Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – Governor Jerry Brown of California thinks coming climate disasters will convert even the “worst” skeptics in five years, though in a surprisingly moderate interview (for Brown) he also admitted that forest management might be playing a part in California’s wildfires.
Source: Breitbart and CBS Face The Nation
Note: the five year quote is at the end of the video clip above
A few months ago, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke fired a broadside at green obstructionism, blaming green activists for stopping logging and other active forest intervention, which led to a rise in fuel load and the severity of forest fires.
… Third, and most important, the active management of our forests will save lives. The Carr Fire in northern California has already claimed half a dozen lives, and the Ferguson Fire has taken the lives of two firefighters. Sadly, these are not the only wildfire casualties this year.
Every year we watch our forests burn, and every year there is a call for action. Yet, when action comes, and we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods. …
Even if you believe climate change is contributing to the fires, better forest management will save lives. If there is nothing to burn, there can be no fire. Proper firebreaks, tree thinning and access roads should be enough, but chopping down entire forests is always an option, for areas where access roads and firebreaks do not provide sufficient protection. Human lives are more important than trees.
At the very least clear the trees away from houses in vulnerable areas. Every picture of Paradise, California I’ve seen to date shows the remains of giant trees right next to burned out buildings. This is madness.
We learned this lesson the hard way in Australia. Let us hope US government agencies take action before more lives are lost.
I agree that forest management is a problem, and I also think that a number of skeptics will (perhaps slowly) be won over to the notions that CO2 is warming the planet and causing increasing damage. For example,
“Opinions regarding climate change in North Carolina have shifted among Republicans following Hurricane Florence, with 37 percent now saying global warming is “very likely” to impact the state’s coastal communities in the next 50 years, compared to 13 percent who felt that way in 2017…”
Read Newsmax: Poll: NC Republicans Shift Thinking on Climate Change After Florence | Newsmax.com
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/climate-change-north-carolina-florence-republicans/2018/10/18/id/886999/
Just as Republican political sentiment is shifting on Obamacare, as more people decide they like having health care, and not paying through the nose if the have pre-existing conditions, I think that will happen with global warming/climate change as well. Maybe not in 5 years.
Most climate skeptics don’t have a problem with zero carbon power, we’ve been puzzled for ages why most greens are anti-nuclear. France proved in the 1970s you can switch your economy to nuclear power without breaking the economy.
The problem is most greens seem to think antagonising conservatives by trying to force the construction of useless renewables is more important than reducing CO2.
“we’ve been puzzled for ages why most greens are anti-nuclear.” Oh, Eric, such tongue in cheek!
Seriously, I’ve had several conversations online with greens about why they are anti-nuclear. The conversations usually start off rational but get increasingly strange, as I push points like the French nuclear programme in the 1970s (proves nuclear is a viable baseload option), that the risk of a few meltdowns, even a few meltdowns per YEAR, is less of a problem than the end of the world. They usually squirm about a bit then stop answering.
And nobody died at Fukushima from radiation.
Nobody dies at Three Mile Island, period.
And no massacre of birds at three mile island or Fukushima .
Politics is not the reason I don’t “believe” in global warming. As a PhD scientist with some graduate training in atmospheric chemistry, I assumed that what I had been taught was good and solid science. Many years after graduate school, I was challenged and looked into it more fully. To be explicit, most of what climate scientists are telling us about global warming is crap.
I had even voted for Gore, but my awakening occurred shortly thereafter. My scientific realization actually influenced my path to conservatism with a Libertarian bent and not the other way round. Leftists have a problem differentiating between cause and effect.
With regard to health insurance (healthcare is not quite the same), it is too expensive. Nonetheless, many people like it if someone else is paying for it and in general. Another problem with Leftists is that as we all know, they eventually run out of other peoples money.
So John, the AGW hypothesis and the Obamacare initiative both have the same level-of-doubt-by-sceptics(republicans)-but-will-come-round-to-acceptance-in-5-years? I see.
Is this the new scientific method that covers all aspects of life whereby we wait 5 years and count how many people tick the I-was-wrong-box?
Maybe we should vote on whether I have the best looking bum in Scotland? May take 5 years though, maybe not.
