You can see the idea they're using: "Climate took center stage in the election as President Trump denied global warming had any role and Joe Biden said this denial had fed the destruction." The NYT is saying that the failure to concede that global warming had some role in the fires is a rejection of science. And I guess we're expected to see Joe Biden as a science devotee for saying the fires are as bad as they are because of the denial of global warming, though "climate arsonist" isn't scientific terminology.
Clicking through to the article, I see the headline is "As Trump Again Rejects Science, Biden Calls Him a ‘Climate Arsonist’/The president visited California after weeks of silence on its wildfires and blamed the crisis only on poor forest management, not climate change. 'I don’t think science knows' what is happening, he said."
If he said "I don’t think science knows," is it fair to say he "scorns science"? I'd say it sounds as though he's interested in the process of science. Yes, he's stressing forest management, but is the NYT denying that forest management has had any role in the destructiveness of the fires? If I talked like the NYT, I'd say the NYT is scorning science for denying the role of forest management. See how that works?
Now, I can see the caginess of saying Trump "blamed the crisis only on poor forest management." Does that mean Trump has said that the fires have only one cause, poor forest management? No, though a quick reader might think it means that, it really only means that the only cause — among all the causative factors — that Trump is talking about is poor forest management. But if he said "I don’t think science knows" the role of climate change, then he is talking about potential other factors.
Ugh. It's so annoying to sift through this. The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion. But it is my chosen task to pull the propaganda apart, so I will continue. From the text of the article:
A day of dueling appearances laid out the stark differences between the two candidates, an incumbent president who has long scorned climate change as a hoax and rolled back environmental regulations and a challenger who has called for an aggressive campaign to curb the greenhouse gases blamed for increasingly extreme weather....I don't think Trump has called climate change a hoax! Ridiculous! The "hoax" he talks about has to do with the assertions that human beings have made about climate change. If you actually care about science, journalists, you ought to be scrupulous about your words. You ought to see imprecision like that. So sloppy. So political.
“If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires?” Mr. Biden asked. “How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms? If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze?”...
“When trees fall down after a short period of time, they become very dry — really like a matchstick,” Mr. Trump said. “And they can explode. Also leaves. When you have dried leaves on the ground, it’s just fuel for the fires.”...So Trump did not use that occasion to "deny climate change."
But [Gov. Gavin] Newsom noted that only 3 percent of land in California is under state control while 57 percent is federal forest land, meaning under the president’s management as governed by federal law.... “As you suggest, the working relationship I value,” Mr. Newsom said.... “And so I think there’s an area of at least commonality on vegetation, forest management. But please respect — and I know you do — the difference of opinion out here as it relates to this fundamental issue on the issue of climate change.”
Mr. Trump did not argue the point. “Absolutely,” he said...
But Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources, pressed Mr. Trump more bluntly. “If we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians,” he told the president.
This time, Mr. Trump rejected the premise. “It’ll start getting cooler,” he insisted. “You just watch.”
“I wish science agreed with you,” Mr. Crowfoot replied.
“Well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” Mr. Trump retorted, maintaining a tense grin....So when you get far enough into the article, it does reveal that scientists say that forest management is a factor. It's the factor Trump wants to stress, and he is doing something about it.
Some environmental specialists said that Mr. Trump had a point about forest management but that it should not be an excuse to deny climate science and refuse to take action.... Experts say climate change, the management of public lands and decisions over where to site housing all contribute to wildfires. Mr. Trump has exclusively blamed poor forest management and last year issued an executive order directing agencies to cut down more trees, arguing that expanding timber harvesting would reduce forest fires....
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200 comments:
Excellent commentary, Ann.
Blaming climate change is a little like blaming "systemic racism." In either case, it's a convenient excuse for the civil service to trot out whenever it looks like the public might criticise them for being bad at their jobs.
Climate is angry. Science is angry. Beware angry vengeful climate science sea gods.
The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion.
Why? They admitted they were suspending journalist standards in order to get Trump. The money keeps flowing in, their people stay employed, they are working towards their goal to get Trump.
They can still dupe some people into thinking they're a news organization instead of propaganda.
Why change when there's no downside for them?
Climate science is peer reviewed by climate scientists, which is as good as astrology being peer reviewed by astrologers.
You want climate science peer reveiwed by fluid dynamics scientists, statistics scientists, and so forth through all their tools; not by climate scientists.
If you want science, anyway.
Hard to swallow the left hectoring me on "science" when they have no concept of the subject(forest ecosystems).
Some time in the last 48 hours I saw a chart of past history. Those FACTS show the 20th century was unusually wet for the western portion of the North American Continet. That's a very big piece of science.
Will eliminating all fossil fuels cancel forest fires in North America? I'm sure some of the very smart commenters here can point me to that "scientist" making that claim, but I'm not waiting.
Forest fires have been raging since before man walked upright. It's natures(science) way of rejuvenation. 100% natural.
The only thing that can be done is managing the asset to mitigate the results of the inevitable.
Remove humans from this equation and explain what needs to be done. That is what the anti science environmentalists fail to consider.
He also claimed that "it will get cooler", which indicates that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he is talking about and does indeed reject the idea of man made climate change out of hand.
He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner.
How do arsonists affect climate change? Hmmm???
Too bad Slow Joe and Bigger Thomas couldn't fix the environment in the 8 years that they had to work on it.
Given that he is Slow Joe, should be just assume that he can fix the problem but that he needs more time and that is the reason that we should elect him President?
Whether the weather is warming or cooling, forest management is a necessity. Less is required in cooler times, more is required in warmer times. When 'science' can tell me what the ideal temperature and climate is for the earth, i.e., climate and weather that would allow for the greatest population under a current food production technology, then we can discuss climate change. Until then, it is pointless. And to recognize that the drought is increasing but not practice more extensive forest management to prevent the loss of life, property and natural resources is criminally incompetent. Class action lawsuit anyone?
And now for the "Trump's All About The Science" viewpoint:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-of-the-climate-apocalypse-11600126352?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
On a pure, gut level persuasion basis, "climate arsonist" is good. Sure, Biden himself is a raging dumpster fire, but that only improves the persuasion value by projecting that fiery image onto Trump. Biden's people are shamelessly going after stupid and low information voters, and it's funny to see the NYT debase itself further in promoting the campaign's anti-science, anti-logic tactics. With respect to those who think this is all about the clicks for dollars, this is information warfare. There's always time to make money later, if you can hold onto power.
I guess Biden talking about Trump causing the “suburbs” to burn/drown is his pushback in the claim that he will force the suburbs to drop single-family zoning restrictions.
Think maybe I’d rather burn.
"It's so annoying to sift through this."
We appreciate the effort, futile and predictable though it is.
"The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion."
Why? You are not assuming they are interested in facts and journalism and honest reporting, are you?
"I don't think Trump has called climate change a hoax! Ridiculous!"
Well, most things he is supposed to have said he didn't say. So?
"You ought to see imprecision like that. So sloppy. So political."
Why ought? Of course it is "so political." In fact, it is entirely political. They don't give a damn about your sensibilities. Really, you are deplorable in your own way. Deal with it.
The New York Times scorns honesty.
Suppose for the sake of argument that "man made" climate change is real and suppose the proposals made to avert it would work. Then it would still not have a noticeable change in the climate for nearly 100 years, by their own terms. In the meantime, of course, the forests on the West Coast would still be burning every year. So even the man-made climate change believers should want more immediate solutions to the forests burning - like proper forest management - if they were actually interested in that.
But in fact, they're not. And @Balfegor is right - climate change is a convenient excuse to not simply explain away their incompetence but also to blame others for long-term problems they caused.
I could read this as a story of the wildfires in California. Instead, considering the effort to discuss it in terms of the candidates; I read this as trying to shore up the base in California and New York. If the NYT is having to do this much heavy lifting to shore up the Democratic base in those areas; the election isn't looking good for Democrats.
As for forest fires: Cut overgrown brush, remove dead trees, and water your lawn. If this seems offensive, then quit telling the Gulf Coast how to deal with flooding after a storm by zoning.
So when you get far enough into the article, it does reveal that scientists say that forest management is a factor. It's the factor Trump wants to stress, and he is doing something about it.
What exactly, other than bitching about it and trying to blame Federal forest management on the states, is he doing about it? Does his budget contain more money for forest management and fire fighting?
Dead wood burns. That's science. Removing the dead wood from forests prevents it from burning in the forests. That too is science. Trump is being more scientific than Dems. He is using factual scientific explanations for prevention of extreme wildfires: proper forest management prevents giant fires.
Biden, who sees trees only from the train to DC, can go back to his basement and read his teleprompter some more.
