Guest post by Jim Steele
Scientific evidence reveals there has been no climate effect regards California’s wildfires! None! The data below proves it beyond all doubt. There is no denying that warmer temperatures can cause drier fuels and promote larger fires. But that fact is being misapplied to all wildfires. About 70% of California’s 2020 burnt areas have been in grasslands and dead grass is so dry by the end of California’s annual summer drought that dead grasses are totally insensitive to any added warmth from climate change. Dead grasses only require a few hours of warm dry conditions to become highly flammable. It’s fire weather not climate change that is critical. Furthermore, the century trends in local temperatures where California’s biggest fires have occurred reveal no connection to climate change. In most cases the local maximum temperatures have been cooler now than during the 1930s. Those cooler temperatures should reduce the fire danger. Newsom is either ignoring or distorting the scientific evidence, is totally stupid, or is a dishonest demagogue.
Maximum temperatures are typically used by fire indexes to issue red flag warnings because it is the heat of midday that has the greatest drying effect. Minimum temperatures are often low enough to drop below the dewpoint at which time fuel moisture increases. So averaging minimum and maximum temperatures is inappropriate. In addition, referencing a higher global average temperature is meaningless. Only local maximum temperatures determine the dryness of surface fuels during every fire. As in Park and Abatzoglou 2019, the months of March through October are averaged to determine maximum temperatures during California’s dry season.
Here are some relevant facts (from the Western Regional Climate Center). Trust the scientific evidence
1) The August 2013 Rim Fire centered around Yosemite National Park, was California’s 5th largest fire.
2) The November 2018 Camp Fire was California’s deadliest fire destroying the town of Paradise. It was also its 16th largest fire.
3) The 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire was California’s largest fire (since 1932 excluding 2020) .
4) In the October 2017 wine country fires, the Tubbs Fire was the 4th deadliest. It only burned 37,000 acres but high winds drove embers into the dwellings of the heavily populated outskirts of Santa Rosa.
Governor Newsom ignores the data to disgustingly hijacking the tragedy of California’s fires to push is climate change agenda. But he is not alone. There are climate scientists pushing catastrophes by ignoring the local maximum temperature trends. Bad analyses promote bad policies and obscure what needs to be done regards fuel management and creating defensible spaces in fire prone California. Newsom must focus on fuel management and fire suppression. As fire ecologist Thomas Swetnam echoed the experts’ growing consensus against fire suppression wrote, “The paradox of fire management in conifer forests is that, if in the short term we are effective at reducing fire occurrence below a certain level, then sooner or later catastrophically destructive wildfires will occur. Even the most efficient and technologically advanced firefighting efforts can only forestall this inevitable result.”
Further information about California’s wildfires are
Minimizing California Wildfires
Wildfires: Separating Demagoguery from the Science
How Bad Science & Horrific Journalism Misrepresent Wildfires and Climate
Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
I just heard the next term that will be used: “Climate Fires”. Wonder how long it will take for the memo to get circulated?
I’ve already seen “global arson”.
rbabcock September 14, 2020 at 6:14 am
The memo is probably already being circulated. Here’s a Kip Hansen Post from 19 June 2019:
A National Narrative for Media on Climate Change
to illustrate the fact that emails are sent around promulgating the narrative.
It has already been circulated. They just need time to beat the drum and turn up the volume on the propaganda machine.
Down in Oz we had a very similar extreme fire season starting about a year ago now and as expected the zealots and cover uppers all started talking about ‘climate change’ as in your CAGW form. The reality was that in a land “of droughts and flooding rains” as one of our poets put it decades ago, a) it was coming into the spring-summer fire season b) our eucalyp dominated landscape replenishes by fire even in alpine, snow affected areas, c) we had just had a major east coast drought due to the interaction of El Nino-La Nina (opposite affect to the western US) and an extreme Indian Ocean Dipole phases.