During the 2016 primaries, Bernie Sanders repeatedly stated that 20 million people in the US were without medical coverage – years after ObamaCare was approved. His statements were never challenged. Prior to its passage, Nancy Pelosi stated that the Patient Protection and AFFORDABLE Care Act would cover those 15% (~45 – 50 million people) that had no coverage. Looks like 40% or more of those who were without coverage still haven’t signed up. To which “more people decide they like having health care” are you referring?
It’s hard to expect people to sign up for Obamacare now that the indivdual mandate has been repealed.
Healthcare policy is a mess with many perverse incentives. Remember, the Cong. Budget Office concluded that Obamacare would save money when everything was considered. It is basically a good idea, IMO, with some flaws that could be corrected by thoughful, well-meaning, politicians.
One of these days, we’ll have a serious debate on whether universal health care is a good idea. It could be if we could figure a way to get insurance companies out of the business, and if the tradeoff between higher taxes and insurance premiums could be explained.
The best way to ruin anything, is to put government in charge of it.
The existing problems with health care were for the most part caused by government.
+137.0018………
The majority of the public have not attempted to understand the science, if there is enough propaganda they will believe for a while; until the evidence of their eyes shows the truth.
Also recent weather has a big effect, when a weather related disaster occurs many people will believe the propaganda that it was caused by climate change and only a few will look at the data that shows no increase in such disasters. However, a few cold winters reduces public belief in global warming; even though that is just weather as well.
Age has a big effect, no sane person who remembers the predictions being made in the 90s can believe in CAGW.
In the real world,vwhere the crappy insurance and poor quality care of the failed Obamacare scam is hurting people your claims are an insult.
In the real world, where the kegacy of failed green policies has destroyed whole towns and is costing real people more and more money for power and everything that uses power, your claims are an outrage.
I find climate extremists like you irrational and dangerous, with your faux science claims and refusal to deal with reality.
You seen to enjoy the damage the failed policies you support are imposing.
Since there isn’t the slightest bit of evidence that the teeny bit of warming that the planet has enjoyed since the end of the Little Ice Age is causing any problems, why should we believe otherwise?
The concept of Insurance is based on a premium paid, that covers the RISK of the losses from reimbursement exceeding the premium paid.
It is not a program of wealth redistribution where everyone pays more regardless of their personal risk profile, so that those that will consume much more than they can afford, are free to consume without restrictions of any kind. Many current procedures are very expensive. If you are a bad risk for insurance, and you are advocating for “affordable” premiums, you are charging your healthcare expense to someone else. That is at the heart of Obamacare, and the reason it will not work over the long term. It does not reduce health care cost. It allows costs to continue to grow faster than wage growth and inflation combined.
What kind of home insurance company is going to write policies for homes in Paradise, when the fire is raging and heading in their direction???
If your risk is higher than you can afford, then you are a charity case. Whether that goes through a non-profit or the government, that is the best way to keep insurance premiums from continuing to out pace wages. The more premiums go up, the more people will not be able to afford them, and the end result is a system that becomes unsustainable. If you are taking money that some one else has to earn, you should at least ask for it (charity) or give the voters a say in whether they agree with it (govt program).
Home insurance is based on risk. Car insurance is based on risk. Those programs are working as designed and do not require wealth redistribution. Health insurance will only work if premiums are based on the risk of reimbursement.
Please quote a “sceptic” that disbelieves that the climate is warming. Most, other than the kooks, will tell you that of course the climate is warming as the earth leaves the Little Ice Age. The problem is why. You obviously “believe” it is due to CO2. Sceptics say that CO2 is so small a percent of the atmosphere that its affects are overwhelmed by natural variation.
Please show us the physical, empirical evidence that CO2, and especially man-made CO2, is causing the warming that has been detected. The only thing we ever see is that computer models say it is so. You know Einstein said gravity affected light. However, it wasn’t considered an actual fact until physical, empirical evidence was gathered that proved it. Please show us the same kind of evidence please.
The Farce is strong in California.
“In Less than Five Years, Even the Worst Skeptics Will Be Believers” How many times have we heard such pontification by the elite about future climate disasters and when the day/year comes and goes, not a single media type put the person in the spot light? Folks like Gov Moonbeam know they are safe in making these claims because only the conservative media will remind folks and who would believe them anyway. These lefties know their ignorant mobs will never hear about these “errors” and would probably make excuses even if they did hear about it.
