5 ms·

bad forest management is a much more proximate cause than climate change, absolutely - not sure why it has become verboten to say. climate change makes a diffe

bad forest management is a much more proximate cause than climate change, absolutely - not sure why it has become verboten to say. climate change makes a difference at the margin but the sheer number of recent events has a lot more to do with how we manage our forests/urban upscaling.

freddie_mercury 2y ago
It's not verboten in a single place. I've seen it mentioned literally hundreds of times the last few days.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  sure it's not verboten in the RW media landscape, but in blue circles you're basically called a trumpista for saying that forest & underbrush management is a larger proximate cause [0][1][2] [0]: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fast-moving-wildfires-rage-los-angeles-right-wing-media-misleadingly-blame-forest https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fast-moving-wildfires-... [1]: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/12/2296400/-Critics-blast-DEI-Dems-bad-forestry-eco-activists-for-L-A-fires-but-never-mention-climate-crisis https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/12/2296400/-Critics-... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/09/los-angeles-fires-politics/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/09/los-angel...
  - strken 2y ago
    I find both takes misleading. "Windy" doesn't begin to describe winds over 100km/h on a dry and warm(ish) day in an drought. You could probably bulldoze a two hundred metre barrier in front of a bushfire on a day like that and it would still spread from uncontrollable spot fires ahead of the front. I'm not sure any forestry practices could do much against it. Are strong winds directly caused by climate change? Sure, extreme weather events are more common, but it's impossible to say whether any given event would have happened anyway. Reversing climate change might make really bad days less frequent, but it's no more capable of eradicating them than good forestry.
  - freddie_mercury 2y ago
    "right-wing media misleadingly blame forest mismanagement" and "Critics blast DEI, Dems, bad forestry, eco-activists for L.A. fires but never mention climate crisis" is "basically called a trumpista"? Okay, whatever.
zzgo 2y ago
> not sure why it has become verboten to say It's not. In California, we've been discussing forest management for at least 25 years since a series of wildfires broke out. There have been plenty of discussions about how we should be managing forests, trying to build consensus around best practices, and building the political will to implement them. It's been a maddeningly slow process. If anyone is coming into the conversation out here saying, "California has bad forest management, they need to rake the forest floors" or whatever, it shows that they're entering the conversation with at best a 1990s mindset of what modern forest management is like. Yeah, we know, that alarm has been clanging for 25+ years. Come at us with solutions, not problems, we know the problems.
cassepipe 2y ago
Bad forest management or ... bad electrical equipment ? This excerpt of the last week tonight show 90 year old electric line equipment responsible for fires : https://youtu.be/qBpiXcyB7wU?feature=shared&t=515 https://youtu.be/qBpiXcyB7wU?feature=shared&t=515 I don't pretend to know anything and I don't know how common this is but it is pretty concerning and I wonder if anything has been done about that.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  pg&e at least is investing very heavily in undergrounding i believe but it is still slow going and expensive like many megaprojects in cali
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    once again, completely backwards understanding.. PG&E has been avoiding many upgrades to their millions of miles in cables, for decades, and has repeatedly outsourced the maintenance that they were required to do.. they falsified records to avoid doing maintenance, the pipes blew up, and PG&E became the first public utility to be convicted of murder AFAIK The utility repeatedly plants stories about how much they are doing, and how expensive upgrades are, in the public media as a reflexive PR device and that is what is being repeated, apparently
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      i'm not sure why you're mixing and matching stuff about electrical cables causing fires and the San Bruno explosion. upgrades are expensive, PG&E is barely profitable, and it operates in a very challenging regulatory environment. California liability law + juries impose extremely outsized liability judgements compared to the rest of the country... other utilities have caused actions that lead to death but it generally does not mean billions of dollars in liability judgement. Compare the West fertilizer explosion in Texas, the liability it generated, with PG&E liability judgements. I understand that it is always attractive to have a simple explanatory story with a clear villain. I encourage you to resist that appeal.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
It’s verboten because it undercuts the (hasty and unrigorous) attribution to climate change or fossil fuels or whatever. I’m not ignoring those causes but I think they are incorrectly attributed aa an sole cause and there is so much that could be done to prevent these fires regardless. It seems like we are reluctant to blame governments and politicians that are not performing their most basic duties. Forest service people have tried educating the public about how new forests have a different set of issues - high density, uncleared dead wood, pests spreading easily, and all that. But no one amplifies those points because it is politically inconvenient. It’s also incredible how little money is spent on access roads, fire breaks, properly located reservoirs, firefighting aircraft, power line management, and so forth given how large state and federal budgets are.
nradov 2y ago
Most of the recent fires have been in chaparral, not forests.

