From the Washington Times, idiocy only bureaucrats could muster:
“Since man first rubbed a pair of sticks together to make a fire, we’ve gathered around a campfire to cook food, enjoy good company and bask in the warmth of the glowing embers. Now the green spoilsports in Southern California want to take that all way, sending beach ring fire pits the way of the caveman.The South Coast Air Quality Management District will decide this summer whether to order the removal of 850 bonfire pits from Los Angeles and Orange county beaches on the pretense that fire is bad for the environment. To support its position, the agency concocted a study concluding that an evening beach fire creates as much particulate matter pollution as a diesel truck driving 564 miles
Man’s taming of fire enabled him to cook his food, bring light to the darkness, make stronger tools and survive the harshest of winters. It’s the one discovery upon which all civilizations are built. The assault on bonfires, fireplaces and stoves undermines one of the cornerstones of society. It’s what happens when government gets big enough to snuff out man’s greatest achievement.”
EDITORIAL: California to ban fire – Washington Times
OMG, as much as one diesel truck driving 564 miles.
Lessee, its about 700 miles from the California-Oregon border on Interstate 5 to the beach in Orange County.
Why not simply turn back one Orange County bound diesel truck a day at the California border agricultural inspection station to achieve that goal?
Oh, wait, that would be stupid.
More here: http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_23274978/wood-fire-pits-could-pose-health-problems-beach
“Why not simply turn back one Orange County bound diesel truck a day at the California border agricultural inspection station to achieve that goal?
Oh, wait, that would be stupid.”
Stupid is as stupid does.
Why ban long-haul trucks altogether? Or better yet, tear up the freeways & go back to rail transport? Or mule trains? Too much methane? Then coastwise sailing vessels, as long as they’re not carrying dead trees from Oregon & Washington as in the bad old 19th century. The more people who starve & freeze to death, the better, right?
Wet blankets have long been a traditional firefighting tool.
As controlled beach side fires are bad, unchecked forest fires must be unprecedentedly bad.
California must fight these forest fires by air dropping these wet blankets onto them.
Parachutes are an unnecessary expense, save the air.
Not only will we have to go back to living in caves we won’t even be allowed to cook our food.
Perhaps we need to start culling bureaucrats, their numbers seem to be getting out of control.
To be fair, the article says that one fire has the same particulate emissions of one diesel truck traveling 564 miles. Presumably more than one of the 850-odd fire pits is used on any given evening.
That said, this does seem like a stupid restriction, but I also don’t live in an area with bad air quality (so YMMV). In fact, I just had my engagement party at a firepit on Ocean Beach here in San Francisco last weekend, which was a blast.
. . . . . . . “California wants to ban campfires … ”
Let’s just simplify this straightaway (cut to the chase as it were) … shall we?
. . . . . . . “California wants to ban fire”
There …
.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
You know how it goes 😉
It’ll be BBQ’s next.
Reblogged this on What Say you and commented:
(Face palm..) It seems next they will ban marathons, that CO2 from all those runners well it adds up about the same.
I reblogged this one Mr, Watts. This is so stupid my head hurt.
Damn! There goes my Moon Doggie lifetime membership!
In Australia you cannot have a barbeque in your own backyard because the smoke may bother your neighbours. That ‘s one of the many reasons why I left Australia 4 years ago. To me anyway this is a unliveable nanny society. Add to that the extreme stupidity of the climate thing in Australia and you ve got yourself a really dumbed down people such as Lewanski and co who are probably heroes down there haha.,. Ironically What were democracies (Australia up to maybe 1990) have now become goverment dictatorships and what were dictatorships (ie military) are now mostly bastions of individual right freedoms etc (ie South America and some USA states). Both Europe and Australia will see a downward trend in popularity and economies if they dont wise up soon.
Interesting. I am working hard on leaving right now!
The operative expression I read on a hometown visit in 1997 in the Charlotte Observer:
“Californians are like granola. What aren’t fruits and nuts are flakes….”
On the other hand, if we Californios want to ban fire, why not ban wildfires instead? Just sayin….
And this from the place where wildfires that consume vast tracts of land are a way of life.
It’s all about symbolism in the land of illusion. California : a place to laugh at, not to inhabit.
The anti-combustion brigade wants us all to sarvein the cold and dark.
Let CA start a new country is my suggestion, those that don’t want those rules can move.
As succintly stated recently, enviromentalism is all about, ‘planet before people.’
Great. More statistical deaths without any corpses, medical files or autopsies or actual clinical studies. Woohoo!
Statistics are now controlling our lives.
California is so far down the road to becoming a totalitarian state that there is no redeeming it short of armed revolution. It has ceased to have a republican form of goivernment, as guaranteed in the US Constitution, but of course der Fuehrer in the White House will think this is A-OK, since he wants to do the same to the US as a whole.
California’s electric rates are twice as much as in states with no “renewable” energy mandates. But of course the simple fact that all “renewable” energy sources (except hydroelectric) are actually dirtier than fossil fuels cannot be impressed upon the australopithecines who run California.
The dirty secrets of wind power:
1. Kills millions of birds including endangered California condors and whooping cranes, yet gets a free pass from ther EPA;
2. Despoils landscapes and destroys habitats;
3. Emits some nasty pollutants ( the chemicals used to operate the windmills);
4. Requires excessive o0peration of inefficient, high-emission fossil fuel genereation to “firm” – provide backup when the wind stops blowing – the power.
The dirty secrets of large-scale solar power:
1. Despoils landscapes and destroys habitats;
2. Emits some nasty pollutants (the chemicals used to manufacture the panels);
3. Requires excessive o0peration of inefficient, high-emission fossil fuel genereation to “firm” – provide backup when clouds obscure the sun, and at night – the power.