I really wish we had more public thinkers like you, Althouse.
So that asshole Trump has had four years to stop global warming climate change arson and lightening and hasn’t done a goddamn thing.
If you loathe a product as much as you do The New York Times, why do you stick with it?
Would you stick with a toothpaste you hated?
The NYT isn't going to change.
Part of the many problems we have right now is that the intelligentsia continues to support--financially!--institutions, such as colleges and media outlets, that are loathsome.
Read The Wall Street Journal. Check out The Washington Times. Check out The Epoch Times (a pro-Taiwan, conservative newspaper).
Lose the bad penny.
"Biden rhetoric," especially alongside "Trump rhetoric" in the tags looks off to me. Trump's rhetoric is his own. Biden's campaign, staffed by cynical shameless liars like Kevin Sullivan, TJ Ducklo and Symone Sanders, is responsible for his rhetoric. And they're probably responsible for it only inasmuch as they pay people like Godzilla (Robert Cialdini) or Lakoff to come up with this stuff. The tag gives Biden too much agency.
Biden sez: “If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires?” Mr. Biden asked. “How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?
Three mentions of suburbs in three sentences, Is someone scared they are losing the non-urban, democrat machine controlled votes?
NY Times has been political (and waaay left, commie) since before Duranty. You see it now?!
Most of their readers don’t want news, they want to be told this week’s liberal talking points.
Science doesn’t have one goddamned thing to do with poor forestry management and leftist arson.
On Joe's urging I asked 'the science' about this and this is what it said:
"A massive tree die-off in the Sierra Nevada could set the stage for forest conflagrations akin to World War II fire bombings"
Recent fires are just a harbinger of the hell to come unless California gets serious about thinning forests.
Controlled burns and forestry management are scientific. Unfortunately, Liberals only listen to the Science they agree with. This is on the left and their environmentalists and Politicians who buck REAL science.
Didn’t the fire start because somebody set of an explosive for a gender reveal party? This in itself seems strange for California since the should wait until the child is at least 6 years old go decide its gender identity.
1) Progressively encroaching urban wilderness interface. 2) Successfully stopping spot fires from erupting over the last 50-years. 3) Failure to manage deadfall and fuels. 4) Climate change.
Scientific method has no use for non-falsifiable hypotheses.
Religious cults embrace them.
Let’s assume for the moment that Climate Change / Global Warming is 100% real, and it’s all or mostly caused by human activities via CO2 and other carbon emissions (vs say solar cycles or other natural factors).
Changing GLOBAL emissions is hard - it takes a global consensus and global action (the extra-constitutional Paris Accord had mostly global consensus, but not global action - China and others had decades before they had to make meaningful reductions). It’s not only hard, but it’s a long-term project. Even with fanatic adherence by all industrial nations, it will take decades to see a meaningful reversal in the warming trend.
Whereas proper forest and fire management is very local - it’s an area where the Feds (BLM & National Park Service), state governments, municipalities, power utilities, and other large land owners all have a role. California can’t make China and India meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions, but it can clean up its own forests.
But of course that takes effort, money and leadership. So they’d prefer empty slogans and whining. Global warming is the perfect excuse for governments that can’t handle their own responsibilities.
But it is my chosen task to pull the propaganda apart, so I will continue.
Maybe it's time to end your relationship with your intellectual and emotional abuser. Just a thought. And besides, the nyt's dishonesty isn't interesting or complicated, so "pulling" it apart is a trivial activity.
I guess Democrats/Liberals have removed forestry management from a category of 'science'. However, belief in the all-encompassing powers of Climate Change never ceases to amaze. From the Wuhan virus to hurricanes that shockingly occur in the summer, to wildfires and rainy season mudslides, from record setting cold in winter, to actual hot summer days, from urban areas getting hardest hit to sea levels rising/not rising/rising/not rising- there's nothing that Climate Change cannot do.
Except this: It cannot figure out the gender of a human. And there's nothing that Climate Change, in all it's magnificence, can do about it. We simply don't know anyone's gender any longer because...Science!
It's mildly entertaining that the NYT is using the term "climate change," which is perhaps the greatest scientific weasel word (term?) in history. "We believe in science" is a lot more believable when the science can be falsified as opposed to being malleable to fit all possible scenarios.
When those of us that doubt the argument that humans cause of climate change say so we are tagged as denying climate change. That is a lie.
This article at What's Up With That does a good job of showing the history of wildfires and debunking the notion that "climate change" is the cause of the latest conflagrations.
Gavin Newsom's Exceeding Ignorant Climate Claim
Trump is right, science doesn't know. What we do know is forest management policies have been changed in favor of leaving the forests alone, this has resulted in more fuel for fires in the forest. If there is any denying going on it is of this simple fact.
Propagandists gotta propagandize....
Professor Althouse said ....
The NYT should present the news...
Sorry Professor, that ship sailed quite some time ago.
SCIENCE
Cancelling those who question politically favored views
Field Marshall Freder: "What exactly, other than bitching about it and trying to blame Federal forest management on the states, is he doing about it? Does his budget contain more money for forest management and fire fighting?"
LOLOLOLOLOL
Freder, just a day ago or so ago, was saying the lefties/dems were perfectly justified in not allowing companies into the forests to perform forest management duties!
Our lying Freder has now gone Full Inga mode with his "history resets every 15 minutes" mode!
Congratulations!
So, is the NY Times suggesting that we focus on the cosmic, long-term piece of solution and ignore the practical, can-do piece that is right in front of us?
It may be your chosen task, but reading the NYT is a hill not worth dying on.
Once again, people are giving the Left and the NYT too much credit. They aren't writing or arguing in good faith. They have supported all kinds of environmental laws that have shut down logging in our national forests, and have refused to properly management the forests either from stupidity or a desire to spend $$ elsewhere. Now, the chickens have come home to roost, and the NYT/Democrats do NOT under any circumstances want Newsome or the Democrats on the west coast, or liberal/left in general, to take any blame. So, we get all this nonsense about "Climate Change".
The Left-wing NYT and Democrats like Newsome don't' care if Climate Change is true. They don't really care about "Science". Like their constant cries of "racism", Its ALL politics. And its served it purpose by allowing the Left/Democrats to change the subject.
What does science say about average IQ scores of various races?
The fires are taking place in ecosystems that require regular fires in order to be healthy. Idiotic governmental policies and land mismanagement from by Lefties have turned natural occurrences into disasters.
The fires have nothing to do with climate change.
These loser states gave up doing controlled burns decades ago to satisfy the enviro-kooks. Elsewhere, many other states kept up their forest management all this while. Sucks to live in Libtardia.
FF: "He also claimed that 'it will get cooler,' which indicates that he has absolutely no f*cking idea what he is talking about..." It's mid-September. It will get cooler within the next 30 days. Whether that's Science or not, it's history.
Biden is claiming Trump - if elected - will cause the suburbs to burn and be destroyed by storms. Its the nuttiest thing, I've ever heard from a POTUS candidate. I know he's 78 y/o senile old coot, but can't he think - and not just read whatever is on the teleprompter?
Freder Frederson said...
He also claimed that "it will get cooler", which indicates that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he is talking about and does indeed reject the idea of man made climate change out of hand.
Another absolute fucking idiot calling someone else stupid because their "science" rejects the fact it gets cooler in the fall. It's fall. It will get cooler.
I saw the video so let's not pretend you didn't know what Trump was referring to--like that idiot "science" guy too wrapped up in his own mind to follow along in a basic conversation.
What exactly, other than bitching about it and trying to blame Federal forest management on the states, is he doing about it? Does his budget contain more money for forest management and fire fighting?
Newsome thanking Trump
Even if climate change is a significant factor (which I have doubts about) that would just increase the need for proper forest management. So that argument works against what the left is claiming.
And U.S. emissions have gone down in the past three years, more than the targets set by the Paris accord, because of increased use of natural gas.
And nothing Trump could have done vis-a-vis climate change would have had any impact this soon.
So WTF, Democrats!!
Climate change is a scam and it is making lots of money for lots of liberals.
If you really want to get into the science. what is so extreme about the weather on the West Coast. Its been a hot, dry summer, with fires. But most of the summers are hot and dry. The outlier is how many forest fires we've had. And there's no reason why an drier and hotter than normal summer should cause the most forest fires ever. extreme weather does not equal extreme fires. Forest management is the absolute driving force. Hot weather just makes in more difficult.
On a personal note, it has been fun to ride my bicycle through Conservation Park in PCB after they do some of their controlled burns within the park. You get to see the habitat renew in a very short time as these fires do not rage as hot as these tinderbox disasters you see in the news. The forest road trails in the park are about ten miles around the circumference with many options to go through the middle and various low spots when it is not the wet season.