The guy is goners, old news, so who would do the news in 2023?
And politician being wrong, what news is that?
They talk crap all the time.
As someone who lives in a fire prone area in Australia I can say with some authority that the fundamental premise in this article is wrong. Thinning trees will not/would not prevent the kind of tragedy we have just witnessed.
What is required is that the underbrush be cleared, and ground debris be removed.
These fires start in the underbrush, and if there is sufficient fuel to generate a BIG fire, the heat will ignite the foliage of trees within range. If the understorey/foliage fire is sufficiently intense, then we may or may not have a crown fire, depending on the wind and the density of intersecting tree foliage.
I have fought/lived through numerous bush fires where I dampened down the understorey fire, and the tree foliage was singed, but did not ignite.
So to repeat the point: removing trees has no bearing on the outcome of these kinds of tragedies.
I also live in a bushfire prone area of Australia. Removing trees removes stuff which can burn, though I should have mentioned controlled burns of undergrowth as I did on previous posts on this subject.
Yes, but back to my point: if the fire has become hot enough and big enough to ignite trees, then God himself couldn’t help.
The thing to do is ensure that the fire never gets that hot. You do this by removing the underbrush and reducing the fuel load. Not by removing trees.
Or you could follow CFA advice and clear trees well away from the house, so there is nothing to catch fire.
In a firestorm, the fire doesn’t need to touch the house. The cinders will be thrown 200m in front of the fire starting new fires ahead of the front. And the natural furnace-like heat from the fire means that when the flame finally gets hold of something that will burn, it explodes.
I had a grass fire on my property last week, and I was surprised that even though the grass was green and healthy, there was a mat of leaf and twig underneath the grass that burned vigorously. Surprised me just how healthy the fire was going.
Australia usually does back burning in winter months because the fire burns slower.
Wetting down the occasional cinder is not the same as having to fend off a towering inferno on your front porch.
Depends on what you mean by a “firestorm”.
I have had the unfortunate experience of standing and watching a wall of fire approaching about 400yds away, and could feel the skin on my face starting to blister.
I made a run for it, and in my mirror, I saw the bushes where I had been standing explode into a fireball despite the fact the fire front was still several hundred yards away.
When I returned a few days later, I saw the puddles of aluminium of what used to be car wheel rims.
When we have a hot fire around here, it gives a whole new meaning to the word “hot”.
If fire in California has the same characteristics, those people who were caught out in the open or in their cars didn’t stand a chance.
Water absorbs serious amounts of heat, if you have enough of it. Plenty of people have been saved by keeping the cleared area around their house and the house itself wet using a gasoline pump and a large tank of water.
https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/plan-prepare/stay-and-actively-defend
and remembering to make sure the generator to run the pump for water isnt a damned PLASTIC fuel tank job. or sprinkler lines ditto plastic jobs
amazinghow many peoples are.
my homes old ,gappy wood n indefensible, as the power would be cut the borepumps 2hp and i cant run my genset on it
id be loading pets n papers n driving away
What’s wrong with removing dead trees? Would think they’re a major source of fire fuel.
There are some misunderstandings regarding the removal of trees, and their relationship to fire risk.
In a fire, trees become a problem only when the undergrowth is burning hot enough to ignite the foliage of the tree. If you are still in the area when that happens, you should make sure your relationship with God is a good one; because you will soon be meeting him.
Home owners are advised to cut down trees adjacent to their homes. This advice is not based on their hazard while there is a fire, but due to the fact that in time leading up to a fire they will deposit leaves and other debris on the ground, in gutters and on roofs. Most home owners will neglect to remove this debris, so when a fire does come this fuel, especially that on the roof and in the gutters, will increase the risk that their house will burn down. When you are fighting an underbrush fire, you probably won’t notice that the dead leaves in your gutter have ignited.
So cutting down a dead tree won’t do anything to increase your fire safety, but it may remove a nesting spot for birds and other creatures. Ditto for a living tree.
It’s almost as if Jerry is working hard to fulfill his predictions with the lives of Californians. At the very least, he is an accessory to mansalughter.