The dirty secrets of geothermal power:
1. Emits toxic heavy metals – mercury, lead, thallium, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, to name a few;
2. Poisons habitat for considerable distances around facilities.
The dirty secrets of electric cars:
1. Huge hazardous waste disposal problem for batteries;
2. Similar hazards in manufacturing the batteries;
3. Requires burning of more fossil fuels than are saved by driving them, in manufactguring them and recharging the batteries (“zero emissions” has to be one of the biggest lies ever told);
4. Can only be produced with heavy taxpayer subsidies, and they therefore transfer wealth from middle- and lower-income taxpayers to rich people – that’s wealth redistribution, all right, a la mode.
They can pry the barbecue tongs from my cold dead fingers.
Controlling US borders would help reduce wildfires much more than banning beach firepits:
Michelle Malkin and William Gheen join Neil Cavuto on Fox News to discuss the arrest of two immigrants suspected of arson in California during the historic fires.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE has a hold the prisoner Gorgonio Nava who was arrested for setting fires in Vista, CA. Nava has prior drug charges and is either an illegal alien or a case of revoked visa.
MALKIN Points out “San Diego is a Sanctuary City”
ICE Claims that another suspect, Catalino Pineda was in the country LEGALLY, however questions are being raised why Pineda’s legal status was not revoked when he was convicted for prior crimes.
Illegal Alien campfires have caused many forest fires and the Washington Times reports that the Drug and Alien smugglers are intentionally setting fires on the border in Arizona.
ALIPAC wants investigators to determine if there are any connections between smuggler fires, illegal aliens, failures of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the current disaster in California.
When the Border Patrol had to abandon the crossing point East of San Diego, illegal aliens cut the chains and a large group of illegals rushed into the US.
Were some of these fires originally distraction fires?
You can visit ALIPAC, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC and William Gheen on the web at
http://www.alipac.us
I’ve been trying to convince my congressmen to give California back to Mexico for a decade now.
The big problem is that Mexico doesn’t want it. They have enough problems right now.
Don’t say you didn’t see this coming.
March 15, 2013 – Bold added:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/15/local/la-me-aqmd-beach-fires-20130316
See, it makes perfect sense. The State of California knows the puffs from smoking on a public sidewalk can travel three blocks away and five stories up to where it will cause asthma in an infant in its crib. All public smoking is dangerous and makes everyone else sick as well.
And tobacco, wood, it’s all the same, plant matter, therefore it’s all harmful, should be banned, it will cause cancer. Ban it all, save lives.
Unless it’s marijuana, as the magical fog emitted by burning marijuana is as healthy as rainbow-colored unicorn farts. It is impossible for the mystical vapors to make anyone sick, and triply impossible for it to ever cause cancer.
Therefore the natural solution is obvious, and Californians love what is natural as it is always good. The fire pits may remain, provided they only burn bundles of leftover marijuana plant stalks and stems.
Also, as it says further down when it talks about ‘denying public access’ to this low-cost recreation:
I’m certain all those rich Californians in the expensive houses, won’t mind paying for the marijuana bundles for the fire pits. Don’t they already pay for marijuana for medical reasons? This is for the public health, same thing.
goodness gracious me. i wonder what their position on breaking wind in public is ?. Will future citizens be required to walk around with strategically placed bungs ?
Zeke Hausfather says:
May 24, 2013 at 10:11 am
“That said, this does seem like a stupid restriction, but I also don’t live in an area with bad air quality (so YMMV). In fact, I just had my engagement party at a firepit on Ocean Beach here in San Francisco last weekend, which was a blast.”
Congratulations on the engagement Zeke. Imagine how the “blast” would have been diminished without the fire. Time to start educating voters a bit on the implications of this kind of stuff – banishing fire pits is part of an incremental sort of tyranny. One aspect of big government is that when you give too many people a job, they have to do something, especially when you name the department something like “Department of CO2 Containment”. If they shut down the pits, I’ll volunteer for my turn in driving a diesel truck 500 miles a month to compensate.
This is a travesty. They should first ban hair spray, then ban commuting by CA EPA workers using anything other than bicycles, then ban deficit spending. Get the priorities straight!
Don’t you have night time land breeze down there blowing the smoke seaward ?
I grew up in So. California and enjoyed campfires at the beach with friends at both Corona del Mar and Huntington Beach. Huntington beach is in a wide open flat area and if you take the satellite view on Google Map you can see the fire pits on the beach. The area just inland from them is pretty flat. There is also a lot of parking at Huntington Beach as a result of the topography of the ground. The folks that live at Huntington Beach aren’t complaining about fire pits that I am aware of. At Corona del Mar where the complaint arose (according to a LA Times article), the beach with the fire pits sits at the bottom of a bluff so a lot of very expensive houses are located above and upwind of the fire pits. I can see how in this location, the smoke can rise up to the residences, particularly if there is a sea breeze as there often is later in the afternoon. The other thing Corona del Mar has little of is parking so I also suspect that many of the folks that come home after work in the summer probably find it difficult to park if they ever have to park on the street. Getting rid of of fire pits would solve both a smoke and a parking problem. I would not put it past the very well to do who live at Corona del Mar to use the fire pit smoke to create a smoke screen of sorts to force the poor riff-raff off their beach in the evenings.
I got my winds mixed up. The breeze at the Beach in California mostly blow from the ocean onto the shore so the homes are downwind.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District could buy a bunch of these
http://custom-fireplace.com/electric-fireplace/21.jpg
A slight redesign and connected to a battery and solar power charger would work well. Also, one would need a heating element for the burgers and marshmallows.
Guess the next best thing is to carry along an electric grill and a generator to the beaches then. Not as picturesque but it’ll do.
Robert of Ottawa said on May 24, 2013 at 10:28 am:
Of course not! You will have all the heat you need at night stored during the day in the stone walls and floors of your passive solar house.
And for lighting, just grow bioluminescent fungi on rotting sticks and logs. Move them around to where you need the light, and after the wood rots away you can use it in your all-organic garden.