Add to that a common problem of large numbers of ‘tree changers’ building houses in fire prone areas with little risk mitigation against fire as well as restrictive tree clearing green tape not to mention that old stalwart poorly aintained power lines and who needs CAGW to set off a literal firestorm. It would have happened even if there was global cooling going on such as the humanophobes feared in the 70’s.
Compae the above rational take on things to the glib, made for media spin ball rhetoric of ‘fires caused by climate change’ and you know which one will get the attentiona of the breathless, media talking head to camera, live on site at the firefront bringing us the sexed up nonsense referred to as ‘news’.
“El Nino-La Nina (opposite affect to the western US)”
There isn’t really a “standard” effect anywhere. Both can bring warm/dry/wet/cool weather.
Politicians, Democrats in particular, like to blame their failures on others. Newsom is particularly noisome in this regard. He is either just ignorant, or, perhaps, an opportunist (as well as an ignoramus). California has descended into a lowest common denominator state ruled by imbecile hereditary princes. When it runs out of money and the patience of the herd is exhausted look for anarchy.
Yes. It’s difficult to tell if these people really believe the nonsense they’re spewing, or are just doing it to control the populace, or increase taxes dramatically, or both.
“Newsom is either ignoring or distorting the scientific evidence, is totally stupid, or is a dishonest demagogue.”
Por que no los tres?
I tend to favor all three.
Another piece of scientific evidence alarmists are ignoring was generated by SciFi writer Ry Bradbury’ s Fahrenheit 451 and book burning. That prompted people to test that temperature. What people found is it takes a slightly higher temperature ,around 481, to ignite paper. But the fire generates its own heat so that at the center of a paper fire temperatures reach 1600 F degrees or more.
Regards wildfires, once grass. and shrubs are ignited, the 2 degrees of warming global temperatures, relative to 1600 F of generated temperatures, are totally insignificant to the spread of wildfire
Australia’s CSIRO has done extensive research into wildfires (we call them bushfires) and has found that once the dry vegetation load exceeds about 2 kg/m2 or about 1 pound/sq ft, fires are essentially unstoppable. I did a little research into the literature of tree fall and having a farm and some familiarity with grasslands for grazing and I found that only 2-3 years growth is necessary to accumulate this load on the ground. This allows for vegetation fall, removal by animals and rotting of the fallen vegetation.
This might seem strange that fires are unstoppable but it really means that once the fire gets going it generates so much heat that it is not possible to put enough water on it to put it out except locally. Having been a volunteer fire fighter (granted with not much experience) I can confirm that this is the case. So you try to contain the fire until it runs into a barrier such as a lake or creek or similar and /or wait for a weather change to put it out or blow it back into previously burnt country.
As you point out once the fire is started, the heat of combustion generates temperatures far in excess of normal atmospheric temperatures and the starting temperature is irrelevant. The water content of the vegetation is what prevents it from igniting and high water content means that the source of ignition has to provide enough heat to evaporate the water so that the dry vegetation catches fire. Temperature affects drying but like everything else it is self limiting with more time required to reduce water content the drier the material becomes.
“Regards wildfires, once grass. and shrubs are ignited, the 2 degrees of warming global temperatures, relative to 1600 F of generated temperatures, are totally insignificant to the spread of wildfire”
WA Gov Jay Inslee says that the climate in Washington has already changed, making grasses drier than they were before, well I don’t know when, maybe before November 2016.
He is willfully ignorant of the history of his own state. 100 years ago, annual acres burned were 10 times what they are today. Smoke was the norm, not the exception. As for dry grass, that happens every summer out here in the PNW. I live west of the Cascades right on Puget Sound, and we get about 10″ less annual rainfall than Dallas (I know, hard to believe). In the summer, it’s not unusual to go 2+ months with no rain at all. My grass ALWAYS goes dormant and is a tinderbox. This year, early summer was wetter than usual, so the brown grass didn’t occur until about a month later than “normal”.