Tree ring analysis - science last time I looked - says California has been wetter the last 200 years than further in the past. The current 3 year drought is a piker compared to centuries long droughts that have been identified.
Freder Frederson at 8:16 AM
Does his budget contain more money for forest management and fire fighting?
Is the forest-management a funding problem?
I think the problem is policy decisions not to remove undergrowth, etc.
Pelosi says "Mother Earth is angry!" - Party of Science!
Trump correctly blames fires on poor forest management - Science Denier!
If Trump said "water is wet", we would be treated to dozens of front page stories on how at the atomic and sub-atomic level, the atoms that combine to form H2O do not possess the property we think of as "wet" and so Trump is again wrong and a science denier.
So when you get far enough into the article, it does reveal that scientists say that forest management is a factor. It's the factor Trump wants to stress, and he is doing something about it.
It's also the factor with the greatest human efficacy that something can be done about it.
He also claimed that "it will get cooler", which indicates that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he is talking about and does indeed reject the idea of man made climate change out of hand.
Man made climate change is indeed a myth. The Left have been running around for twenty five years screaming "The climate is changing!" and making dire predictions of disaster, none of which have come true.
He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner.
He's right.
The Earth is actually in the middle of an ice age called the Quarternary that began 2.5 million years ago. We are also in an interglacial (a warming interval) called the Holocene. The Holocene will end, and the Earth will get colder.
Reading Kate Graham’s excellent autobiography Personal History. Among many things, about making the Washington Post a world class newspaper in the 50’s and 60’s. NYT the only real US contender. If she saw what they both have become today, she would be sick to her stomach.
ProPublica had a good piece on the wildfires. They quote some forestry expert who said before pioneer settlement, California experience fires covering 4 million to 11 million acres annually. These kept the forest floor relatively clean so subsequent fires were no catastrophic.
Today, California state government does annual proscribed burns of just 10-20,000 acres.
German-owned Scientific American has endorsed Joe Biden for President. (That's Scientific American, owned by a company in GERMANY.)
Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now.
Believe the politicized science!
Climate is a science in its infancy. Climate scientists have no business making definite statements about anything. Which, for the most part, they don't. The hysterical claims we get so much of in the media aren't coming from scientists, they are coming from politicians and activists.
Trump may not be 100% right, but he is more right than Gavin Newsom or The new York Times
(BTW, I also subscribe to the Times and get their daily email news round up, but I find it so brazenly biased that it's hard to read sometimes.)
Check out The Epoch Times (a pro-Taiwan, conservative newspaper).
You do know that Epoch Times is an organ of Falun Gong?
"Climate took center stage in the election as President Trump denied global warming had any role and Joe Biden said this denial had fed the destruction." The NYT is saying that the failure to concede that global warming had some role in the fires is a rejection of science.
Actually Biden and the NYT are saying that Trump's "denials" are actually causing the fires to burn longer and hotter.
The NYT believes that not only can Obama can stop the oceans from rising, but that Trump can stoke the fires of hell.
Freder Frederson said...He also claimed that "it will get cooler", which indicates that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he is talking about and does indeed reject the idea of man made climate change out of hand.
You're right. Trump has nothing to support this claim except the weight of historical evidence.
The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion.
You're adorable.
Absolutely adorable.
Must be why Leftists were so quick to dismiss Antifa loonies as the fire setters, even though all the fires occurred within a match's throw from I-5 in a suspiciously evenly spaced pattern. I hope George Soros is happy. He has replaced Hitler on my what would I do if I ever invented a time machine list.
This blogpost I think shows the graph to which iowan2 alludes, above:
https://junkscience.com/2020/09/new-york-times-debunks-climate-caused-california-wildfires/#more-103155
Propublica has a nice piece articulating not only the science but, much more importantly, the perverse incentives of California's current forest management-by-neglect system:
https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen
In short, if you are a forest manager in CA, doing a controlled burn may put your career at risk, while failing to do a controlled burn is fine. There are also lots of financial incentives to let big fires happen so those with vested interests in big fires (those who make overtime only when it's an emergency, those who service the people who make overtime only when it's an emergency, people who contract out those giant planes that dump water/chemicals on the fires (ineffectual for saving suburbs, good for saving trees, tinder, kindling that can burn next time) when it's an emergency, etc., none of whom cash in on fires when they are controlled burns) can continue their lucrative extraction of wealth from the state only when it's an emergency, not when it's a controlled burn.
I am very interested by the comment that much of the land is federal, not state. I'd guess/assume that state policy nonetheless determines how those lands/forests are managed, but I don't know if that's correct. I would guess the feds pay but CA makes the decisions. At least that seems to be how it is working now... It would be great if Trump required federal funds to be used according to the known forest management science for federal lands, and CA could do what it likes with state money managing (or not) state land.
We could all observe an intra state experiment on costs and outcomes - there's an idea for Trump to implement in his second term. That would be very interesting to see.
And U.S. emissions have gone down in the past three years, more than the targets set by the Paris accord, because of increased use of natural gas.
This may be true again because of Corona Virus, but before the lock down, the emissions were rising again.
Also, a recurring theme of Trump's 2016 campaign was that he was going to bring coal back. Of course, if he had succeeded in that promise, it would have significantly increased emissions. He was lucky that burning coal to produce electricity is just not profitable any more.
Field Marshall and Bundy/McCloskey Case Liar Freder: "He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner."
Noted climatologist Freder has no idea what a Maunder Minimum is or why it might matter. Earth's magnetosphere? Why should that matter?
ChiCom and India CO2 production? Not a problem!
No, what will save us all is of course, global socialist government!
Thanks Freder!
LOL
Hmmm so climate change is the most important and destructive force known to man. Yet during the latest brownouts kalifornia decided to increase the use of natural gas to get electricity. Why are they BBQing children?
As Glenn says, when they act like it really matters, I may listen, until then STFU.
This time, Mr. Trump rejected the premise. “It’ll start getting cooler,” he insisted. “You just watch.”
“I wish science agreed with you,” Mr. Crowfoot replied.
Trump’s right on the science, Crowfoot is wrong. Last time this planet had a prolonged sunspot minimum it coincided with the Little Ice Age. People today are trying to argue that there was no cause and effect, or that the Little Ice Age wasn’t really all that cold. Bunk. If you lower the amount of solar energy reaching the earth, it will get colder.
Do you think the Left would have let gas prices freefall over the last four years? Do you think the Left would ever have allowed circumstance to let that happen (free drilling, fracking)?
He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner.
Scientist Freder has taken a moment from his military concerns to opine on weather trends. Biden also mentioned that suburbs would be flooded by climate change. Sounds like fire prevention to me. The fact that there is no evidence of warming outside the Michal Mann (who just lost a lawsuit) models based on tree rings, suggests that there is a lot of government money going into "scientists" pockets. The question of cooling trends has been raised by scientists and the sun spot minimum is of concern. Scientist Freder could give us a short essay on the Maunder Minimum.
He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner.
Scientist Freder has taken a moment from his military concerns to opine on weather trends. Biden also mentioned that suburbs would be flooded by climate change. Sounds like fire prevention to me. The fact that there is no evidence of warming outside the Michal Mann (who just lost a lawsuit) models based on tree rings, suggests that there is a lot of government money going into "scientists" pockets. The question of cooling trends has been raised by scientists and the sun spot minimum is of concern. Scientist Freder could give us a short essay on the Maunder Minimum.
Even if climate change is a significant factor (which I have doubts about) that would just increase the need for proper forest management.
No one, not even the dreaded environmentalists, is against proper forest management. The sad truth is that it is underfunded (probably about 10% or less of what it needs to be) at both federal and state levels.
"Trump Scorns Science as Fires Rage
The science of forest management to prevent wildfires is pretty well settled.
"I don't think Trump has called climate change a hoax! Ridiculous! The "hoax" he talks about has to do with the assertions that human beings have made about climate change. If you actually care about science, journalists, you ought to be scrupulous about your words. You ought to see imprecision like that. So sloppy. So political."
Exactly. And 'journalists' know nothing about science. Here is one fact about science most of them don't know: There are two types of science, basic and applied. Basic science is discovery for its own sake. Applied science pursues a specific end, for good or for ill. There is precious little disinterested basic science today. Most scientific studies are done to further a known agenda.
The environmental scientists will say that deadfall in forests is habitat for wildlife so it must be left undisturbed. Forestry science would argue that it creates dangerous tinder for forest fires. Basic science shows that forest fires are a necessary regenerative process of nature, cleansing forests of insect pests and harmful pathogens. But saving human lives and properties is rightly considered a priority and firefighting science is applied accordingly.