Said garden could also be set up inside on those stone floors, at least part of the entire garden space you’ll need to survive. And did you know the interior of a properly decomposing manure/mulch pile can exceed 170°F? How much heat do you need to stay alive? You could heat a cup of water with temperatures like that. Having an indoor “composting heater” will also go well with the composting toilet that minimizes water use, necessary to make do with the rainwater gathered from the roof.
See, once you get used to living in a carefully-designed greenhouse, you will have warmth, light, and food. You will never have to burn anything ever. These people really want what’s best for you!
an evening beach fire creates as much particulate matter pollution as a diesel truck driving 564 miles
========
and to total morons…that sounds scary
Are these the same idiots that banned clearing of underbrush in California to save the envronment also? You know the ones who create an environment for enhanced large fires due to that dead underbrush being an accelerent. How much particulate matter did they calculate they caused by their rediculous ignorance. Frankly, I am suprised anyone with a brain still lives in California. Just moving to Florida from there is like getting a 20% pay raise due to the tax differences (even more if you own a small business). Let alone the loonies that canh only exist in such a misguided state.
Do the math Anthony, and I will put you up while you find a new residence in Florida.
No earthquakes either 🙂
Here are the emission rates for American heavy duty diesel trucks
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/420f08027.pdf
It seems highly improbable that a single fire pit could possibly create as much emissions as one of these large trucks driving hundreds of miles.
tonyb
California promotional videos contain false advertising? No way!
http://youtu.be/ZAwqumoO0Ds
see 0:21 seconds.
I guess my first clue it was BS should’ve been Kim Kardashian reading a Quantum Physics book, huh? In my defense, she’s otherwise distracting.
Karl W. Braun said on May 24, 2013 at 11:32 am:
Noise ordinances! People in expensive homes are trying to sleep!
However in place of a generator you could drive your Chevy Volt onto the beach and plug the grill into that. Because that’s California-approved Green-ness with no carbon emissions. Feel free to crank up the stereo.
“I just had my engagement party … .” [Zeke H.]
CONGRATULATIONS!
Best wishes for many, many years of joy!
I do despair of western civilisation. I am an Englishman, a proud Gloucester man. I love the countryside and the traditions of my rural roots. This story is so close to the jobsworth health and safety idiocy that has seen the Coopers Hill cheese roll effectively banned since 2009. How I hate the self appointed protectors of our safety. I hope that common sense prevails here, although I am not holding my breath.
These people are so colossally stupid it should be considered a crime for them to be allowed to work in government. At some point, when they have broken everything good in western civilization, people will cast these imbeciles into a deep hole from which they cannot escape. I for one will not be saddened. of course this assumes we even get the opportunity to engage this decision, at the current rate muslims will have us over run…lovely world that the libtards are building.
I say we burn all members of the South Coast Air Quality Management District at the stake – on the beach
“I grew up in So. California and enjoyed campfires at the beach … .” [Sean] Well, you may still be quite young, but… it looks to me like a clear case of those homeowners’ “coming to the nuisance.” No wonder they want Big Brother to help them clear the beach.
In Washington, beaches are (if I remember correctly) public land from mean low to mean high tide marks. If that is true in CA, anti-campfire-smoking ban is the only way to get them (the riffraff) off the beach.
Yeah, norvejun, the Pacific is so cold that the prevailing evening breezes are westerlies. Not that this is relevant (IMO), given that the complainers came after the long established historical practice of beach fires.
Watch what happens…their first position is to ban all beach fires. What they actually want is to control the fires by issuing a permit for a fee.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
As with the recent revelation that “CO2 makes your car hot”,
Teh stupid, it burns.
an evening beach fire creates as much particulate matter pollution as a diesel truck driving 564 miles
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Shows how clean trucks are.
Anthony: It well past time you left. California went nuts a long time ago.
I wish Nevada could sue California for their wildfires. The prevailing winds go east, so California doesn’t have to deal with hundreds of miles of brown and smoke filled sky like Nevada does when California is on fire. Our air quality in Reno when California burns is 10 times worse than I ever remember it was growing up in LA in the 70’s. Just one of those fires probably puts more “eeeeviillll” CO2 in the air than the entire state of Nevada does in 100 years.
California is the STUPID capitol of the world. That’s why we elect so may STUPID people to run our state.
As soon as the warmists started on about black/brown carbon this was always going to happen. B/B C is this years co2. Anyone with a log fire save up for the new tree tax. UK has gone mad for log burners, also burning trees in power stations, Doh.
Bob Diaz said on May 24, 2013 at 12:41 pm:
Anthony Watts for Chico city council!
Dilute the ill repute!
Sanity Now!
One of the areas of rationale for the smoke police is the supposed rash of COPD. Of course, no one would dare comment on the percentage of COPD that is self inflicted by cancer stick usage.
Pass the smokeless logs please
To Zeke Hausfather:
Congratulations on your engagement, sir.
What a pity that during our roughly 200,000 years using fire, we never developed a capacity to tolerate moderate smoke and particulate levels.
(/sarc, for the clueless)
Albert Einstein has helped me deal with some of the big questions over the years. Latterly i find myself resorting to the following quote more and more,”Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
Does anyone know exactly how much “particulate matter” a diesel truck puts out? Somehow, I suspect it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.
As an Australian I used to wonder why there were so many jokes about California.
I’m sorry John Howard is no longer our leader. He’d send our SAS to liberate California from its version of the Taliban.
Why don’t they just come clean and admit they just want to turn the entire state into a country club?
Better idea, ban the wacky baccy the Greens are growing in their backyards. Doubly good for the environment as will stop them releasing all that polluting smoke, and will stop them coming up with such crazy ideas.
The bonfire gets lit using a few trowels of coal from the BBQ, which are carefully placed inside the teepee of wood. Up it goes and pretty soon half of the crowd – the fire people – drag their garden chairs towards it and form a semicircle, settling in and getting good position around the fire. They’ll spend the evening, and some of them the whole night, feeding pallets to the fire, watching them burning, sipping their drinks and talking. They take turns for each other doing booze resupply runs to the kitchen, where cans, bottles and wine boxes are all piled up on every flat surface, including the floor.
