Unfortunately more fires are the only solution, due to the amount of fuel built up in California forests from a century of mismanagement. 2020 was the highest burn area on record with 4+ million acres burnt, and we would need 10 years burning at this level to bring the state down to 1920 fuel levels.
The sad part is that due to the amount of built up fuel, these fires will be very intense leaving moonscapes opposed to healthy forests.
More prescribed burns in the spring and wet years may help, but I don't think the political willpower is there, given the liability if things get out of hand.
That's very intriguing and doesn't seem to be part of the popular narrative. Is this 'consensus' science, i.e. generally accepted, or is this a novel take?
Also what specifically has been 'mismanaged'? Wouldn't leaving nature to run it's course be a reasonable thing to do, or would this imply 'build up and then big fires every century'?
My understanding is that this is the scientific consensus as the main contribution with climate change as an exaserbating effect. Most media coverage focuses on the latter for more clicks.
The mismanagement in this context is a century long policy of extinguishing natural fires and not letting nature 'run its course'.
The policy was briefly lifted in the 60s or 70s do to overwhelming scientific opposition, but reinstated due to public outcry after a few iconic locations burned.
The wikipedia below has some basic starting information, but generally whitewashes history, suggest that policy was corrected in the 80's. IF you dig deeper, around 100,000 acres were allowed to burn per year on federal land in the 90's and 2000's, which is far too low.
Re: "popular narrative", I think this is just unfamiliarity with the source material. The unintentionally-disastrous fire management policies of the 1900s have been widely known since at least the Yellowstone Fire of 1988 catapulted forest fires into the public eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988#Fire...
The problem is that nobody wants to acknowledge that fire is a necessary and constructive part of the ecosystem. So they build their homes in wildfire zones and support policies that suppress fires until the pot boils over and the fire turns from constructive to utterly destructive.
The science goes back far further than that. Scientists were advocating for natural burns in the 1930s, when the Roy Headley, chief of fire control for the Natural Forest Service, wanted to allow burns but was overruled.
Indeed, I was trying to refer to broader understanding outside of the scientific establishment. It should be noted that the Yellowstone Fire of 1988 was actually a success of proper fire management techniques established in the decades prior; if those hadn't been in place, then the fires of 1988 would have been even worse. But to the public at the time who were uninitiated to the idea of the constructive power of regular forest fires, and facing the prospect of losing their most impressive national monument to fire, and after being inundated with decades of Smokey The Bear, it's no surprise that there was outrage at the forest management for allowing any fires to happen, despite their necessity (and eventual inevitability).
Home to some of the best and brightest engineers in the world and California is still figuring how many firemen, goats and firetrucks to send.
Where are Google, Facebook, Apple, SpaceX, California state gov?
And Musk is still focused on LA traffic jams. I guess the worst fires in California state history are not enough to sway the titans of industry into action.
Even though these fires are happening in their back yard.
Wildfires in CA are a political issue that will only be solved via a political solution, but at present, there is absolutely no appetite to do so among the residents or politicians. Its like asking why Elon hasn’t fixed healthcare or higher ed in the US.
I'm able to turn my water heater off twice a week without a noticable difference in the water temperature. I wish there was an easier way other than flipping the circuit breaker.
I think http://currywithoutworry.org is an excellent solution to the problem. I think it makes a huge difference in the community. People in need are able to interact, and help each other without worrying about dinner once a week.
the webspam team has taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days. After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would.
The sheen is the product in this case. Jay took this wonderful obscure code and wrapped it up nice and pretty to share with others. The examples and docs he provides were enough to allow me to use this plugin. That is the value the provides.
I'd like to know how much of the donations he "credits" to Liu Liu. Hate shameless requests for donations on top of very little work without fairly sharing the money!