Even if climate change is a significant factor (which I have doubts about) that would just increase the need for proper forest management. So that argument works against what the left is claiming.
Exactly and the enviro wackos' lawsuits are what is holding up federal forest management.
Freder Frederson said...
So when you get far enough into the article, it does reveal that scientists say that forest management is a factor. It's the factor Trump wants to stress, and he is doing something about it.
What exactly, other than bitching about it and trying to blame Federal forest management on the states, is he doing about it? Does his budget contain more money for forest management and fire fighting?
9/15/20, 8:16 AM
If those are all Federal lands that are burning DUE to the Federal government not managing them correctly, you have a point.
If on the other hand, those are state lands that the state of CA mis-managed to the point of making them all fire hazards, why in the world is that Trump's or the Feds fault? Federalism, ever heard of it? It is CA bending to the will of eco-terrorists that have stopped all management of those forests that resulted in an abundance of burnable material.
Also if it is Federal lands that caught fire from fires that started on state land, also not the Feds fault.
No amount of money will fix stupid...
Newsome thanking Trump
He was thanking Trump for assistance in fighting fires. What has Trump done to actually improve forest management so the forests burn less?
"...how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires?” -- J Robbinette Biden
Next to none, would be my answer. However, if suburbs do burn, it will be because of antifa and black lives matter operatives. They are known to start fires.
Biden is claiming Trump - if elected - will cause the suburbs to burn and be destroyed by storms. Its the nuttiest thing, I've ever heard from a POTUS candidate.
Nuttier than claiming that Antifa and BLM (Black Lives Matter, not the Bureau of Land Management) will burn down the suburbs if Biden wins?
Seems like the suburbs are going to burn no matter who gets elected. Either way, one BLM or another is going to burn down the suburbs.
Biden suggests that if Trump is re-elected, the suburbs will burn. His Antifa supporters will see to it that they do.
Freder, just a day ago or so ago, was saying the lefties/dems were perfectly justified in not allowing companies into the forests to perform forest management duties!
I never said that at all. You just make shit up.
I kind of doubt that global warming is having that much of an impact on this. I mean I don't know. But to do a few thought experiments, let's suppose that the average summer temperature in California has risen 3 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years -- we could actually look up the real change and I have a hunch it is not 3 degrees and it might even be negative, but this a thought experiment -- what kind of impact would that have?
It wouldn't be the absolute temperature that would make fires more likely, instead it would surely be the additional drying from higher temperatures. So how much additional drying do you get from a three degree Celsius elevation? Are we talking 1% or 2% more drying? Because that's kind of what I would guess without looking things up.
And how much bigger does that make the fires? Unless we have some big non-linear phenomena going on it should be something like 1 or 2% bigger fires.
It sounds like a pretty small factor compared to allowing huge amounts of wood debris to pile up on the forest floor because we no longer do logging or we no longer clear it out to prevent forest fires. And we don't maintain the logging roads that fire crews used to use to get into the back country. And we used to do preventive backfires to create fire breaks ahead of time that are now rarely done.
An additional 1 or 2% drying sounds like a small factor compared to these other issues.
And then I was so surprised to discover the other day, that actually forest fires, or the amount of acreage burned in California, used to be much larger than they are now. These fires today which are pretty big compared to most of the years over the last 50 years, are burning only a fraction of the acreage that was burning around 100 to 150 years ago.
"The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion."
Yeah, and Hitler should treat the Jews better.
Both are valid opinions irrelevant to the here and now.
AGW has taken a significant hit during the WuFlu and the riots as many scientists have worked overtime to publicly demonstrate their incompetence and poltroonery. Gotta get that horse saddled back up...
It is ironic that the "party of science" has committed whole-heartedly to "climate change" - which functions more as a religious cult than actual science - and yet rejects long-established and proven forest management practices such as selective thinning, fire breaks, brush clearing, and controlled burns. Seems like we studied forest management in science class in 5th grade back in the early 60s and I had to learn all about this again a few years later to get my Boy Scout Forestry Merit Badge. Yet since the Clinton Administration it has been SOP to let forests go "natural" and now we are living with the consequences, as many forest management experts predicted years ago.
:
CO2 caused Global warming is total hoax. But Global Cooling from the Maunder Minimum is real and causes blocking dips in the Jet Stream that causes west coast air flow going East to stay several weeks and create heat domes. The Southeast states get that cold air and thanks you.
The reality factor from CO2 ppm going up is 30% increase in plant growth. Which demands forest management of this new growth. The world population that eats the extra food from this growth thanks you.
We can deal with this unless we declare Communist Tyranny is necessary. Then we would all die of starvation.
"The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion."
Ann, that shipped sailed long ago.
Nice comment Lawrence Person. LOL.
Its not really necessary to pull propaganda apart.
Content, beyond the basics, such as "we hate X", or whatever hook is designed to attract attention, is not the point of propaganda. Truth certainly isn't. Propaganda works without serious consideration of any of these things. Propaganda works through volume, frequency, ubiquity - flooding all channels with unavoidable ... stuff. Is it absurd? So what, it works anyway.
Granted propagandists tend to be craftsmen, of a sort, as this stuff is not machine-made - yet. Their own creative urges or vanity often drive them to decorate the raw stuff to feed into the machine. Even their masters can be amused by their stylings. Its like how cannon-makers used to cast curliques and foliage or coats of arms or mottoes on their siege guns. It did not speed the cannon balls any, but it pleased them as artisans and appealed to their patrons vanity.
The old grey lady, she blinded me with science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V83JR2IoI8k
Interesting that the majority of the forests are federally owned and under Trump administration management, so I guess he is partially at fault. I think this quote puts it into balance, something Trump finds difficult:Scientists say wildfires are all but inevitable, and the main drivers are plants and trees drying out due to climate change and more people living closer to areas that burn. And while forest thinning and controlled burns are solutions, they have proven challenging to implement on the scale needed to combat those threats.
I'm surprised that Althouse hasn't noted the connection between climate change activists and the Weather Underground Organization which took their name from Bob Dylan's lyrics "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (copy and paste via Wikipedia).
Shorter comment -
This is not an argument, this is a war.
These fires are arsons.
This never happens.
They have already caught 4 of the arsonists.
We all know what is going on over here.
Freder: "I never said that at all. You just make shit up."
Liar.
Again.
Not surprising at this point.
You claimed "forest management" and "thinning" were simply ways for profiteers to get in there and get a profit.
No dummy. "thinning" is what is necessary along with removal of the massive amount of deadwood that sits there as fuel waiting for an antifa guy that you support to come along and toss a match.
It is amazing that when you look at the fire maps the fires by and large magically stop right at the Canadian border.....but right across the border in Northern Washington there are quite alot.
Freder will now have to explain how it is the fire itself seems to know to only get out of control on the US side of the border with Canada.....with a "little help" from Freders allies.
Freder: "I never said that at all. You just make shit up."
Liar.
Again.
Not surprising at this point.
You claimed "forest management" and "thinning" were simply ways for profiteers to get in there and get a profit.
No dummy. "thinning" is what is necessary along with removal of the massive amount of deadwood that sits there as fuel waiting for an antifa guy that you support to come along and toss a match.
It is amazing that when you look at the fire maps the fires by and large magically stop right at the Canadian border.....but right across the border in Northern Washington there are quite alot.
Freder will now have to explain how it is the fire itself seems to know to only get out of control on the US side of the border with Canada.....with a "little help" from Freders allies.
He was thanking Trump for assistance in fighting fires. What has Trump done to actually improve forest management so the forests burn less?
Tried to convince people to stop voting for Democrats.
California would need 20 million acres to burn to get back to safer territory.
Current fires are around a million acres.
Before fire fighting about 4 million acres a year burned.
California historically has cycles of higher temperature and droughts.
An imported beetle killed a lot of trees.
Lawfare reduced controlled burns in the last 30 years in Ca significantly.
Personal Liability for person setting controlled burns also reduced amount of fires set.
Reduction by 50% of lumber industry in Ca helped create crises.
In LA area, bobcat fire is burning areas that have not burned for 60 years.
Good article:
https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen
He was lucky that burning coal to produce electricity is just not profitable any more.
The most ironic thing about this issue is that if Hillary had won, she would have killed fracking, which would make coal mining profitable again. If Biden wins he promises to do the same thing.
I can almost smell Freder's flop sweat, just like that of Biden's teleprompter writers.
It smells like the Marxists are getting desperate.