Over the years, they’ve learnt to feed it one pallet at a time, rather than in the bad old days when they stacked them five deep, producing a towering inferno of such epic proportions, it could easily have been mistaken by a satellite for what those NORAD guys under Cheyenne mountain call a launch bloom.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/birthday-bash/
Pointman
TonyG,
The answer about how bad is diesel truck particulate matter is basically this: If you have a room filled with particulates to the point where they completely displace all air in the room, any people in this room will suffocate. From this, we find an approximation of the point at which the pollution is 100% fatal. If all the people of CA were in that room, they’d all die. Now, draw a line from this concentration down to zero concentration and assume this linear relationship exists, between zero fatalities at zero concentration and the entire population at 100% concentration.
Now, the smoke from every diesel truck in CA would still be very close to the zero point of this graph and probably wouldn’t hurt anybody. But, if you take that extremely small concentration and find the number at the axis of your graph corresponding to that concentration and multiply that number by the entire population of CA, you get a non-zero number of fatalities from the smoke. Fictitious, but non-zero. We must, therefore, ban all particulate producing activities.
So.. the Los Angelus marathon… if we count the number who completed it in 2013 (22,361 finishers), @150 grams of CO2 per runner per mile(26.2) miles it is the SAME as 1318 (give or take a few) campfires.
Clearly it we should ban marathons……
Oh good God…
One of the reasons I live so close to the beach in Orange County is because we never, ever have any smog. We’re next to the freaking Pacific ocean! I can count on one hand the days where the air was anything less then perfect, and they were all due to raging fires in LA or in nearby wilderness areas.
Thanks a lot AQM. Thank you from saving me from that horrible beach fire smoke which is dispersed by air moving in from the largest ocean on Earth. I don’t know what I would do without you AQM, you raving idiots.
*Los Angeles.. In my defense spell check said it was right…. and I didn’t have a teleprompter.
564 miles eh? Not 563 or 565?
It has invariably been my experience that excessive precision in such results is a sure sign they are plucked out of thin air.
As most people should be able to figure out, this has nothing to do with the health effects of a little bit of smoke and everything to do with a bunch of wealthy people with connected friends that don’t want a bunch of riffraff hanging around “their” beach at night.
Elizabeth says:
May 24, 2013 at 10:24 am
In Australia you cannot have a barbeque in your own backyard because the smoke may bother your neighbours. That ‘s one of the many reasons why I left Australia 4 years ago.
Pray tell, where did you go that you determined was ‘better’ Elisabeth?
Now, who exactly number themselves amongst the august ‘South Coast Air Quality Management District’? Who are the elected(?) members of the committee that make this decision? What are their names? Where do they live?
Ensure these individuals own the decisions they make. Citing ‘them’ as ‘THEY’ merely releases ‘them’ from the painful hook of responsibility and ownership well associated with leadership BUT NOT WITH BUREAUCRACY. The impersonal anonymous safe world of ‘they’ is NOT an option for these toxic, humanity eroding Green clowns.
Increment by increment, the leftists are progressing towards their socialist green utopia. They are winning and we are losing.
Hey, ya know what? I haven’t received a WUWT “New Post” in my Inbox since 0956 today. I think A-th-y was serious!
Have a great weekend (life?), A-th-y, wherever you are!
The greenies are like a plague of locusts who, while not actually killing ‘real’ people, ‘sting’ them with all these anti-human restrictions, and all the while not wanting the harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree. Ref…Rev.9:4
People that get these positions overseeing this kind of regulation are all the types who went to college not to learn but to prove they were smarter than everyone else and lord it over others. In short they’re killjoys.
Further to my last comment, the Air Quality Management Plan Advisory Group – 2015 AQMP contains all the usual culprits, a real MOWEK (Ministry of We Know Best) available individually for direct contact from details supplied in the provided link:
Current AQMP Advisory Group Members (PDF, 332k).
http://www.aqmd.gov/gb_comit/aqmpadvgrp/aqmpadvgrp.html
The individual members of the AQMD Governing Board may be found here: http://www.aqmd.gov/hb/gb.html
Who cares what the Californians do to themselves.. Its their State and if they want to gather around a solar powered light bulb let them..
Here in Ontario we have fire bans when its to dry (smart) and have to gather around a stinking light bulb.. It sucks, everybody is in bed by 10.. After a week of that I have no desire to ever go to the trouble and expense of camping again..
Fire + booze + good conversation = fun
its one of the few practices where young and old can sit down and bond.. A common practice that brings us closer together.. Its no wonder the big government leftists want to do away with it..
A crying shame they have to power to do so..
For those of you who are ready to leave California over the banning of beach fires….
FWIW…My Great Grandfather arrived in Sacramento in the fall of 1849. My Grandparents met in a stage coach stop which is now the Washoe House restaurant at 2840 Stony Point Rd, Petaluma. My parents met in the old Santa Rosa Hotel, which was destroyed in the 1964 earthquake. The point is that my family had a lot of time invested in California, nevertheless…
We left the Evil Empire (California) just after Gray Davis was elected. I refuse to contribute my tax dollars to a state of fools who would elect Boxer, Feinstein, and Davis. We now run a half-way house here in Texas for refugees from California. It requires serious re-education, somewhat akin to recovering children from a cult, but it is doable. When I meet a California refugees, they are shocked to find out that Texas is SO liberal that not only Blacks, Jews, and Hispanics can own a belt fed machine gun, but even lesbians! In the fascist city of San Francisco lesbians are prohibited from owning them. Imagine a place where the money you earn is YOURS and not only are you allowed to have the means of your own defense, but it is encouraged! (Only part of the above is hyperbole!)