To find out which, one should simply quiz Governor Newsom:
If we were to implement your Climate Change agenda, how many years would it take to cause a meaningful reduction in fire risk?
If we were to implement aggressive forest management, how many years would it take?
Masterful question sir!
Blaming climate change just means “You’re to blame not us” says Gavin.
Climate change means these palookas can just abdicate all responsibility which is always the plan.
Do tell us, governor Gavin, assuming atmospheric CO2 has anything to do with the ignition of wildfires, do those that account in your mind for such California ‘climate change’ fires happen to include Communist Chinese regimes that have continued to build coal fired electric generation plants by the dozens? And just how does that actually compare in proportion to any similar American contribution to that presumed problem for several decades now? So whatever are you talking about (and more twisted yet not bringing to notice) even when you address the nonsense you have allowed to take root within your own cranium?
The thing I don’t understand is – is it murder or manslaughter these nincompoops are pretending they didn’t do?
MOD. Please correct my typo, The phrase “to push is climate change agenda” should read ” to push his”
If people would stop starting the fires in the first place…..
Guy gets arrested for arson using molotov cocktail, gets released, starts 6 more fires.
Suspect Starts Six More Brush Fires, Faces Additional Charges
https://archive.vn/f3GLb
icisil September 14, 2020 at 6:35 am
From your link:
They couldn’t bring themselves to call it arson. Actually terrorism would be more accurate.
I’d go with attempted murder at a minimum.
I’d charge the folks in the legal system who let they fellow go with negligence and hold them accountable for the costs associated with the other 5 arsons.
Reckless burning is a campfire too close to other combustible materials. This is arson.
Sounds like the DAs in many Democrat cities. Releasing rioters without charges as fast as the police can haul them in.
FBI says Antifa not implicated. Apparently, this will be true no matter how many Antifa sympathizers are arrested for starting fires.
Looks like he’s some crazy homeless dude…not to say that he couldn’t be a crazy homeless antifa dude:
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/09/man-arrested-twice-in-12-hour-span-for-starting-fires-near-i-205.html
From my experience a lot of these antifa morons are mentally ill, although if you spend much time in downtown Portland it can be hard to keep all the crazy people on the streets straight so who knows…
scrolling down on your link gets me to a photo of Tommy Chong.
“From my experience a lot of these antifa morons are mentally ill”
I would say most of them are mentally ill. The Democrats have enabled the psychopaths and given them a target for their innate violence and hatred.
It’s kind of like with the Islamic Terror Army. I imagine every muslim sociopath in the world went to join up as that was just what they were looking for: a way to express the violence they felt inside while not fearing prosecution and they might even be praised for being particularly evil.
The one good thing about the Islamic Terror Army is they got all the psychopaths in one place where we were able to eliminate most of them from the Earth. Trump saved a lot of people a lot of trouble by wiping out the Islamic Terror Army. The bunch he eliminated don’t get to go out and harrass innocent people anymore.
He may have to repeat that if the psychopaths on the Left in the United States get together to do violence. Although, I think their numbers are much less that some fear. I think those Leftist who would actually get out and commit violence are a much smaller number than those who claim they would. Talk is cheap.
So, it is possible to “arrest” Climate Change
https://abruptearthchanges.com/2020/09/12/antifa-admit-to-igniting-fires-all-over-the-country-to-draw-attention-to-climate-change/
I wrote an article last year for the CO2 Coalition titled 5 Ways to Reduce Wildfire Risk in California in which I focused on arson reporting,
“According to the U.S. Fire Administration (https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/arson_awareness.html), arson accounts for 20% of California’s fires, 55% of Kentucky’s and is the leading cause of Florida’s fires. More resources are needed to address the arson problem as well as increasing current public education programs to reduce negligent fires”
Due to global warming people are more uncomfortable outdoors and they cause more trouble. Those in the city attack police cars and loot stores. Those in the country start fires. You might not think a few tenths of a degree warming would change people, but just a tenth of a degree can change a soft spoken, peaceful young man into participating in a riot, or arson.