Unfortunately there are idiot liberals out there who continue to be patsies for the Marxists. Fortunately there are true liberals out there (like James Lindsay and his colleagues) who understand what is going on and are putting up the valiant intellectual fight that people like Freder and Inga cannot begin to comprehend.
Pssst! Science does not involve unfalsifiable hypotheses. Cults do!
"Three mentions of suburbs in three sentences, Is someone scared they are losing the non-urban, democrat machine controlled votes?"
To be fair, the democrats have already trashed their cities to the point that fires, floods and storms would be an improvement so it's past time to address the suburbs.
No one, not even the dreaded environmentalists, is against proper forest management.
That, of course, is a lie. Usually, Freder makes stupid statements that show ignorance. This, however, is an outright lie.
One:
Two.
Three.
There are lots more, you idiot.
"What exactly, other than bitching about it and trying to blame Federal forest management on the states, is he doing about it? "
It's in the quote I quoted right before what I wrote that you're basing your question on, so you're kind of a bitcher youself.
And while forest thinning and controlled burns are solutions, they have proven challenging to implement on the scale needed to combat those threats.
Yes, they have been sued by well funded enviro Nazi groups, probably some that R/V is a member of. There used to be a healthy lumber industry in northern California and Oregon. It was shut down by your allies.
David-2, holdfast, and exhelodrvr1, I completely agree. We have to adapt to the realities of a warmer climate because it is going to be warmer for a long time no matter what "humanity" does.
We also have to adapt to the realities of a growing population, some of which wants to live in the forest away from the growing population. Brush management is critical.
It's one of Trump's presidential accomplishments that he has brought some sane discourse on climate change to the highest level of US government.
buwaya said...
Shorter comment -
This is not an argument, this is a war.
Repeated for clarity.
Liars like Freder need to be defeated. He and the democrats have demonstrated repeatedly they do not care about actually solving these problems and making things better for people.
They only care about power.
They are also setting these fires.
We all know what is going on out here. We are catching the arsonists in the act.
An arsonist never starts just one fire.
roesch/voltaire said, "And while forest thinning and controlled burns are solutions, they have proven challenging to implement on the scale needed to combat those threats."
Good point. Maybe "we" should spend some time figuring out why it is so challenging to implement these solutions. Then go on to figure out how challenging it is to reverse climate change.
You claimed "forest management" and "thinning" were simply ways for profiteers to get in there and get a profit.
Your reading comprehension sucks.
Freder will now have to explain how it is the fire itself seems to know to only get out of control on the US side of the border with Canada.....with a "little help" from Freders allies.
Are you insane? Yes, Canada is having a less active fire season than usual (as is Alaska), but to pretend there aren't frequent major forest fires in Canada is just ridiculous. And the maps you cite as showing the fires ending at the Canadian Border are maps of U.S. fires.
“ Forest fires have been raging since before man walked upright. It's natures(science) way of rejuvenation. 100% natural.
The only thing that can be done is managing the asset to mitigate the results of the inevitable. ”
All you need to really do is look carefully at the climax trees in the western forests that we see burning every year. They are inevitably large to massive, long living conifers. Around here, it is a mixture of Ponderosa Pine, Spruce, and Fir. Very similar to what I grew up with in CO, only bigger here, and even bigger on the Pacific coast. If you look carefully at them, they all have thick bark, and ultimately lose their lower needles and then limbs. Turns out the thick bark is a fire adaption. Ground fires would naturally come through every couple decades, singe the bark, leaving the big climax trees standing and healthy, and then their fire adapted cones would sprout. Yes, the cones that you have to rake up every year and dispose of (along with the pine needles and fallen lower limbs (see above)).
But those aren’t the fires that we are seeing these days. They may start that way, but then the fire gets into the crowns of the trees, and becomes very, very hard to stop. These “crown” fires burn a lot hotter, and with a stiff breeze, can run for miles, overnight. Indeed, about this time, 4 years ago, we had a fire that started 5 miles East of here (just East of the shooting range, which was a pain) run 10 miles NE the night that I left to see my ailing father. It exploded to 10x its former size overnight. (Luckily, winds are mostly W to E here, so not as much danger to us as my partner thought). Luckily, there were almost no buildings in that direction, before the trees petered out in that direction, but it still took October snow to finally snuff it out.
The real science is that humans have been suppressing fires throughout the National (and state) Forests in the west for a century now. We were hearing from the FS (we shared a building with them in Fort Collins) 35 years ago about the deadly fuel buildup on the ground across the west. Heck, the guy behind me here was jumping out of perfectly good planes, to fight fires, almost a half century ago, and talks about it (fire jumping school is in Missoula, where he went to college). And he talks about the fuel buildup since then. We now have over a century of fuel buildup on the ground throughout much of the wooded west, when the climax trees were adapted to low level, ground fires, every couple decades.
The problem wasn't out of control though until Clinton’s Administration essentially banned logging on federal lands in the west. The much despised clear cutting used to open up fire breaks, that used to stop a lot of crown fires. And the logging reduced the underbrush (and thus crown fires) and kept the logging roads open, which are key to fighting fires. Meanwhile more and more people have moved out from the cities, to live in the woods, which has meant that many more fires have to be fought to save them.
Now, despite increasing FS budgets every year, more and more of those budgets are going to fighting fires. Over half now for the NF that surrounds us here. The result has been curtailment of more and more of their other functions. Our local substation closed a couple years ago, campgrounds are being closed, and they might not have the manpower to reopen logging, even if they could.
No one, not even the dreaded environmentalists, is against proper forest management. The sad truth is that it is underfunded (probably about 10% or less of what it needs to be) at both federal and state levels.
Housing prices are up due to the rising prices in lumber. Forest management doesn't need government funding. Forest management simply needs the government to get out of the way.
And this:
This may be true again because of Corona Virus, but before the lock down, the emissions were rising again.
is a lie. More evidence from the <a href="https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-emissions-in-2019>IEA</a>: <i>The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt. US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period. </i>
I thought that it was the fault of the gods being angry?
"Mother nature is very angry, my friends. Like an old man sending soup back at the deli"
Nancy Pelosi
https://youtu.be/0u8KUgUqprw?t=49
John Henry
O Crap. I got real life confused with Seinfeld again.
John Henry
It's in the quote I quoted right before what I wrote that you're basing your question on, so you're kind of a bitcher youself.
Again, as I am trying to point out, logging, in and of itself, is not "forest management". But that is all Trump really cares about, exploiting the forests and pretending it is forest management.
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
Richard Feyneman on science:
I was sitting, for example, in a hot bath and there’s another guy and a girl in the bath. He says to the girl, “I’m learning massage and I wonder if I could practice on you?” She says OK, so she gets up on a table and he starts off on her foot—working on her big toe and pushing it around. Then he turns to what is apparently his instructor, and says, “I feel a kind of dent. Is that the pituitary?” And she says, “No, that’s not the way it feels.” I say, “You’re a hell of a long way from the pituitary, man.” And they both looked at me—I had blown my cover, you see—and she said, “It’s reflexology.” So I closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating.
John Henry
Science has become an entity with anamorphic qualities. It has one voice, and it must be "believed".
“ No one, not even the dreaded environmentalists, is against proper forest management. The sad truth is that it is underfunded (probably about 10% or less of what it needs to be) at both federal and state levels.”
It is underfunded for one very simple reason - the cost of fighting fires has crowded out everything else in the FS (etc) budgets. Those budgets increase every year, but the portion utilized for fighting fires is increasing even faster.
Most of us know the solution - reopen the forests to logging. The cost of managing the logging (and “proper forest management”) could/would come from the proceeds from timber sales. Of course, that doesn’t include the cost of litigation by environmental wackos to prevent the timber sales... My solution there would be to force the people litigating against timber sales to live in the forests that they claim to be protecting (but instead are condemning to burn), instead of in the big cities where most of them do live.
"“It’ll start getting cooler,” he insisted. “You just watch.”"
The odds are very good that Trump was not opining on global cooling, rather he was stating, on September 14, that temperatures will be dropping, on average, over the next several weeks and months. Tongue in cheek.
Here in southern seacoast Maine it was 42 degrees F at 5am this morning. Trump is right!
I agree with Gavin Newsom.
The United States should relinquish almost all of its federally claimed land and cede control of that land to California.
Surely that would be better than allowing Trump four more years of control.
I profiled a new startup 'ReefCare', which uses clean energy bots to transport undocumented workers to and from damaged coastal reefs. They scrub full-time for a living wage and can help with shark mating for bonus pay.
The owner could have just made the bots, but he has a heart.
It's all global.
-Chase Weller-Wells
Climate Columnist, Thought-Leader for the 21st Century
*Science* scorns science!