By way of an example, one of the more beloved state wide elected officials is the Land Commissioner, Jerry Patterson. He handily won his last election. Here is one of his radio commercials:
And here is our Governor at the NRA Convention is Houston.
And if you want a real hoot, here is a Judge from New York, Janine Pirro.
Hey All Y’all (that’s plural)! When you can no longer stand the insanity of California, come on down and visit us in Texas. We can shoot guns, drink beer, eat BBQ, and go to a good bible thumping Baptist church service! All the things that you people on the coasts believe us Red Necks in fly-over country do. After all, the movie Deliverance is a docudrama on what southern people are like isn’t it??
(If you are a liberal, please stay in California. See the video clips above: you will not be happy here. Besides, you are the ones who made California the way it is. Stay there.)
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
How very very sad!
About contemporary politics, as a son of Steinbeck’s California; I was asked to read WW-II war-poetry at our Memorial Day observance. On an isolated and rural Island (N45.3715, W86.9028) of ~700 Scandinavians it is a BIG deal, the opening volley of our tourist season.
I wanted to read from the other point of view, of the defeated and desolate, from a German Christian Lutheran soldier. Martin Niemöller (“First they came…”) was an obvious consideration, along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, founders of the Confessing Church with significant poetry. It was too high brow and Bonhoeffer’s too difficult to get.
I selected (atheist, disaffected communist, anti-nazi Norwegian) Ole Peter Arnulf Øverland’s “Du må ikke sove” (“Dare not to sleep!”) that includes “Du må ikke tåle så inderlig vel den urett som ikke rammer deg selv!” (“You cannot permit it! You dare not, at all. Accepting that outrage on all else may fall!”), and ends “Jeg tenkte: Nu er det noget som hender. Vår tid er forbi – Europa brenner” (“I weighed: Something is imminent – and it’s dire Our era is over — Europe’s on fire!”)
Our era is over — California burns.
ossqs from in Florida,
Tell me, my good man, where is there a beach in Florida where one can camp overnight? Took my teenaged son down there about 20 yrs ago, drove from Miami to Jacksonville, and couldn’t find a one. Wound up renting a motel room in Jacksonville to get some sleep after driving all night. California isn’t the only state that favors the priviledged.
Final scene of film, “Hothell California.””
The wealthy politicians are sitting about drinking scotch late at night, chortling in a million-dollar living room with fireplaces holding blazing logs on all four walls, congratulating themselves on having successfully banned toasted marshmallows for the rabble’s children, when the butler comes rushing into the room. “Sirs! Sirs!” he cries, “Look out the window!”
They look, and Mayor Bigfist Buffoon growls, “Who has lit all those bonfires? Don’t they know it is against my laws?”
The butler cries out, “It is not bonfires, Sir. It is the rabble coming, all carrying torches!”
(Improbable? Google the Romanian dictator, “Nicolae Ceaușescu.”)
i.e. They were looking for a “problem” in order to regulate something. Because, it seems, it’s not the purpose of government to serve the people, but to regulate their activity; ostensibly in order to keep them “safe”.
Parking lots near the beach … many people live there? And in the residential areas,, the PEAKS were 3 times higher than “typical background levels”. Typical of what? How long did the peak levels persist?
Did they get an elephant stamp on their report for that “discovery”?
So despite there being no evidence of harm, they will keep looking for a reason to regulate.
“Juan slayton says:
May 24, 2013 at 6:20 pm
ossqs from in Florida,
Tell me, my good man, where is there a beach in Florida where one can camp overnight? ”
Head South young man 🙂
http://www.tampabay.com/features/travel/florida/the-top-10-beach-camping-spots-in-florida/1006630
We had better watch our comments here or this website will be monitored by Big Brother and we might get visits from the FBI or the homeland security gestapo.
OssQss says:
Head South young man 🙂
Got it, and thanks. We’ll preplan our itinerary next time.
: > )
Another way to phrase this is: a diesel truck can drive over 500 miles and only emit as much particulate matter is a campfire.
Meanwhile, speaking of fires, elsewhere in California they have thought up THIS terrific wheeze:
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/fema-plans-clear-cutting-85000-berkeley-and-oakland-trees
Really intelligent people in those CA universities, what what? And if the tons of wood chips drying out in the heat of a California summer don’t catch fire and fry you, you might live long enough to experience the poisoning of the water table from all those gazillions of gallons of Roundup
Nice one, Robert Wille (at 7:10PM).
Aaaand an old VW “hippy van” or Volvo or Subaru (for some reason, these last two are favored by the enviro-nahtsees who can’t afford Holy Cars) can drive 5 miles and emit as much particulate matter as 500 18-wheelers. LOL.
Sam, that is really creepy. I just read up a little on it at the Berkley “Daily Planet” (my computer is till in shock, heh, heh). Apparently, a radical, religiously-devoted-to-“native”-species, ecology group is using FEMA funds (using the ruse, it appears, of saying it is to prevent fires — not mentioning, of course, that it will also promote landslides) to obliterate the non-“native” species on the bare CHANCE that native trees will be what ends up growing there. It sounds very odd. Part of the picture (for me) is definitely missing. Homeland Security (FEMA Div.) funding tree purification?
As to the Round-up, that’s kind of weird, too. There are other alternatives. I would sprinkle Casaron granules around, myself, and use Crossbow on existing bushy plants. I have used Crossbow for years to kill blackberry vines (I tell you, Sam, they would take over the world if you let them!). It is a systemic, so, it just stays inside the plant. And, no, I don’t like watching the blackberry plant droop and then shrivel and die (I’m waaay too anthropomorphic at times, I’m sure), but it must be done. The small amount that ends up in the soil is completely cleansed before reaching the water table (in my common sense opinion).
Here we are, over $16 TRILLION in debt and the Dopebama administration uses Chinese loan funds to do something like this.
I like the smell of a weiner roast fire.
Burning diesel? Not so much.