Of course president Trump is responsible for climate change, the peaceful riots and Covid19
too, at least according to Sleepy Joe Biden.
+10!
The wildfires were also stimulated by increased rate of Arson. Ten to Twelve people have been arrested for arson along the West coast. I’m sure there are more people who haven’t been caught. Another anomaly is that fires swiftly diminish at the Canadian border.
Locals in rural areas are fighting back: patrols, posted signs that arsonists/looters will be shot, citizen arrests.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1305252748330299392
Canadian border? Is that where climate change stops?
The decline of science education and critical thinking does serve to support political spin in this case. California is ripe for this excuse.
ResourceGuy, Yes, decline of science education and critical thinking coupled with willful disregard of readily available information via the internet gets us blow hard corrupt politicians that appeal to the ignorant. Here in California this “perfect storm” has devolved into a one party system without any of the necessary checks and balances for a functional government. The political situation is critical and much more dangerous than the wildfires IMHO.
In Portland yesterday, one guy was caught starting a fire along the interstate using a Molotov cocktail, and then arrested and released without bail early this morning (like all other violent ANTIFA and BLM protesters in Portland). He has now been picked up for starting 6 more fires along the interstate less than 12 hours after being picked up for the first fire.
I think this is the Democrat strategy.
‘About 70% of California’s 2020 burnt areas have been in grasslands and dead grass is so dry by the end of California’s annual summer drought that dead grasses are totally insensitive to any added warmth from climate change.’
but aren’t the concentrated rains in winter leading to more grass growing and thus more fuel? and isn’t the fire season extending? (are this year’s fires not earlier?) And surely even for grass to catch light, more heatwaves and drought make it more likely there’s a grass fire?
and then it still defies belief that in 2018 and 2020 suddenly forest management failures reach the point where we have a high level of fires… and that’s the only reason…
The trees dead from drought and beetles not killed off in warmer winters -not a factor?
Really the more of these ‘nothing happening except ordinary weather which mysteriously burns stuff not even in forests at a record rate’ articles the more I’m astonished at the sheer capability to believe in counter factuals…
What are concentrated rains? Do you have a source?
“aren’t the concentrated rains”
Griff,
Are you actually capable of reading the temperature graphs posted in the article?
What makes you think he even tried? griff is famous for posting articles that actually refute the point he’s trying to make.
Griff, wrong wrong and wrong,
The beatle infestation – damage was so severe due to the fire suppression and lack of clearing, all CAGW alarmist policies. Then, compounding multi errors, the alarmists refused to allow most of the needed clearing of the dead trees and overgrown forrests.
Then, a perfectly normal drought hit, followed by normal 🔥, yet made exponentially worse by the mentioned stupid errors of your fellow travelers.
As to CO2s contribution, yes greater growth of bio mass, but, due to the CO2, greater drought tolerance, a bit less flammable, trees a bit less dry in the drought due to additional C02.
The grasses dry every year regardless. And the graphics show, the heat this year was entirely normal.
Of course you won’t respond to the rationale critique of your daft post or the assertions in the article.
David, Actually the Beatles invasion occurred in the 1960’s. It was a Beetle infestation, most recently, that was a problem.
Looking at graphs makes him break out in hives.
The mature Pine forest creates the Mountain Pine Beetle, as the mature Pines reach old age from the last major fires in the early 1900’s. California doesn’t ever get the kind of cold to cancel the pine beetle populations, (such as northern Boreal forests sometimes do) which are a natural progression of a mature Pine forest. The same thing has been happening for millennium. Fire is the way Mother Nature renews the forest. It is a firescape evolved forest after all, for millions of years. This is nature…the early aboriginal peoples knew this and would do what they could with fire in the off season, but inevitably it comes down to massive wild fires, throughout history. It’s hard to accept, especially when your place burns down, but this is reality.