Science says that the most elegant hypothesis, developed at great cost and effort, and put forth by the greatest and most learned subject matter expert, is only as good as its future predictive ability.
The brilliant Paul Krugman mocked mercilessly for a 2016 tweet on the post-election stock market? Science doesn't care!
All those phrenologists spending their life gathering data to support a hypotheses that would help illuminate and elevate mankind? Sorry, science says the hypothesis stinks and now everyone is laughing. Sucks to be you, brilliant hard-working enlightened phrenologists!
“It is ironic that the "party of science" has committed whole-heartedly to "climate change" - which functions more as a religious cult than actual science - and yet rejects long-established and proven forest management practices such as selective thinning, fire breaks, brush clearing, and controlled burns. Seems like we studied forest management in science class in 5th grade back in the early 60s and I had to learn all about this again a few years later to get my Boy Scout Forestry Merit Badge. Yet since the Clinton Administration it has been SOP to let forests go "natural" and now we are living with the consequences, as many forest management experts predicted years ago.”
The fundamental problem with the Biden/leftist position here is that the real problem is the condition of the forests, and not how much they dry out every year from heat (even ignoring that the switch in the narrative from Global Warming to Climate Change is a tacit admission that AGW has effectively been falsified as a theory). The century of fuel buildup on the forest floors isn’t going anywhere, but is just getting worse, year by year, as it continues to not burn, but buildup instead. The climax conifer forests continue to thicken, making crown fires worse, while logging roads continue to close, as the forests they were cut from reclaim them. Even if AGW were true, and we banned all excess CO2 production, there would still be hotter, dryer, years, in which the fires would burn. That’s the way that climate works. The fires would just be bigger and bigger, ever harder to control. The fuel is still there, as are the thickening climax forests.
CALLING ALL ANGEL INVESTORS:
'CatClean' uses heli-bots and abandoned high-speed rail to strategically transport homeless workers to and from wilderness locations to clean cougars and save our wild places.
'Mountain Screamers'. 'Catamounts'
Call 'em what you want. Capitalism can do good for oppressed bodies.
It's a crisis.
It’s interesting that the New York Times doesn’t provide any survey of the science as it lays out the history of fires in the west prior to 1492. Climate science clearly says that there were a lot of fires, and very big fires, and not just in California, over the past several centuries. This is why the New York Times is worse than worthless.
"Congratulations. It's a boy."
"No, it's a girl."
Science!
Didn't the Obama Brain Trust already solve this problem? They must have in 8 years, with all those little grey cells and all.
"Ugh. It's so annoying to sift through this. The NYT should present the news in a coolly neutral fashion."
You have conflicting needs, so they'll only be met imperfectly.
As always, scholar.google.com turns up interesting stuff
This is about drought in the Great Plains for example:
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are characterized by sustained periods of progressively wetter and drier conditions, including prolonged drought. Various archival sources document the significant impacts of these prolonged droughts. While drought was frequent in the twentieth century, it tended to be of short duration and the impacts also were ameliorated by intervening periods of relatively high precipitation.
Or in California specifically:
The other giant sequoia fire histories (tree rings and charcoal-based) were significantly (P < 0.001) correlated with the Giant Forest fire frequency record and independent climate reconstructions, and confirm a maximum fire frequency during the warm and drought-prone period from 800 C.E. to 1300 C.E. (Common Era). This was the driest period of the past two millennia, and it may serve as an analog for warming and drying effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the next few decades.
Yes, they can look at what California was like when it was probably warmer than today, a thousand years ago, so see what it will be like when it gets that warm again, of course not of natural causes!
Scroll down to for the graphs of the fire history of California as determined by fire scars in sequoia trees.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.4996/fireecology.0503120
This is one example of why I despise, detest, and distrust the NYT.
buwaya is wrong about propaganda.
There has never been evidence that it works to do anything except silence people who maintain their own views but are scared to voice the larger concerns.
Therefore, propaganda is resisted atomistically and never overcomes the individual.
At best it has a short half-life and dies.
Freder: "Again, as I am trying to point out, logging, in and of itself, is not "forest management". But that is all Trump really cares about, exploiting the forests and pretending it is forest management."
Freder recognizes now that his earlier lies will not fly so he once again retreats into:
1) Redefining terms
2) Reading Trump's mind to "reveal" nefarious make believe Trump motives.
This is usually the end of the discussion with Freder as it signals his full retreat on the issue.
"but to pretend there aren't frequent major forest fires in Canada is just ridiculous.”
You know what is ridiculous Freder? To talk about climate change causing the fires while never discussing the climate history of California. I am sure your approach will be, like Michael Mann’s was, to assume what you are trying to prove, and claim that *this time* the fires are caused by global warming, when the much worse fires even a couple centuries ago, were not, because global warming, and not only that, the fires prove global warming is happening! It’s a circular argument that ignores the vast bulk of what is known about the climate history of California.
Freder: "Your reading comprehension sucks."
My reading comprehension of your lies is always spot on.
But only spot on. I'll admit that.
If you b**** more perhaps people won't notice how full of bull you happen to be.
Spoiler: Yes they will
"Liars like Freder need to be defeated.”
I don’t think he’s a liar, I think he is a dupe.
Yet since the Clinton Administration it has been SOP to let forests go "natural" and now we are living with the consequences
Yet, as you admit in the very next paragraph, you tell us the fuel has been building up for a century. So what is it, since the Wilson/Coolidge administrations or Clinton?
The cost of managing the logging (and “proper forest management”) could/would come from the proceeds from timber sales.
The proceeds from timber sales on Federal Lands is minimal. Basically the way timber is priced by the Feds allows the companies to remove the trees at their cost. If you want to discuss increasing the prices we charge for timber, that is a discussion worth having (although I am sure the Weyerhauser's of the world would be lobbying Congress fiercely), but then of course we couldn't compete with Canadian Timber.
“Yes, they have been sued by well funded enviro Nazi groups, probably some that R/V is a member of. There used to be a healthy lumber industry in northern California and Oregon. It was shut down by your allies.”
Used to have 3 lumber companies here in town, and a couple in the town East of here. One is left. Thank you Bill Clinton.
Science is all about attributing a phenomenon to your preferred hypothesis, angrily rejecting alternate hypotheses, and questioning the motives of those who dare argue with you, a Scientist.
Trump sucks at that.
And I am being sarcastic on so many levels right now, my head hurts trying to disentangle them.
Freder sez;
"He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner."
I don't know what Michael may have said, and I suppose that "just around the corner" is a bit vague, but if you consider what the climate has been doing for the last half a million years or so, as indicated by Antarctic ice cores, it's fairly obvious that it is only a matter of a few thousand years before Madison is under a glacier again. Unless we come up with some way to stop it. But I think it's going to take more than a little CO2. A lot more.
One of my favorite “scientific” papers was one that claimed to show that even though the climate record didn’t show any warm period in the ‘40s, that they had a glacier in Europe that showed faster melting at that time, and it purported to explain why, when all they had to do was look at the Climategate emails and find the phrase “We have to get rid of this warm blip in the ‘40s” for their explanation.
So no, you can’t read the conclusions as gospel but you can be pretty well assured, usually, that the data was properly collected. This didn’t apply to Michael Mann’s hockey stick of course, which I just found another paper this morning that showed the existance of the Little Ice Age and the paper cited above shows the Medieval Warm Period, both of which Mann claimed did not really exist.
To be fair to Freder Frederson, he is really fucking stupid.
What the sequoia fire scars show is that the planet warms and cools for lots of reasons, and logic strongly suggests that it is all but impossible to untangle such forces from what is happening due to CO2, which is almost certainly causing some degree of warming.
The other thing about the Hockey Stick, and I will let it go for now after this one, is that if you take it as true and correct, and assign any warming at the “blade” to CO2 levels, THANK GOD! Because we were pretty clearly plunging into an ice age.
Another point is that ever since plants evolved, when CO2 was at aobut 3000 parts per million, an order of magnitude greater than today, and BTW, the planet did not become Venus, the plants have been tucking away CO2 underground, for eons, lowering the CO2 level close to the point where they would soon, in geologic terms, have used up so much of it that they would have starved themselves, and us with them, as well as most of the rest of life on earth, which would then be left as a snowball, maybe for the remainder of the history of the planet, since the CO2, as important to life as oxygen, was all locked away and unusable.
Yes, the plants are greedy too! All life forms are greedy.
Even though the Paris Accords excluded the worlds two biggest polluters Democrats insist we must “rejoin” it. Now that Iran has clearly signaled their intent to wield a nuke and our sanctions have them on the ropes Democrats want to reimpose the JCPOA and throw Iran a lifeline.