freddie_mercury 2y ago

It's not verboten in a single place. I've seen it mentioned literally hundreds of times the last few days.

whimsicalism 2y ago
sure it's not verboten in the RW media landscape, but in blue circles you're basically called a trumpista for saying that forest & underbrush management is a larger proximate cause [0][1][2] [0]: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fast-moving-wildfires-rage-los-angeles-right-wing-media-misleadingly-blame-forest https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fast-moving-wildfires-... [1]: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/12/2296400/-Critics-blast-DEI-Dems-bad-forestry-eco-activists-for-L-A-fires-but-never-mention-climate-crisis https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/12/2296400/-Critics-... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/09/los-angeles-fires-politics/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/09/los-angel...
- strken 2y ago
  I find both takes misleading. "Windy" doesn't begin to describe winds over 100km/h on a dry and warm(ish) day in an drought. You could probably bulldoze a two hundred metre barrier in front of a bushfire on a day like that and it would still spread from uncontrollable spot fires ahead of the front. I'm not sure any forestry practices could do much against it. Are strong winds directly caused by climate change? Sure, extreme weather events are more common, but it's impossible to say whether any given event would have happened anyway. Reversing climate change might make really bad days less frequent, but it's no more capable of eradicating them than good forestry.
- freddie_mercury 2y ago
  "right-wing media misleadingly blame forest mismanagement" and "Critics blast DEI, Dems, bad forestry, eco-activists for L.A. fires but never mention climate crisis" is "basically called a trumpista"? Okay, whatever.

zzgo 2y ago

> not sure why it has become verboten to say It's not. In California, we've been discussing forest management for at least 25 years since a series of wildfires broke out. There have been plenty of discussions about how we should be managing forests, trying to build consensus around best practices, and building the political will to implement them. It's been a maddeningly slow process. If anyone is coming into the conversation out here saying, "California has bad forest management, they need to rake the forest floors" or whatever, it shows that they're entering the conversation with at best a 1990s mindset of what modern forest management is like. Yeah, we know, that alarm has been clanging for 25+ years. Come at us with solutions, not problems, we know the problems.

cassepipe 2y ago

Bad forest management or ... bad electrical equipment ? This excerpt of the last week tonight show 90 year old electric line equipment responsible for fires : https://youtu.be/qBpiXcyB7wU?feature=shared&t=515 https://youtu.be/qBpiXcyB7wU?feature=shared&t=515 I don't pretend to know anything and I don't know how common this is but it is pretty concerning and I wonder if anything has been done about that.

whimsicalism 2y ago
pg&e at least is investing very heavily in undergrounding i believe but it is still slow going and expensive like many megaprojects in cali
- mistrial9 2y ago
  once again, completely backwards understanding.. PG&E has been avoiding many upgrades to their millions of miles in cables, for decades, and has repeatedly outsourced the maintenance that they were required to do.. they falsified records to avoid doing maintenance, the pipes blew up, and PG&E became the first public utility to be convicted of murder AFAIK The utility repeatedly plants stories about how much they are doing, and how expensive upgrades are, in the public media as a reflexive PR device and that is what is being repeated, apparently
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    i'm not sure why you're mixing and matching stuff about electrical cables causing fires and the San Bruno explosion. upgrades are expensive, PG&E is barely profitable, and it operates in a very challenging regulatory environment. California liability law + juries impose extremely outsized liability judgements compared to the rest of the country... other utilities have caused actions that lead to death but it generally does not mean billions of dollars in liability judgement. Compare the West fertilizer explosion in Texas, the liability it generated, with PG&E liability judgements. I understand that it is always attractive to have a simple explanatory story with a clear villain. I encourage you to resist that appeal.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

It’s verboten because it undercuts the (hasty and unrigorous) attribution to climate change or fossil fuels or whatever. I’m not ignoring those causes but I think they are incorrectly attributed aa an sole cause and there is so much that could be done to prevent these fires regardless. It seems like we are reluctant to blame governments and politicians that are not performing their most basic duties. Forest service people have tried educating the public about how new forests have a different set of issues - high density, uncleared dead wood, pests spreading easily, and all that. But no one amplifies those points because it is politically inconvenient. It’s also incredible how little money is spent on access roads, fire breaks, properly located reservoirs, firefighting aircraft, power line management, and so forth given how large state and federal budgets are.

nradov 2y ago

Most of the recent fires have been in chaparral, not forests.