I have measured and aged Ponderosa pines and other conifers and oaks throughout the Sierras, and I can assure you that many are 600 years old or older. Some Sequoias are 1,200yo.
The above hypothesis regarding pine beetle outbreaks or major fires determining or controlling tree ages is thus totally and utterly refuted.
The REALITY may be hard to accept, but the REALITY is that anthropogenic fire was practiced for millennia, and the aboriginal arborculturalists deliberately protected their favorite mast-producing trees, and that is why and wherefrom the current old-growth arose. The old-growth, including redwoods, are culturally modified. Without human stewardship they wouldn’t be here at all.
1,200 years old – I just googled it – probably even older . . .
Giant sequoias are the third longest-lived tree species with the oldest known specimen to have been 3,266 years old in the Converse Basin Grove of Giant Sequoia National Monument.Sep 11, 2019
https://www.google.com/search?q=oldest+sequoia+tree&oq=oldest+Sequoia&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l7.12542j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
– JPP
You DO understand that the nickname “The Golden State” has nothing to do with the mineral GOLD … but the seasonal golden (dead, dry) grasses that greeted the settlers? CA is a dry State … it’s why we all like living here … lots of sunshine and warm weather.
Same as it ever was. Same as it … ever was.
All change is caused by CO2.
Even when there is no change, the change is still being caused by CO2.
Wrong again, griff. There have been documented bark beetle infestations in climates much, much colder than California has ever been. Alaska has had bark beetle infestations going back at least 100 years – certainly far longer than that.
Holsten, E.H. 1990. Spruce beetle activity in Alaska: 1920-1989. R10-90-18. Anchorage, AK: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Alaska Region. 27 p.
The slightly cooler winter temperatures that California had 100 years ago (1 degree C, MAYBE) wasn’t killing the bark beetles. Bark beetles survive extremely cold temperatures. A study done in Alberta showed that 50% of pine beetles survived under-bark temperatures of -37. (about the same temp in Fahrenheit and Celsius). It doesn’t get anywhere near that cold in the California forests that burned. DUH.
https://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/formain15814/$file/MPBColdTemperaturesFacts-Jan2010.pdf?OpenElement
Bark beetles are a simply a part of the forest, even in very cold climates. They only kill trees that are compromised by disease or drought.
It’s just common sense that ~1 degree C of warming on average in 100 years, mostly in winter and overnight temps, hasn’t had an adverse effect on wildfires. The weather is far, far too variable. In fact, worldwide, wildfires are down – mostly from non-climate related reasons. You’re just beclowning yourself when you push a demonstrably false narrative.
Like other parasites and viruses it’s only when they get outside their natural environment do Bark Beetles kill off everyone of their hosts. Often bark beetles carry a deadly fungus, virus or bacteria. Dutch Elm Disease or Ash Die Back a fungal disease. There’s a bark beetle killing non native pine trees in France.
But being an optimist I think enough trees with natural immunity will survive to continue the species. One proviso, as long as humans don’t try and help
The Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) carry spores of the blue stain fungus (Ophiostoma sp.) that infects the trees the beetles bore into. It is the fungus that kills the trees, not the beetle boring.
Beetle outbreaks often occur following forest fires. Needle-scorched trees are attacked. I can personally verify this as I have ventured into burned stands within a week or two after the fire, and heard the audible hum of millions of male bark beetles stridulating (chirping) hoping to attract females.
The next spring beetle infestations occur in green trees within flight distance of the burned stand. In this manner a 10,000 acre fire can result in the bark beetle attack of 100’s of thousands of proximate acres.
Indeed, every major bark beetle outbreak in the last 30 years can be traced to the originating burned stand.
Tell us something NEW, griff.
All this has been happening for hundreds of years IN CYCLES.
Check the fires in the 1930’s – there were 5 to 10 times as many and area burned.
Waiting for your explanation – >>>>>>>>>>>waiting.
1) There hasn’t been any temperature increase in the area where the fires are occurring.