Shorter comment -
This is not an argument, this is a war.
Yes, and with the diminished credibility and prestige of the prestige media, their most effective tactic is not to be found in what they cover. So many have already learned to discount or ignore their hot takes on today's issues, they publicly lament their decreasing power to shame people. Their most effective tactic is in what they ignore. Despite the fact that Althouse will dip her toes into the under news now and again, the topics that prestige media ignores don't get the traction they would with broader coverage. That's why Hillary is not in jail, Biden is the nominee and so much else that's obviously, terribly wrong persists: these our arbiters of the news willfully ignore things detrimental to their masters' agenda. That's why it is insufficient just to reform these organs of the prestige press. Like progressives do to any institution in which they gain a foothold, the opponents of our miserable media need to occupy it, gut it and then wear it's skin suit as a badge of honor. Fuck the respect part.
"The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt. US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period."
Freder isn't going to know that, because Freder gets his news from sources that hide that kind of information.
Sierra Club a decade or so ago did the research and came out with the sensible opinion that fracking and natural gas combined with nuclear power was the best option to provide a bridge to a truly clean energy future. Their members rebelled, cut off their funding to the point where they were forced to recant their heresy.
That’s because their members are mostly like R/V.
Althouse with her scalpel does some damage to the NYT, but it will take a lot of scalpels to carve up that old bitch. You could do this to just about every article they publish every day. And oh, what they don't investigate or publish is far meatier than the lies they tell.
" but then of course we couldn't compete with Canadian Timber.”
That’s what tariffs are for. Just because lefties love to talk about externalities, doesn’t mean that externalities don’t exist. Or maybe we could decide as a country that we want to subsidize the lumber industry because it brings in sufficient value to us as a society, but the money has to be found. These are not jobs that can be exported to China and Viet Nam either.
Easier to curse the climate than to clear the underbrush.
See there’s this big orange ball up in the sky that controls the temperature on Mother Earth. The big orange ball doesn’t care if you like it or not, it doesn’t “get angry“ it just keeps on radiating energy. We call it the sun.
I am waiting for Freder to head over to scholar.google.com to refute what I have written.
JKLOL, that’s only slightly more likely than the proverbial Selma Hayak BJ.
Field Marshall Freder: "Yet, as you admit in the very next paragraph, you tell us the fuel has been building up for a century. So what is it, since the Wilson/Coolidge administrations or Clinton?"
Annual harvests of timber from Federal lands was steadily increasing from 1950's thru the 1980's and then, suddenly, dipped in the early 90's.
Hmmmmm, I wonder what happened in the early 90's that might have led to change in how much timber/billions of Board Feet allowed by the Federal government?
Like terrorist acts against the west committed by islamic supremacists who hate the west and want to kill us all or make us submit to them as slaves, we may never know the answer to why it happened.
You want Climate Change? Smoke, from massive wild fires, circling the planet for weeks or months. That'll get ya some Climate Change. Git out and clear the underbrush!
Field Marshall Freder: "The proceeds from timber sales on Federal Lands is minimal."
The proceeds are in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year ($100M to $300M per year) and could easily be increased to cover additional costs.
I would strongly recommend Freder step back from the precipice overlooking Liars Gorge before he takes a full narrative tumble and never to be seen nor heard from again.
Hive Freder Frederson what he wants and return federally claimed land back to the states.
We all win!
Federalism.
Again, as I am trying to point out, logging, in and of itself, is not "forest management". But that is all Trump really cares about, exploiting the forests and pretending it is forest management.
It's a waste of time to try to refute Freder's lies, but...
Logging begins forest management and logging roads allow the beginning of underbrush control. If you can't get into the forest, nothing can be done. The Weyerhaouser company owns 11 million acres. No fires.
""The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis “
Fracking, which Biden wants to ban, unless you work in that industry and vote, then he wants you to think he doesn’t want to ban it, but we all know whom he is lying to, and it isn’t the whacko left base.
If you are looking for a solution that we can directly control and that has a relatively immediate impact, then forest management is the way to go. If you are looking for something that is extremely expensive to resolve, won't have any impact and requires a lot of government control over our lives, then emphasizing climate change is the way to go.
And I'm pretty sure it will get cooler. It's called winter.
The NYT should present the news in a cruelly neutral fashion. FIFY
"As Trump rejects science"!!!
Ah ah ah
The idea of auto-combustion in September as the epitome of science is... amazing.
Democrats are ready to believe anything.
Basically the way timber is priced by the Feds allows the companies to remove the trees at their cost.
Sounds like a good incentive policy by the Feds to get companies to manage the land while making some money. Now if only California would do the same for private lands.
The climate models don't match the measured climate. Almost all of them predict much faster warming than what's actually occurring. The models don't accurately model clouds, which require meter-size models. The climate models can only resolve down to kilometer-size precision.
The climate models assume constant solar input. The Sun is entering a Maunder minimum phase, with very few or no sunspots. That reduces solar radiation and magnetic fields. Lower magnetic fields means more cosmic rays and more clouds. Look for cooler temperatures, not warmer.
So far this year, we've been 70% spotless. Last year, we were 77% spotless. The new Cycle 25 solar cycle is taking its time to start. Only a few Cycle 25 sunspots have been seen. (https://spaceweather.com/)
tim in vermont: "Sierra Club a decade or so ago did the research and came out with the sensible opinion that fracking and natural gas combined with nuclear power was the best option to provide a bridge to a truly clean energy future. Their members rebelled, cut off their funding to the point where they were forced to recant their heresy.
That’s because their members are mostly like R/V."
This is absolutely true and has led a significant number of actual environmentalists to see what the "environmental" movement was really about: installing a socialist/marxist government.
Nothing else.
If you meet an idiot like r/v who claims to be an "environmentalist" who rejects nuclear power and natural gas as necessary core energy sources, then you can be certain you are speaking with a commie.
It really is just that simple.
The proceeds are in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year ($100M to $300M per year) and could easily be increased to cover additional costs.
The combined budget of the BLM and Forest Service (which manage 76% of Federal Forests) is about $6 billion a year. And that doesn't include the fire fighting budget of another $3 billion. So timber sales are roughly 10% of just the cost of fighting fighting fires.
For someone who continually berates me for not understanding economics, you seem to forget about supply and demand. Even if you ignore the power of the Timber lobby (and it is very powerful) and think Congress is willing and able to charge more for timber from Federal forests, more supply means lower market prices. So raising the price of timber from Federal lands could and would not be "easily" increased. If you look at this report, especially figure two, you will see that timber prices have been depressed for the last 20 years and have been declining for the last 40 years
Field Marshall Freder: "Yet, as you admit in the very next paragraph, you tell us the fuel has been building up for a century. So what is it, since the Wilson/Coolidge administrations or Clinton?"
Two different issues: wild fire suppression, and de facto ban on logging. Fire suppression was already at least a half century old when we shared that building in Fort Collins with the FS, some 35 years ago. One of the bigger EDP projects that we had to deal with were the Forest Service’s ForPlan resource planning models, and back then, often their biggest revenue source was timber sales. It was at the end of Clinton’s Administration, almost a decade and a half later, that timber sales were mostly effectively banned.
I was at the courthouse yesterday to tour in a jury questionnaire for my partner (I appear to be somewhat exempt so far, due to my profession). They had a display dedicated to Teddy Roosevelt, who hunted here (and almost died, after he fell off a cliff). He only got 3 mountain goats, though he had been hoping for sheep, black bear, elk, and moose. In any case, the display talked about his designating a large percentage of the National Forests. Apparently, the annual Ag bill that had passed Congress was going to open up federal lands to exploitation. He couldn’t afford, politically, to veto it. So, instead, he designated a huge expanse as what later became National Forests. And then signed the Ag bill sitting on his desk the next day. I expect that fire suppression started shortly after that. Interestingly, maybe even coincidentally, the last huge fire around here, that probably burned several thousand square miles of forest, was in 1901. It stopped maybe 5 miles west of here. A couple years ago, talked to a FS volunteer (who had taught at the HS here before retirement) who told a story of his grandmother, her sister, and their mother, hiding in the river that runs through here from that fire.
Freder: Like many others here, I read Trump's "It'll get cooler, you'll see" as "It's September; check back with me in three months." He might have also been trying to hint at cooler yearly peak temperatures (and there is some evidence for that), but on its face, what he said is transparently true.
Bruce Hayden, thanks for several excellent posts, especially 9:53. The crown fires terrify me, and as you say, they are not what the trees evolved to survive. Also, they move unbelievably fast in high winds; that's what blindsided us in OR. Right at the moment it's quiet and still, and no longer looks like the surface of Mars (though there's still a fine coating of ash over everything), but the air remains verging on actually toxic, and the rain that was projected for last night was moved to tonight (but not so far east as this), and more rationally to Thursday night. All we can do is stay inside and twiddle our thumbs.