It’s almost as if Jerry is working hard to fulfill his prophecy with the lives of Californians. At the very least, he is an accessory to mansalughter.
Regardless of whether Global Warming or Forest Mismanagement is to blame for these fires, the prudent course of action, to mitigate the threat, should have been aggressive fire prevention measures.
Waiting to reverse global warming, if it were even possible, is gross negligence on behalf of the government and the related forestry management agencies.
I had heard that well over half of wildfires started in California the past two years were a result of sparking or downed power lines.
Global warming may have some influence on California weather. But it’s doubtful that wildfires have much, if anything, to do with climate change. The conditions favoring wildfires over the years have been around forever, and have been aggravated by the influx of homeowners and by disputes over how forests are managed.
So much of the problem is self-inflicted, and is a favorite subject of politicians and advocates with various stripes. Difficult to actually work on solving problems in an atmosphere like this.
Also, PG&E has been made a scapegoat for such a serious and complicated problem. Are they supposed to guarantee that their equipment won’t create sparks or downed power lines? This is just another way to deflect “blame”.
“Human lives are more important than trees.”
You will never be an environmentalist.
How much are you willing to bet Moonbeam?
He just said Democrat policy to let the state burn is not their fault as they predicted the End Days for you anyway. In other words, he refuses to provide any solution. The solution to environmentalists is depopulation, for others not them, of course.
“Governor Jerry Brown of California thinks coming climate disasters will convert even the “worst” skeptics in five years”
I am skeptical about that.
These are the words of a religious fanatic.
Gov. Brown is a bitter old rich man with no children and the blood of innocent Californians on his hands.
His policies have hurt California and squandered billions of tax dollars.
His legacy is literally one of ashes.
I totally believe putting solar panels on all the houses will stop the fires from burning them down .
2000 F fireball breaks out all the windows and spontaneously ignites the interiors. The windows need fire shutters.
“The windows need fire shutters.”
Yes—And metal roofs help too. Insurance companies in California will gie you a discount if you have one—although that is mostly for their earthquake-protection effect. (They prevent the house from twisting and nails popping and rafters failing.)
Metal roofs can heat up and cause the rafters to ignite.
“In Less than Five Years, Even the Worst Skeptics Will Be Believers”
Is this a prediction or a prospective California policy?
I immediately sat up straight when I saw that. Makes me think of Hansen
in 1989, I think, and Gore in 2007. When will they learn.
And in other news in Berkeley, I posted, in jest, Yay! It’s clearing. I can
see chemtrails again!
Its always seemed pretty simple to me.
The fire triangle has oxygen, heat and fuel as its sides.
Oxygen is a moot point for forest fires and the heat is generated by the fire itself.
So you are left with fuel as by far the most important issue to address to limit the severity of a fire.
Regardless of your belief in a small increase of CO2 being responsible for more/less rain and vegetation growth/drought ( I can never keep up with what the effects are supposed to be) managing fuel loads IS the one action we can take to manage natural fuel buildups and any buildup associated with whatever impact of CO2 you believe in. It should be the primary method we have of controlling fires. Its certainly the most effective.
Essentially the heat blows through the house windows and ignites the interior. With fire shutters, I would think that would stop it as most house exteriors in CA are stucco concrete.
Jerry Brown and his advisers have poor reading skills.
The scenarios of catastrophic global warming have been explained to happen later this century – 2070 -2100 and beyond. So, why is anything going to happen in the next five that will concern anyone?
Continuing: Earlier this month we were told there are just 12 years before we go over the cliff. The wording in the UN report was a little different.
Last time I checked, 12 years is longer than 5 years. Rather than panic at 5, let’s wait to 12.
I’m not the only one that is tired of this nonsense. Brown and friends get sillier by the day.
I thought climate change was supposed to kill us all in 5 years?
Twenty years ago, that is.
Just read the first Earth Day prediction.
Poor Jerry Brown,
In 5 years I will have been a climate crisis skeptic for 33 years. For the last 28 years I have watched the other side produce an endless stream of failed predictions, try to erase inconvenient historical climate change, manipulate data to jack-up warming, avoid debate, demonize those with a different scientific opinion, rely almost exclusively on the fallacious arguments of authority and consensus, completely ignore the scientific method and generally act more like tyrants wanting to control the people than scientists wanting to understand the physical world.