2) Since the areas in question are covered in grass already, more rain won’t always mean more grass.
3) A few tenths of a degree (even if it were actually happening) wouldn’t make grass more likely to catch fire.
4) The grass is completely dried out during a regular summer, you can’t get more dried out than “completely dried out”.
5) I love the way trolls always try to move the goal posts. Bad forest management doesn’t cause fires, it just makes them bigger. There is nothing sudden about it, as always griff can’t tell the difference between more fires, and more coverage of fires.
6) The winters aren’t warmer, and normal winters in that area don’t get cold enough to kill beetles. Drought is normal in this area, and these droughts are nothing out of the ordinary. Trees are adapted to it already.
7) Where did you get the notion that only things in forests are supposed to burn?
8) Believing in counter factuals is your specialty, as evidenced by your all of your “questions” above.
griff
You ask, “but aren’t the concentrated rains in winter leading to more grass growing and thus more fuel?”
Just what do you mean by that question? With a Mediterranean Climate, rain is concentrated in the Winter, always has been, and always will be. Are you suggesting that there has been an increase in Winter precipitation? Do you have any evidence for that, or are you just trying to plant a seed of speculative doubt?
What is more important is the accidental introduction of exotic plants like Cheat Grass and Yellow Star Thistle that provide fuel that didn’t exist before the 19th century.
griff,
I live in Kansas, with huge areas of prairie grass, grass that dries out in the dry summer heat. Yet we don’t have huge fires like CA. Can you guess at the reason? My guess is no.
One of the largest reasons is controlled burns in the spring which not only kills weeds but also clears out the fuel load represented by old, dry grass on the ground. So you don’t have new, dry grass layering on old, dry grass year after year.
And you don’t have to burn it all! Just enough to provide fire breaks large enough to keep the high Western Kansas winds from jumping them. If you burn a line a section wide for a couple of miles then grass on either side can’t catch grass on the other side on fire, the embers burn out before they get to the other side.
This will be true whether there is a drought, normal rain, or excess rain.
Most of California is classed as SEMI-ARID desert. Does this mean anything to you? (hint – drought)
The fuel load in CA, OR, and WA have been building for over 40 years, ever since the Greenies took power on the left coast. Climate change has nothing to do with this. 90degF temperatures dry out fuel just as much as does 100degF temperatures. It isn’t the temperature that starts the fires.
Not according to Nick Stoke the old fool troll according to him its USDF lands that are burning … you trolls need to get your story straight.
Jim,
Thank you for another clear and concise post!
I’m hoping the reports about urban rioters intentionally setting rural fires are wrong, but I fear they are not!
The lack of proper forestry management will cause these fires to continue until sanity is restored. I recall the area below Shaver Lake burning 20 years ago, but the fuel load was lower and without a generation of neglect it was controlled fairly quickly! If I was still living in the state the previous week would have been my normal time for hiking and camping in the Muir Wilderness, a good bit farther up the mountain and, blessedly, missed by the fires so far!
Let’s see, we have Governor Newsom on one side and Jim Steele on the other, who to believe for scientific comments? Alex, I’ll take Jim Steele for a million, please.
Jim,
I forgot to ask you if you think there is a genetic marker for smarmy platitudes? Navin Gruesome and MaligNancy Pelousy seem to resort to them often and I was thinking they might have a Progressive gene that allows them to speak that way without twitching or vomiting. It’s likely just another indicator for sociopathy!
I always thought that the fire terrorism would come from abroad by foreign malcontents when the conditions were super ripe for fire. Now it is apparent that the actual arsonists are home grown crazies that have actually started some of these fires. The other arsonists are the accumulated mismanagement of previous Gov’ts by their hands off policy to manage the forest and grasslands over longer time scales, since the invention of Smokey the Bear forest fire management policies and Endangered Species legislation. Now those species are much worse off than if we had kept the logging industry intact.