Of course, one cooks a meal, the other feeds an entire block for a week.
I wouldn’t expect any bureaucrat from California to know the difference.
Shall We Gather at the state house
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of Moonbeam?
Yes, we’ll gather at the state house,
The beautiful, the beautiful fruit cake house;
Gather with the saints at the state house
That flows by the throne of MOONBEAM.
On the margin of the Sacramento river,
Washing up its silver spray,
We will talk and worship ever,
All the happy DINGBAT DEMOCRAP golden day.
So, really, how do you quantify how much energy is actually released at a given campfire?
Is that not profiling, in the end, by Cali standards ?
Just sayin!
Think about it >
Elizabeth says:
May 24, 2013 at 10:24 am
In Australia you cannot have a barbeque in your own backyard because the smoke may bother your neighbours. That ‘s one of the many reasons why I left Australia 4 years ago.
—————————————————–
Bit of an exaggeration, Elizabeth. Rules about backyard smoke are the province of local councils, of which there are thousands – and they vary widely.
Rest assured that the backyard barbie is far from extinct. It is true that many councils frown on smoky wood-fired barbeques in suburban areas. But since most people use non-smoky barbeque techniques anyway (such as pellets or gas), and councils outside heavily populated areas either don’t have restrictions or can’t enforce them, it’s not that dire.
As for beach fires, as Phil Jourdan pointed out, it’s just as well that all of those teen movies set around the California beach culture were made. Our children won’t know what it is to be Gidget or Moondoggie. ; ) And have they asked themselves – what would the Beach Boys do?
Seriously, if this goes ahead, it will be another step on the road of California moving from being one of the most freewheeling States in the US – which is why the movie industry started there – to the most straightlaced and restrictive. Such a pity, it’s very beautiful and has a great climate. But it seems that this lot won’t stop until the California Girls are wearing corsets and bustles.
Yeah, Rocky Road (LOVE that flavor!), campfires are part of some of my happiest memories. And OF COURSE, the Demonocrats would want to take that away from kids. Kids like these (Hey, we should have a “Goofy” thread! — For the big kids on WUWT…as I’ve said before, I’m a perpetual 10-year-old in a disguise that gets better every year… [:)] ):
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Ze9T40gqg?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360%5D
Environmentalism and sustainable have always been coded keywords for “No you can’t” thought control police.
It’s all about controlling others, controlling individual freedom, extorting money before you care allowed to do anything. The majority of the population are decent people who know how to look after the environment, we don’t need greenfleecers telling us what to do and destroying the very soul of human spirit. Pack of envirokunts, the lot of them.
A better (I hope) link to campfire scene above.
Sorry for above link to campfire scene having a stupid preview in it.
Hey, OssQss, I copied the wrong link above because I thought “copy embed code” would make the YouTube control box appear (displaying the first frame of the video clip) — I can’t remember how to make that happen (something about taking out a “[” and adding a char or two, and another “]”???
I’d sure like to do what you do with video clips — that is, make the video, not just the link appear in the post. Thanks, if you have time to help me!!
Hey! It worked! #[:)]
Hummm, a campfire scene. My apologies, but metaphors abound!
Just copy the URL Janice 😉
Of course any pollution excuse for banning fires on the beach is a ridiculous bureaucratic invention of “work expands to fill the time available” law..
Nevertheless, in a country where fires are devastating and can destroy huge tracts of virgin forest and orchards, reason and organized society rules must be imposed.
Are there statistics of how often California fires start from the beach?
In Greece, if you go to the country side from the months of October to April you will often see large columns of smoke rising from the olive groves and other orchards. Traditionally, after picking the fruit and trimming the trees for the year the useless leaves and small branches are burned, which also burns parasite eggs and keeps the orchards healthier.
If you were living in Greece you would know that terrible fires that last for days have started from small, stupid actions of people like burning dry grass in their yard, or using an electric solder next to dry grass etc. There is a complete ban on open fires in Greece from May 1st to October 1st , the time when the wild grass is dry and fire can spread like a line of dynamite to reach the pine trees and olive trees. Nobody is complaining because everybody has been close to a stupid fire started by an old woman burning leaves in her yard.
Are fires eliminated? No, but certainly their frequency will be smaller and proportional to the stupidity of people. who ignore the laws.
Example: some years ago before the ban on fires and using large scale electric soldering, my neighbor at the summer cottage called two workmen to repair her iron fence. Sparks from the works fell on dry grass next to the work and the wind whipped up a fire that would have gone out of control if all the workmen in the area had not rushed a head of it with shovels etc and cut it off at the head of the hill. My aged aunt and cousins and I were wetting our fence , had we not done it , we would have burnt. Two years a go a huge fire in an Athens suburb started in a similar way and was not contained. One cannot outlaw stupidity.
Incidentally, after the fact I learned that the workmen in our area rushed and stopped the fire because they knew the fisherman behind the hill had hidden stores of dynamite ( they use it to illegally fish, but that is another story) and the whole hill would have gone up if the fire had reached it.
So I am trying to say that banning fires in dry grass season is a good measure where fire is a hazard. Now California, in contrast to Greece, has huge beaches and it is reasonable to think that well protected from wind barbecue areas would be logically safe enough.
[Addendum to US/UK readers: The 3 English technical terms “solder weld braze” all translate into the single Spanish word “soldar” (in all of its various verb and noun forms). Likely the same for their Greek translation: “συγκόλλησης συγκόλληση συγκόλλησης” but the mods cannot read Greek. Mod. ]
anna v – we have total fire bans (issued on a daily basis) in Australia as well, for reasons such as you have described. These have almost universal public support, and any idiot who lights a fire when the temperature is 35C with hot dry winds and plenty of tinder is quickly reported by anyone who spots it.
