeat something enough times. The actual headline from the linked page is, one could say, somewhat deceiving. You have to at least read the first paragraph, quoted below, to understand the gravity of what is being reported: "A new analysis led by researchers with the University of California has found the 2020 wildfires in the state, the most disastrous wildfire year on record, put twice as much greenhouse gas emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere as the total reduction in such pollutants in California between 2003-2019." A few sentences later, further driving the point home: "Wildfire emissions in 2020 essentially negate 18 years of reductions in greenhouse gas emission." Even simpler: 1 year of forest fires >= 18 years of GHG emission reductions And that, to a greater or lesser degree, happens here in CA every year. For some who don't live here I think what's missing is to actually experience the awesome scale of these events. Some simply can't understand something until they can feel it. I lost count of how many such fires I have experienced. Nothing like having your neighborhood encircled by a fire to see and feel the scale of the event. I will categorically state that there is no way we can win this battle through any form of emission reduction. That includes a full transition to electric ground transportation. This isn't to say we should not try to clean-up our acts and strive for EV's. Not at all. My point has always been the same: These things (EV's, reducing emissions, etc.) are good because, well, they are. Marketing them as effective ways to counter atmospheric CO2 concentration is nothing less than a cruel fantasy. The problem is that the masses buy into this (most people are not equipped to evaluate such things analytically), which leads to companies and politicians pushing false narratives benefiting while, at the end of the day, we don't even make a dent. One year of fires negated 18 years of reductions. Anyone with one gram of common sense would easily conclude that the forced reductions and the narrative being pushed isn't a solution at all. We are wasting time and money that could be applied towards real solutions. Solar is another example of this. It's great. I invested in solar. However, it isn't at all a solution for atmospheric CO2 reduction. Even if we install the most optimal forms of renewable energy throughout the land and replace all fossil fuel energy production we will not stop the rise in atmospheric CO2. It will continue to rise as it has. What we need is honest conversation based on facts and science, not politics and the financial interests of those making an absolute killing with narratives that are, to put it bluntly, nothing but lies. NOTE: Reading through the comments I see such things as "bad forest management". I understand where this comes from and, yes, some of that is true. However, it betrays a lack of understanding due to not living here. The largest and most damaging fires we have every year are not forest fires. They are brush fires. Yes, large numbers of trees are burned, however, entire mountains covered in vegetation colloquially referred to as "brush" burn every year. Tens of thousands of acres at a time. This stuff is impossible to manage. You just can't. The best you can do is control the burn to protect homes. That's it. That's what they do. They pretty much let it burn. You don't have enough fire-fighting aircraft and resources anywhere to actually stop these monsters unless you happen to be able to catch one within a very short window of opportunity after they start. The combination of large brush fires and wind (and their self-generated air currents due to convection) makes for fast-moving ferocious fires that do as they please. In other words, the forest management narrative is only valid to a point. Ironically enough, cutting down trees and brush is likely the only way to prevent and control these massive CO2 generating fires. Ironic because we need trees to capture CO2. Not an easy problem. And it is much harder to find solutions when we accept lies and misinformation for the sake of politics and profit.