This is now generations of mismanagement that has finally accumulated with these fuels to combust into terrible fire storm conflagrations. It is inevitable, sooner or later when the conditions are right. And those weather conditions will always be with us, no matter what we think we can do to change the weather and/or climate. It just takes a week of hot dry windy weather, and poof, you can have a fire almost anywhere there is fuels to burn. And now there is more fuel to burn than ever before.
Refusing to take responsibility or even acknowledge the the very obvious forestry mismanagement by previous generations, Governor Newsom is even more criminal than the crazies starting the fires. Joe Biden is going to try and ride this one trick pony of excuses to blame fires on climate change as well, and will be interesting to see if the public buy this, or let them make up their own minds as to what is so very obvious right in front of their very own eyes. Why do some people always have to blame something, and not take the obvious responsibility and roll up your sleeves and start making the necessary changes? This is the definition of insanity at its worst, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting some different result.
Smokey Bear (no “the”) is the animal mascot thing (cartoon), slowly changing. Watch for more.
Smokey the Bear (with 3-letter word therein) comes from a song.
Timeline:
Smokey Bear – – 1944 [ “Care will prevent 9 out of 10 fires.” ]
Bear cub (real bear) named Smokey – – 1950
The ode to Smokey (the) – – 1952
Slogan change to: “Remember — only you can prevent forest fires.” {from ‘fires’ to ‘forest fires’}
A new change: “Only you can prevent wildfires.” { note ‘wildfires’}
This and more on pages 10-11; Smithsonian Magazine, Jul/Aug 2019.
Yes there are two versions…the actual burnt bear rescued from a tree in a 1944 forest fire I believe… aka Smokey Bear and the Smokey the Bear forest polices that came about from the popular media of the 1950’s when the character was given the name of Smokey the Bear including the song. Smokey’s name has always intentionally been spelled differently from the adjective “smoky”.
The intent of that original media campaign still holds water today for human induced fires, in that “Only you can prevent Forest fires…now wildfires”, which is basic common sense…be careful with fire. (now we have outright domestic arson terrorism) And then there is the polices that led to the near shut down of the forest industry and leave everything natural polices through Endangered Species legislations. Which has led to the massive buildup of natural fuels.
A new twist would be the additional CO2 making everything grow better, which the enviros haven’t really stated using yet, but I suspect that is next. Even though it also assists in feeding nearly 8 billion people with natural fertilization including chemical fertilizer and irrigation. The enviros will blame the extra CO2 for the extra bio-growth in making wildfires worse, but I bet they won’t give it credit for also greening of the good Earth and assisting to feed everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Bear
“The” was added to keep the rhythm in the song.
“Newsom is either ignoring or distorting the scientific evidence, is totally stupid, or is a dishonest demagogue.”
Or, all of the above.
“Newsom is either ignoring or distorting the scientific evidence, is totally stupid, or is a dishonest demagogue.”
Thank you, Jim, for that. I could not have said it better.
And at least two of the three can be extended to general leadership of his political party. IMHO.
Truth over facts, and the truth is what they want it to be and they say so. To paraphrase never let the facts get in the way of an agenda (truth).
Or, Dopey Joe Biden, “We believe in truth over facts!”
At least until the old truth goes down the memory hole so Engsoc has always been at war with Eastasia.
Just another propaganda point to scare the populace …. into something. Since 1926 we/USA averaged 7M acres burned by wildfires/year. So far this year it’s about 4M acres, but growing. Peak during that period was 55M acres in 1930.
The real reason for the fires:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/59043/
British Columbia is also on the West Coast. BC is almost entirely covered in forests. We have huge areas of beetle killed forests. Yet we have one of the lowest years on record for forest fires.
We currently can’t see more than a few hundred feet due to smoke from the US forest fires. All of this illegally imported into Canada without any duties or GST or Carbon Tax paid.