Banning beach fires is just nuts, and has nothing to do with public safety. It is hard to imagine a safer place to have a fire than on a beach.
johanna says:
May 24, 2013 at 8:14 pm
“ … which is why the movie industry started there – ”
Actually you seem to be rewriting history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_industry#History
anna v & johanna
The question is about “ the removal of 850 bonfire pits from Los Angeles and Orange county beaches” [stated at the top of this post]
See what a fire pit looks like:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rings-344243-fire-beach.html
Hi, Anna,
Thanks for sharing your experiences. You certainly write English well for one who likely has Greek as her first language. In this case, the beach campfires are not at all likely to start another, bigger, fire. It would be more likely that a dope smoking hippy would start a wildfire by tossing their little joint out their VW “magic” bus window as they drove along the road.
You do make good points about fire safety, though. There are already burn ban laws on the books that make it illegal to have campfires during dry times where they could cause forest or grass fires. Another type of burn ban that is temporarily declared by the state (well, at least that’s the way it is up here in Washington State) when air quality is poor (usually due to lack of air flow making the air stagnant). Those bans are usually during colder, wetter, months. Only people with wood heat as their “primary heating source” can have burn piles outside or fires in their wood stoves or fireplaces during stagnant air times.
Sorry to go on so long, but, I wanted to acknowledge your thoughtful post. This site is wonderful for learning science (which is, of course its purpose — discussing science!), but not so good for other “conversation” (which is not its purpose, as I stated). I’m just learning (I’ve been coming here for about a month, now) to assume that what I wrote was read by at least a person or two and let go of the need for acknowledgement.
Take care, Anna.
Enjoy WUWT and keep on posting!
Janice
Thanks, OssQss. [%/]
Oh, and, thanks for sharing that revolting video (you are definitely a guy, aren’t you!). [:)] Well, if you can put up with my sentimentality, I can put up with your gross-factor stuff. Vive la difference.
******************
Hey, John Hultquist — how are your blueberry bushes doing? Another couple of months until berry season! Yum. Hope your crop is all you wished it to be.
Oh, brother! Well, Anna, as you can see, my English is not always that great. Grrr. Correction: (I’m skipping the grammar error in an earlier sentence) even people with wood heat as their primary heating source cannot have outdoor burn piles during a burn ban.
“Perhaps we need to start culling bureaucrats, their numbers seem to be getting out of control.”
Roast of bureaucrat prepared on an open fire on the beach sounds like what we need.
John F. – perhaps my comment about the movie industry was a bit condensed. My point was that while the staged entertainment industry was overwhelmingly concentrated in the east – principally in New York – LA offered cheap, unregulated land, minimal intervention by way of censorship, lots of free location sites nearby, no unions and plenty of sunshine for daytime shoots.
The only one of those comparative advantages that is left is the sunshine.
I vow that for the next year i won’t use a bonfire pit. That means I should be able to offset 205,860 truck miles in green credits. I further guarantee not to drive a truck 564 mile per day for the next year. That doubles my green credit. I’m feeling good, I’m feeling green so I can now turn up my central heating 1 deg without feeling any guilt because it’s still fracking freezing here in the UK as flaming June approaches.
To Zeke H.
Congrats on your engagement. Coming soon, the longest sentence in the English
language – “I DO”. lol
OK, this is totally off topic.. but sort of relevant to the climate stuff….
A daddy polar bear and a baby polar bear were walking across the ice and the baby polar bear said to the daddy polar bear, ”Dad am i a polar bear?,
”yes” said the daddy polar bear, “you are”.
After a while the baby polar bear asked again, “Dad am I really a polar bear?”
and the daddy polar bear said, “yes you really are a polar bear,why do you ask?”
and the baby polar bear said………..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
“because i’m b***dy freeezing.”
Sorry, but the thought of adding charcoal from fires to pristine white or yellow sands, does not appeal to me. ! 🙁
“Coming soon, the longest sentence in the English language ”
But fortunately, there are ways of putting a full stop on the end !!!
I remeber at Stockton beach, the guys have a pit dug near the surf house, (quite a few Islanders over there)
Long cooked meat in a buried pit.. YUMMY for the tummy ! 🙂
A truck traveling that far will emit six ounces of particulate matter according to government studies. 6 oz. spread over 500 plus miles! Campfires are safe!
Zeke,
Remember, ‘marriage’ is not just a word. It is also a sentence.☺
564 diesel truck miles? I’m confused. How many Hiroshima bombs does that amount to??
I learned from these bureaucrats that one need not be a “rocket scientist” to be a freedom killing, control mongering despot.
[snip – over the top – mod]
Past time to leave Anthony. You would be welcome in Idaho. We need more sensible people to balance the nuts and flakes who have moved in already.
Hey, if fatcat rock stars on Silly Silly Island (aka Salt Spring Island) can rail against dioxins from the pulp mill at Crofton BC, California can ban campfires that spew dioxin from burning salt-laden wood.
/sarc
“Why not simply turn back one Orange County bound diesel truck a day at the California border agricultural inspection station to achieve that goal?”
Those California DOT DUDES at the port of entry already shut extra trucks down for 10 hours and fine them $600+ for any log book violation. The CHP raised the fines (taxations) for everything in 2011 because Cali is broke and they need the revenue. Watt-n-‘ell is the matter with you? Don’t give them any encouragement or ideers!!!
“Oh, wait, that would be stupid.”
As referred to, say, going through the immense trouble of finding a job in a different state, packing up, moving, finding a new location, and all the hassle and expense that goes along with it — and all because they don’t allow beach fires so it’s “Time to leave”, according to Mr. Watts.
Yeah, that makes sense.
REPLY: walk a mile in my shoes as an overregulated, overtaxed business and homeowner, and then you can judge what is best for me and for my business. -Anthony
[deleted original OTT comment by “andor” – plus subsequent comments- sorry – mod]
Perhaps the green dream-o-crats in California were “inspired” by the recent exhortations of activist-diplomat-activist, John Ashton, to the U.K. Met Office – a “jewel in the crown, of British science and global science” – in which he had thundered:
Dear Ms. Ostrov, you do such fine research!