I'm in Salem, btw, at least thirty miles from any actual fires, but you couldn't tell that from the view outside last Tuesday -- for all you could see, they might have been a half mile away.
“You want Climate Change? Smoke, from massive wild fires, circling the planet for weeks or months. That'll get ya some Climate Change. Git out and clear the underbrush!”
We are pretty sure that that does, for that period of time, actually cools the planet.
I, for one, am amused by freder's stylings.
She's so brave.
Most of the other trolls can't take the 150MPH wind of facts bending them backward, but Bravo for her, I guess.
The Weyerhaouser company owns 11 million acres. No fires.
I am a liar\?
Most (roughly 8 of the 11 million acres), Weyerhauser owns are in the eastern U.S., where forest fires are much less common.
Oh, and btw, the Federal Government owns 640 million acres of forest.
He also claimed that "it will get cooler", which indicates that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he is talking about and does indeed reject the idea of man made climate change out of hand. - Freder
It will get cooler, you stupid ass. And it will get hotter, too.
Just like it has for the last 4.6 billion fucking years.
"Another point is that ever since plants evolved, when CO2 was at about 3000 parts per million, an order of magnitude greater than today, and BTW, the planet did not become Venus, the plants have been tucking away CO2 underground, for eons, lowering the CO2 level close to the point where they would soon, in geologic terms, have used up so much of it that they would have starved themselves, and us with them, as well as most of the rest of life on earth, which would then be left as a snowball, maybe for the remainder of the history of the planet, since the CO2, as important to life as oxygen, was all locked away and unusable."
And it almost happened just 15,000 years or so. CO2 levels, based on proxies, dropped to 180 parts per billion. If it drops to 150 parts per billion or perhaps a little more than that even, then all of the green plants will die from a kind of suffocation, since the plants need CO2 in a parallel way to our need for oxygen.
It's a remarkably fortunate coincidence that mankind has arrived on the scene to pump CO2 from underground reservoirs just in the nick of time to save almost all life on earth.
Here's the link I screwed up.
You'd think someone from Louisiana would shut the fuck up about forest management on the West Coast and pay more attention to the two feet of rain he's about to have shoved down his throat.
Trump doesn’t believe in climate change, man made or otherwise. Because he is a stupid person with no understood of or respect for science. He mocks what his intellect can’t grasp.
Not counting the arsonists, here is California everything has to do with high pressure systems. If a "Four Corners" high sets up we get SE winds, subtropical moisture and lightning strikes. If one sets up over the Great Basin, we get strong NE Santa Ana winds and downed power lines. Any wind with an east component keeps the sea breeze at bay. Meaning, it gets hot.
Freder has persistence, I'll give him/her that. Lying can get tiresome but he shows not a moment of reflection.
Keep trying, Freder. There has to be a pony in there somewhere.
Of course, by their own illogic, Dems and their media pimps are “arsonist deniers,” “high wind deniers,” and “forest mismanagement deniers.” Any sane calculation can make a more direct connection to the fires of these three factors than can the wildest fabulism of the Chicken Littles connect “Climate Change” to them.
Freder here brings to mind the old Spanish proverb: “Many a man goes out for wool and comes back quite shorn."
Althouse’s references to NYT and WaPo are useful. On those rare occasions when a lefty agrees to try to discuss issues and not Trump, it is helpful to say you are not unfamiliar with those rags. For Instapundit readers the Hill and Politico are sometimes offered. I have yet to run into a lefty who is exposed to any non-lefty media except perhaps WSJ with a conservative editorial page.
Any such discussion is short lived when they discover you are familiar with their bullshit and have answers. They have no answers outside TDS.
Whatever happened to “I vote the issues, not the person.” LOL!
Most (roughly 8 of the 11 million acres), Weyerhauser owns are in the eastern U.S., where forest fires are much less common.
Hmm, wouldn't they be more common if indeed Climate Change was a critical cause for fires? I guess that's one more strike against the Climate Change Shibboleth.
Hmmmm. Why does climate change only start fires on the west coast? Mother Nature hates the west coast? Or is it just human hubris coupled with no common sense?
Biden uses “arsonist” without realizing how many arsonists are his followers burning down cities. When they’re not trying to asasinate cops.
AGW religion took a back seat to PANDEMIC religion. Feeling slighted, it’s adherents are on the march again, led by a foppish CA governor and the trusty NYT.
My question is why are CA democrat voters so stupid that they’ve turned their state over to these head up their ass mediocrities?
Predicted in 1994, when Clinton changed forest service policy on managing fire risk.
http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Interviews/1980-2006/19940400_Evergreen/Peterson_1994.pdf
the only climate (season) change rooted in science is axial precession with a cycle of about 27000 years.
It's my understanding that the Federal forest managers need to follow state law regarding controlled burns and that their hands have been tied.
The damn Spotted Owl is what's causing these fires.
This is a good article from Newsweek of all places about how environmentalists use things like the Endangered Species Act to stop logging, prescribed burns, and thinning. There's a graph that shows when logging almost stopped on the west coast due to a court order in 1991 that halted logging in national forests because they were allegedly prime spotted owl habitats.
https://www.newsweek.com/why-protecting-northern-spotted-owl-sparks-forest-fires-689546
The opposite of Miss freder.
wbfjrr2 said.
Biden uses “arsonist” without realizing how many arsonists are his followers burning down cities. When they’re not trying to asasinate cops.
--
That's it! Trump is a CLIMATE ASSASSIN! Engaging in CLIMATE VIOLENCE!
Freder Frederson said...
Check out The Epoch Times (a pro-Taiwan, conservative newspaper).
You do know that Epoch Times is an organ of Falun Gong
And China controls the NBA, Disney, etal.
Why so xenophobic freder?
When Biden looks guilty of accepting bribes, they accused Trump of accepting bribes, now that the Democrats seem to be allied with arsonists, they accuse Trump of being an “arsonist.” It’s their playbook, it works with people who live in their bubble, the blue pill types.
"Biden uses “arsonist” without realizing how many arsonists are his followers burning down cities.”
I should have included the above quote in my above post.
Again, as I am trying to point out, logging, in and of itself, is not "forest management". But that is all Trump really cares about, exploiting the forests and pretending it is forest management.
Which is by orders of magnitude greater than solutions offered by leftists.
Close as I have found is not sending my soup back to the kitchen. I'm a gamer, I'll give it a try.
Explotian, definition: Pursuing one of 4 available means to create wealth, Agriculture, mining, fishing, lumbering.
Third Coast,
I am not sure the Northern Spotted Owl has much, in the end, to do with this crisis. It did always strike me, though, that the barred owl is awfully similar to the Northern Spotted Owl, distinguishable mainly by small differences in size and plumage. We had a barred owl visit this place, just after we moved here, and to my admittedly inexperienced eyes the two species seemed identical.
Third Coast: And the sad irony is that the barred owl was responsible for the decreasing numbers of spotted owls, not logging.
If "climate change" is the main culprit, why do the fires stop at the Canadian border? I saw a Canadian agency's map of fires today, and it showed a total of eight fires across the entire country of Canada. If Biden is right, you'd expect to see British Columbia aflame just like Washington, Oregon and California. It isn't. So are the Canadians doing a better job of forestry management and clearing out the brush and undergrowth that fuels the fires in the U.S. Pacific coast? Or are they just lucky?
Freder Frederson said...
He also claimed that "it will get cooler", which indicates that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he is talking about and does indeed reject the idea of man made climate change out of hand.
He must be listening to Michael K, who assures us (although don't recall him mentioning it recently) that a significant cooling event is just around the corner.
It's called 'winter,' Freder. Happens every year.
Explotian, definition: Pursuing one of 4 available means to create wealth, Agriculture, mining, fishing, lumbering.
Freder thinks Trump is in the lumber business. Probably think he owns all businesses. And then there is that pile of gold that all rich people have.
Poor Freder.
What a great analogy from the overnight thread.
Global warming is the cause of forest fires. The solution is elimination of fossil fuels'
My basement is taking on water. Solution, reduce/eliminate rainfalls exceeding 1" per hour.
My solution was to put on new gutters, landscape so soil slopes away from the foundation, instituted mitigation protocols in my basement, to take away excess water, and keep basement floor dry, and reduce basement humidity. Result? A dry basement
The answer is controlling what I can do.
Forest maintenance is doable, elimination of fossil fuels will not reduce forest fires in the next 500 years. Do you want to manage forest fires, or not?
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