Been a real wet cold year this year in the coastal/central interior. The Okanogan region and SE BC has been a bit drier as per normal and has had some forest fires, but for the majority of BC, it has been very wet and cool most of the spring and summer. Most days you couldn’t start a forest fire with a blow torch and the mornings are soaking wet in dew. Plus, thanks to a semi-functional logging industry in BC, there is a very healthy new young forest growing after it was logged. We still have tens of millions of dead pine trees though, and about the only use is to make wood pellets out of it, as they probably should have been doing in California the last 40 years. Or better, gasify the biomass and burn it in CCGT technology for much better efficiencies. Unfortunately, many, including WUWT, doesn’t support wood pellets or managing our biomass issues in reducing wildfire by utilizing it to make electricity. This is very distressing and causes me to lose all hope for everything, to get that so callously wrong.
CA’s “back to nature” forestry management policies will always result in “back to nature” forest fires. “Extreme Fire Danger” warning on dry days are a farce. Once the material is dead, it’s tinder unless it’s pouring down rain. It happens every single year. It’s just that the last few years have actually been very snowy and wet in CA, so more vegetation and undergrowth have sprung up. The AZ deserts were green all the way into July this year. Falsely attributing these fuel-loaded fires to global warming is smarter than the actual hands-off forestry policy. Placing the blame on others is a narcissistic trait which eventually results in the world crashing down on the narcissist when their fictional world-view fails utterly. True to form Gavin et al have resorted to just blaming the next thing on the list rather than accepting responsibility. That’s not the government we deserve.
Meanwhile, Germany is cutting down useful forests to create wood pellets for power plant fuel in Europe?
+1
With the growing La Nina, the cooling eastern Pacific Ocean is going to cause more drought like conditions for the foreseeable future. Which I would think is going to cause more drought like conditions to arrive in the interior of the Great Plains next year. Hopefully this isn’t the start of another decade like the dirty 30’s with multiple year droughts. That wouldn’t be unexpected either…the climate record is full of long term droughts, some lasting hundreds of years, when the Pacific cools from La Nina conditions, which leads to less evaporation and shifting Hadley Cells dragging the jet stream around with it. The Little Ice Age for hundreds of yeas contributed to these long term droughts in the continental interior and California/Pacific North West. Mother Nature is a harsh mistress.
Earthling2
Alarmists are fond of the “Heads I win, tails you lose approach.” If there is a drought, they say it is a result of climate change and causes more fires. If there is an abundance of rain, they say it is a result of climate change and it produces more fuel and causes more fires. In their mind, the only good climate is the fictional Goldilocks climate.
Effective refutation is easiest if you use the internal contradictions of their own systems. And keep it very short. I use ==>
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. There is on average 50 times as much of it in the atmosphere as CO2. Explain how CO2 is dominant.
Governor Gavin Newsom is a good politician. He knows that fighting fires is popular. Preventing them, not so much.
Yes … firefighting … encompasses ALL the heroic nomenclature of our times …
– First Responders
– Emergency Services
– Essential Workers
– Non violent inmates
All make wonderful props for politicians speeches
Fighting the fires is a multi-billion dollar business, no?
Taxpayer money pays for the fire fighting, no?
Will politicians and bureaucrats ever do something that will eliminate government jobs?
Poor tbruno, like most progressives, he either can’t read, or isn’t smart enough to understand what it is reading.
There is nothing unusual going on in CA weatherwise at the present. CA has always had droughts, going back tens of thousands of years. Today’s drought is nothing compared to past droughts.
As the article pointed out, grassland dries out in a normal summer. It doesn’t get any drier during dry years.
tbruno,
The climate in CA is SEMI-ARID DESERT! Has been for a thousand years. Still is.
What happens with semi-arid deserts? Droughts. Rain. High temps. Low temps. Wind. No wind. Snow. No Snow.
Nothing’s different today.
One constant with liberals, they love to ignore rules, in this case the first rule of holes.
Is temperature not part of climate?
Regardless, can you provide any evidence that anything has change outside the range of normal, or do you just speak to impress yourself?
What is climate change Tbruno?