Well, that particular “jewel in the crown” Elizabeth R would, no doubt, prefer to replace as it is rather DULL.
I thought British schoolboys at such schools as a JITC would attend were fairly familiar with Greek mythology. Apparently not. Humans did not steal fire from heaven, Prometheus “went up to heaven and lighted his torch at the chariot of the sun and brought down fire to man.” [Bulfinch’s Age of Fable or Beauties of Mythology, p. 20 in 1898 David McKay edition]
“With the gift of fire came man’s dominion over the earth. … fire enabled man to forge weapons … warm[] his dwelling, and thus become an inhabitant of every clime … introduced the arts, coined money, and brought about the possibilities of trade.” [Ibid. at 21]
Hm. Seems to be a parallel in there somewhere… . #[:)]
**********************************************************
A quote to encourage you, Hilary Ostrov, and ALL THE WUWT scholars (you ARE WINNING!):
“Therefore, great heart[s], bear up! You are but type
Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain
Would win men back to strength and peace through love [of truth].”
[Lowell’s “Prometheus”]
[deleted original OTT comment by “andor” – plus subsequent comments- sorry – mod]
Janice Moore says:
May 24, 2013 at 9:49 pm
Thanks, OssQss. [%/]
Oh, and, thanks for sharing that revolting video (you are definitely a guy, aren’t you!). [:)] Well, if you can put up with my sentimentality, I can put up with your gross-factor stuff. Vive la difference.
__________________________________________________________________________
Your quite welcome.
Sorry, but this post provided a path for the “Land of the Lost” association with respect to California and those who suck the life out of,,,,,, well, life ……
After all, it is such there and in the end and we are not the Borg yet 🙂
Be well !
Rather than move can’t we all pitch in to create a new place for these ‘enlightened’ people (so enlightened they will catch fire). Then pay them to move there and leave the ‘ordinary folks alone. I mean those of us blessed with common sense!!!
Reminds me of one local council (Frankston?) in Melbourne that wanted to ban the digging of holes at their beach.
I could imagine the howls of disgust if a 3 year old gets dragged to the juve-cube.
Frankston council also started a ban on smoking in all public areas. I made a point of parking my arse outside the council office and lighting up while I read the paper. They were too gutless to arrest me, let alone have anyone come out and give me a finger-wagging.
[deleted original OTT comment by “andor” – plus subsequent comments- sorry – mod]
——————————————–
Just in case some ideologue like Lewandowsky comes along later and claims that nobody batted an eyelid – most readers would just roll their eyes, but for the record:
As a long-term reader of WUWT (at least 7 years) Anthony Watts has never made, or even implied, a racist comment.
If any such comments were posted, they were quickly deleted under the site’s editorial policy.
Please crawl back under your rock.
“I made a point of parking my arse outside the council office and lighting up while I read the paper.”
LOL, Mr. Koenders, way — to — go! {[8/]-[]–<
Heh, heh, they probably thought you were a private detective and each imagined you were there about his or her particular transgression. [sound of nervous whistling – "whoo, hoo, hoo, hoooo, hmmm — I'll just pretend I don't see him and….. go out the back entrance!"]
************
Ya know, I never got hooked on nicotine (whew!), but I am COMPLETELY in support of liberty. If a smoker isn't essentially forcing others to join them (in an enclosed public space), that is their CHOICE to light up. Now, in the Socialist State of Washington, people can't even smoke in PRIVATELY OWNED restaurants or bars! Only on Indian-owned land — hence, the casinos are popular esp. with smokers.
Dear moderator, thanks for the work you are putting to have this blog work well
You said
[Addendum to US/UK readers: The 3 English technical terms “solder weld braze” all translate into the single Spanish word “soldar” (in all of its various verb and noun forms). Likely the same for their Greek translation: “συγκόλλησης συγκόλληση συγκόλλησης” but the mods cannot read Greek. Mod. ]
We do have a word for it in Greek, I had not been using a dictionary and my little gray cells are not up to what they were 🙂 . It is “ηλεκτροσυγκολληση” . “Braze” is a new word for me. Will be useful for scrabble.
Mod(s): good that you deleted OT comment by “andor” on immigration but you should also delete immigration comment by “milodonharlani”.
Janice Moore:
I agree with right to smoke provided it does not cause objectively measurable significant harm to others.
There is a problem with jerks who throw their cigarette butss on the ground where they may start grass fires.
In View Royal BC they even started fires in bark mulch in the fancy median of a rebuilt street.
My observations suggest that those jerks behave dangerously to others in many ways, including speeding through playground zones.
There are good reasons for banning beach fires. Here in SF, large groups of partygoers gather, start fires, drink excessively into the late hours, and there are crimes like assault and rape. The fires are odiferous and nasty, and affect large areas of the neighborhood next to the beach. The carbon grains of the fires disperse on the beach, and turn what was beautiful white sands into dirty black. The next day, the beaches are strewn with paper, junk, and bottles from these slobs. Seabirds and the environment are impacted by this behavior. Sea gulls are found with plastic rings around their necks, waves are littered with debris which is consumed by seals, and plovers are being driven to extinction. The fire debris is also bad – sometimes it is covered with sand, and later strollers burnt when they walk across these concealed pits. There have been several cases of babies being burnt when parents let them crawl about over what they think is a safe environment. In short, there are excellent reasons for banning beach fires…
I believe in freedom. But, I’m starting to think anybody who wants to move to my state from California should have to prove he or she wasn’t voting democrat back in California. Sicknesses like that of Californians need to be contained.
“[deleted original OTT comment by “andor” – plus subsequent comments- sorry – mod]”
Thank you for communicating that O Mod. [:)]
That’s good.
Insanity. The particulate number is completely contrived.
564 miles, assuming 4 mpg, is 141 gallons of diesel. That would produce soot perhaps 200 times that of a standard 3′ campfire.