Free: Contests & Raffles.
For you WolfBait-https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/geoengineering-an-interview-with-a-us-air-force-general/
Every one who losses property to wildfires, should be able to file suit against the likes of the Sierra Club and people like Mitch Friedman.
Quote from: timberfaller on August 09, 2018, 04:53:18 PMEvery one who losses property to wildfires, should be able to file suit against the likes of the Sierra Club and people like Mitch Friedman.Bring it on! Here's what's up: https://www.conservationnw.org/where-theres-smoke-theres-fire/
Thanks KFHunter. Carbon taxes: I'm open to other/better ways to address climate change if you've got 'em. But I'm beyond arguing whether it's happening or is a factor in the fires. There are countless ways to back that up, but I'll post this one that I saw just today: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/14/1802316115You're gonna hate this;Trump is helping solve the climate change problem by imposing tariffs on China (when discussing climate change we must do so on a global scale). Per GDP dollar, China is twice as dirty as the US on CO2 emissions. Trump is bringing those jobs back here to the US where we actually watch our emissions. With a robust economy and strong job market there will be more incentive to improve our carbon footprint, but stagnant wages and lack of jobs and a terrible market isn't going to help drive an ecological conscience. Also, we could vastly decrease our carbon foot print by following my ideas for fire suppression. The biggest contributor to our carbon footprint is forest fires, that's undebatable, on a bad year such as this forest fire carbon output will dwarf all other sources of emissions (barring a big volcanic eruption) and on a more normal year forest fires will easily out produce automobiles for CO2. Houses in the woods: My point isn't that they cause (or solve) mega fires, just that they drive way up the cost of fighting fires. Actually, to the extent that we fight fires around homes that we'd otherwise let burn, I guess they do add to mega fire.Not quite, do you understand how funding works for fire districts? More homes = more money, more green zones and easily defensible fire areas. Agreed that California is a bit different than here, but in WA homes means less fire, more roads to serves as fire breaks. I agree with you that I don't really want to see more homes in the woods but to accomplish that would require more wilderness which I'm against. I want to maintain the status quo for wilderness and national forests. If a massive logging company decided to sell off all it's holdings I wouldn't oppose the government buying it up if it borders or is within national forest and including it into national forest. I don't want more wilderness, it's a useless and purely emotional construct. 1) opening existing roads for fast reaction fire suppression would do more to solve mega fires than paying more taxes Yep, disagree. 85% of fires in WA are ignited by people, mostly along roads. So roads have a real fire downside. They also of course have other downsides (maintenance costs, impacts to streams and wildlife).Aren't stats fun! If you dig into those stats further you'll find that mega fires aren't typically man caused until you get into California, take arson and drug growers off the top and you'll find even fewer man caused fires..take off railroads, power lines and plane crashes and that whittles it down further. Now take off roads that'll never be closed anyways and that 85% goes way way down. Point is, how many of those 85% of man caused fires happen on forest service roads that could be closed or are closed, not a lot. That 85% is just a number and isn't relevant to keeping a road open or closing it. 2) increased grazing leases to keep grasses shorter, helps reduce understory fuel. Agreed as part of defensible space around homes, but not in general. Hell, we've had huge fires (Carlton, Conconully, Tunk, Grass Valley, etc) in heavily grazed grass/shrubland. "when it's this hot and dry it's just going to burn" is relevant here, bad years with bad fires doesn't prove if grazing is helpful or not, there's plenty of studies to back up that grazing can be benificial and you even said so yourself when you said: "Agreed as part of defensible space around homes" but then you go and show your true intentions and desire in the second half of that sentence when you declare that grazing is not good in general. You wish for no cattle on public land is the only conclusion I can draw from your switch there. 3) huge reduction of predators so browsers (deer, elk, moose) will also help reduce brush Nope. Biggest mortality sources on ungulates are winters, disease, cars, etc. Biggest other variable in their densities is competition with livestock for forage, contradicting your #2.There's no contradiction, winter kill is going to happen with or without predators. It just so happens that it's far more frequent and prevalent with predators on the scene depriving ungulates of precious energy reserves fleeing for their lives in deep snow. Chase a herd of elk or deer and it might take them a week to die when predators are no longer around, is that winter kill or indirect predator kill? Bio's will tell you it's winter kill "due to lack of quality browse and climate change blah blah" when in fact it's just a bad year with bad snow and low energy reserves and too many predators chasing/nagging/bumping them off beds and feeding. 4) increased logging with some strip logging, thinning and other logging practices to create a patchwork, bring back slash-n-burn. Disagree. You're gonna hate this, but there's a lot of good science now showing that managed (logged) timberland burns hotter than unmanaged. Think fires like North Star, Carpenter Road, the big one by Cle Elum last year, all in heavily roaded and logged areas. Hell, think about the massive fires across BC this summer and last. BC's been logging at insane rates the last 20 years, especially in areas like around Williams Lake that was ground zero for fire last year. The type of logging that can improve conditions in terms of fire is really well thought out thinning, and it's essential to follow with fire. See https://www.conservationnw.org/private-timber-plantations-burn-more-severely-than-adjacent-public-forests/ and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-015-0218-0You didn't mention the massive amounts of beetle kill in BC, this is what's feeding the BC fires. Have you taken the time to observe it? I have, it's mind boggling the amount of dead standing trees, talk about hot huge fires! We agree on thinning and a few other things, but I feel that you're being disingenuous by leaving out so many pertinent details or misleading people with irrelevant studies or %'s
WolfBait, How much do you think HAARP plays into the scenarios? How about HAARP and this Smoke Situation?
Great point with the bug kill trees KF, I haven’t heard anyone remind us of that fact yet. I think it was Colorado a few years back was having some horrific wildfires due to the amount of bug killed forests.
