Posted on 11/18/2018 4:26:31 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
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Trump is right. Mismanagement and over regulation deserve most of the blame, but he should keep in mind that the federal government owns 57 percent of California forest land. This mismanagement is also not a result of a lack of care. Believe me, Californians care.
Growing up, we spend almost as much time talking about fire safety as we do hiding under our desks practicing for earthquakes. We see just as much of Smokey the Bear as we do of Mickey Mouse. California and federal agencies have mismanaged forests, not because they don’t care, but because they chose the agenda of environmentalists over commonsense forest management. The result has been deadly.
The federal government owns 45.8 percent of California’s land, while 4 percent is owned by the state and 51 percent is privately owned. CAL FIRE manages both state and private land. Part of the reason it is so difficult to manage California forests is the bureaucratic milieu.
The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of land, has 28,000 employees, and has an annual outlay of $7 billion a year, according to a 2017 Analytical Perspective from the budget of the U.S. government.
For decades, environmental protection schemes have usurped common sense. For example, most fire ecologists say that the surest way of preventing massive forest fires is to use prescribed burns. The California Environmental Protection Agency states that “prescribed burning is the intentional use of fire to reduce wildfire hazards, clear downed trees, control plant diseases, improve rangeland and wildlife habitats, and restore natural ecosystems.” Prescribed burns keep forests healthy by burning up the underbrush that accumulates on the forest floor and by thinning trees.
Yet for decades the Forest Service has suppressed most fires. According to a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection executive summary: “Land and fire management have in many cases increased fire hazard.
In some shrub types, fire suppression appears to have shifted the fire regime away from more, smaller fires toward fewer, larger fire.” Despite scientific evidence, the federal government continues spending more money on fire suppression than prescribed burns. The Forest Service has performed prescribed burns on an average of 2,187,64 2 acres a year for the past ten years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
This means the Forest Service has only performed prescribed burns on 11.3 percent of the land they manage. When explaining to Mother Jones why the California Wine Country fires were so bad last October, fire ecologist Sasha Berleman said, “We have 100 years of fire suppression that has led to this huge accumulation of fuel loads.” The policy of fire suppression has created what insurance companies call “mega catastrophes,” a term that describes disasters that result in insured losses of more than $1 billion.
Mega catastrophes are becoming the norm in California. In 2017, there were 5,906 fires on state and private land, Kathleen Schori, an assistant chief at CAL FIRE, said in a phone interview. “Extreme fire behavior has become more commonplace,” says the Forest Service.
“The laws of the past 45 years have not only failed to protect the forest environment, they have done immeasurable harm to our forests,” said Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, who represents a northeastern district in California, in a congressional hearing. “Time and again, we see vivid boundaries between the young, healthy, growing forests managed by state, local, and private landholders, and the choked, dying, or burned federal forests.”
Yup.
One thing that gets me is all the documented proof about how dangerous windmills for electricity are to birds.
They’re indiscriminate, mass killers of birds, and especially birds of prey.
I drove down I-65 from Chicago back to Alabama three years ago. The state of Indiana is covered with windmills for hundreds of miles!
Yet anyone forcing shutting down wind power because of bird kills? How many killed are endangered? They don’t know. Seems to me they should be stopped immediately so this danger can have a thorough environmental impact study.
Yet crickets from the environMENTALists.
GD Leftist hypocrites!
Big League Politics has obtained a photo showing four ballots with the exact same voter identifier in Alameda County, California.
All four ballots say Count: 421, VBMP (Vote-by-mail-permit) 164325, Extract 15. They are also labeled as “official ballots” for the general election in Alameda County for election day, Nov. 6 2018.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3706543/posts#comment
More meanwhile,
Monica Showalter at AT has the goods on Young Kim's loss in So Cal to crooked Gil Cisneros--dem donor and serial briber. Young led nicely in all precincts from around her district at poll closings, only to wake up one morning to trail by 3,000. This one stinks...it's a longtime conservative district.
Remember, there is 0 political consequence for these fires- Democrats will not lose a single seat and they will maintain their super majorities. And honestly, people in the urban centers of California could care less about these fires or the people who are dying.
The worst part is that this behavior is coming to a RED state near you. Californian transplants are decimating RED states and we can’t stop it.
...
Maybe the best post today...this and the voting thievery and 2020 are why we need to be Machiavellian from here to 2020 to save the republic.
I think it is time to re-watch Mel Gibson’s, “Patriot”.
Haitian People are still pissed off at the Clintons for stealing billions from Haiti.Money that was supposed to be used to rebuild the island from the devastating earthquakes.
The Clintons are behind most of it and sent in goon squads to murder and then burn the bodies of Haitians who dared protest and were than killed by their good squads. That is the bodies that are not eaten by wild pigs.
I have a special feeling for Haiti having lived through their initial revolution Feb. 8,1986 for four long days.I was stranded in a hotel there as I sought to leave from a weeks work at my fishing rod factory that was going at the time.I later had to close it things got so bad.
Thousands were killed at the time as Jean Claude Duvalier was sent to France.they got rid of the Duvaliers but left the island with no visable management, a huge mistake by the CIA.
Now they are trying to bring back his son Nico to rule the island,a very bad move.
Corruption has always ruled the island and the man with the most money could always get his way. Little has changed.
Fascinating info about Haiti. Thanks for sharing your experience during and after the expulsion of Papa Doc.
Praying.
Indeed, great insight into the Haiti thing.
wouldn’t it be nice if we had a media that would expose these things?
There are plenty of stories of these fires racing through the Federal land and stopping at private land which is managed properly.
If they gave the land away they would be money ahead.
The Sierra Club has destroyed the forests.
Guess who is the biggest funder of windmills in the West, PG&E. They are promoting this big renewable boondoggle adding to your bill to be 100% renewable. What a scam.
Oh Noes! Wallace grills Trump!
Why would he talk to Mike Wallace Jr? Going to be all about Acosta and the Caravan.
Facing Deadlier Fires, California Tries Something New: More Logging
Wallace is being a dick, but we knew that.
I know you guys like Sharyl Attkisson - best investigative reporter out there (Herridge a close 2nd, IMO) in this age of fake news & camera hogs, but I digress. Sharyl is running excerpts from her book “Stonewalled” on her website .... so far, there are 3. Totally fascinating reading ..... so much so, I have ordered the book 2 days ago - found a used paperback, free shipping - I’m happy! Anyway, here is a link to the 3rd excerpt which also has the links to the first two:
The Computer Intrusions: Disappearing Act
https://sharylattkisson.com/2018/11/17/the-computer-intrusions-disappearing-act/
Trump aint skeered, here comes the Acosta BS...
And Chris Wall-ass is being his usual ass self...
Trump is going where angels fear to tread LOL
Ditto what you wrote times 10.
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