Even if the climate does some really wacky things over the next 5 years, it would be hard to attribute that to the steadily rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which to date, has not produced any discernible change from natural climate variability.
No…It is likely that the number of crisis climate skeptics will be much larger in 5 years than it is now, and the true believers will be a twindiling breed.
I feel pretty safe in betting against the ideas of Jerry Brown.
~~~~~~
Eric,
As with trying to live in a flood plain, living in some fire-prone areas ought not to be allowed. Making one’s own house, buildings, and land fire resistant is a responsibility many folks will not, or cannot do. Cutting trees when the land is empty of people and buildings is less costly than when the land is occupied. Check the cost of removing a single large tree from near a building. There are several still standing in this image: http://www.signal51group.com/uploads/3/0/7/0/3070510/4659424_orig.jpg
Two-thirds of California is fire prone. It is not possible to live in non fire-prone areas of the state except for the Central Valley, LA Basin, and High Desert. The problem is that the High Desert and LA Basin don’t have water. The cost of trimming trees is about $500 a tree. The key mechanism is to fireproof houses by using prefab concrete, tube steel for walls and roof, and tile roofs. Also, automatically closing fire shutters on outdoor windows to stop heat breaking through the windows.
If the house is made with prefab concrete, the walls made with tubular steel, and the roof of tile, and fire shutters close on outside windows so the heat cannot break into the house through them, how are the houses going to burn? It looks like timber construction of housing needs to be phased out, particularly in timber areas.
The costs of building something like that, that is also earthquake and high wind safe, would be probably prohibitive.
Not prefab concrete. Panels are trucked in. Now, if the walls are tube steel with stucco, may have same effect so the cost is the tube steel.
I don’t see it would work. There would be enough heat generated to cause material items inside to heat up to near flash-over point. People inside would suffocate.
Well Governor Brown is some kind of idiot, so I am not too concerned about what he thinks.
Photos and videos of the Camp fire devastation suggest the burn would have been primarily underbrush if the area were not so densely populated with tinderbox homes.
Yes forest management (actually lack there of) is a problem in California but the truth that hardly anyone wants to admit is that these types of fires can’t be completely prevented. You can’t go into the forest and remove all of the fuel load every single year. Remember, some of the area burned by the Camp Fire burned just 10 years ago. It’s also not reasonable or realistic to say “cut down all the trees). People move to towns like Paradise because they want to be surrounded by trees and forest.
So what’s the solution? Better forest management. Better technology to prevent powerlines from sparking fires. Improved building codes to help make structures less susceptible to burning. Better emergency notifications. Improved escape routes. Help people to be better prepared.
Even if every one of those things got done you’d still have fires and ultimately you’d still have structures lost and people killed. The only way to prevent tragedy is to prevent people from living in vulnerable areas. Even that might not be enough. Fire is a part of the ecosystems of California. There’s no changing that.
You burn it in sections when the air is damp, and the winds are not accelerated and heated by adiabatic compression. It should be done regularly so you make sure the areas that have the worst wind problems are never allowed to reach a critical mass. The Camp Fire Area should be burnt in sections where you burnt the majority of it, over a 20 year period, a section at a time. If that was done it would never burn out of control. It has to be a continuous process. And it should be paid for by the people that choose to live in the area, through taxes. The home owners insurance should be based on cleaning up the area around your home. You should pay more if you want to risk trees burning in the proximity of your home.
A wild fire needs fuel and a wind that is driving it into more fuel. If you are creating fire breaks before the event, the one that happens during the worst conditions will still be manageable because you can contain it when it drives itself into an area without enough fuel to keep it going.
This article talks about the failures to adequately prepare and give residents warning. They didn’t learn from the fire in 2008 so disaster struck.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/as-camp-fire-overtook-paradise-many-were-gridlocked-or-1830524170
I am curious here.
What is your take on this …
OPERATION TORCH CALIFORNIA: A Special Report of the Firestorm Terror Operations.
It is said that, “California “wildfires” line up EXACTLY in the same path as the “California High Speed rail System.”
CALIFORNIA FIRESTORMS GEOENGINEERED.
Who is firebombing california & why ??
Very little Climate Change has to do with this ??
Tin foil stuff.