Dead Trees Pose 'Apocalyptic' Calif. Wildfire Threat

Reuters via Yahoo! ^ | 10/29/03 | Gina Keating

[hedgetrimmer]

C'mon! Have a sense of humor!

[marsh2]

The coffee table book that the Sierra Club put out as evidence against clear cutting is bogus. On picture shows the side of Mt. Shasta identified as a "clear cut" when it is actually a wildfire burn area. Another shows a picture of a slope that says "trees will never grow here again." Actually, trees never did grow there. It was a steep slope with serpentine rock that the Klamath National Forest spotted as one of their areas.

[Pro-Bush]

...Blame the eco terrorists

[Held_to_Ransom]

With 2,000 trees per acre, compared to the 40-50 that were once usual, believe me, there is arboreal water competition

The natural result of too much strip cutting. Not to worry, it will fix itself in 400 years if they aren't any more fires...

[Carry_Okie]

Are you working on some common sense/conservative based proposals for changes to CA environmental law?

I have written a book proposing a business method that can incrementally replace regulatory government on a market-by-market basis. I have applied for patent in order to keep evil people from wrecking a good thing, but so far it's only cost me money (over two years ago and I still don't have a first office action). It is a philosophical, economic, legal, ecological, and political work. It's long and deep, but has gained some academic recognition. Check out the reviews.

Seems to me that there may now be opening in CA a window of opportunity to redefine the debate and definition of environmental protection.

I sure hope so. The key would be to penetrate Arnold's handlers. I was asked to rewrite part of the Republican Party Platform for whatever that's worth, but so far I have few contacts among the powers that be. What I have to offer could be a lot broader than just environmental law, considering the damage regulatory agencies do to business in general.

The power to regulate is the power to control who wins in the marketplace. It becomes power for sale as Bray Davis showed only too well.

You seem to have the knowledge to distinguish between bad policy and what is really needed.

Thanks, in places I do, but what I really offer is a way of seeing problems in a new light that makes objective market-based solutions more obvious. There's a major hurdle though, and it's the trial lawyers and insurance companies. I'm working on a document that makes clear how those two needs are critical to solving nearly every problem this State has. The first draft is about 90% done.

Is there a conservative/stewardship based environmental organization?

I really wish there was, but most of what could be such a group has been taken over by ideology or narrow interests because of the need for cash flow to stay afloat. There are national organizations, CEI, PERC, Treekeepers, and others, but the only thing I have seen in California is more broadly based think tanks. I wish there was an environmentally focused organization, but the resource industry associations, in forestry, agriculture, etc, have been taken over by the big corporations that are using the regulations to put their smaller competition out of business. That process is so far along that there are only two truly viable timber interests left for instance. What I need is a way into the door at Hoover or some such. Most of the think tanks are so busy raising money that they don't actually get to spend much time thinking. So far, I've had a better response from out of State.

I have a one to two hour (in two parts) PowerPoint presentation that is fairly powerful as long as I have an understanding of the audience. It's truly entertaining to watch the communists show up and scoff. Within ten minutes they shut up and listen. This is truly a perspective that has people from both sides paying attention.

Thanks for the comments.

[Carry_Okie]

The natural result of too much strip cutting. Not to worry, it will fix itself in 400 years if they aren't any more fires...

No it won't. The boundary conditions have changed. Weeds, weather changes, carbon dioxide, and pest insects render that belief a fantasy. Besides, pre-columbian fire frequencies were much higher.

[forester]

"When the fire gets into diseased trees the fire will be of biblical proportions," Tuttle said. Since the trees are dead, they provide perfect fuel for the fires and would produce an intensity of heat and flame not so far seen in the week old battle. "We are worried. We are trying to hold the fire out of that area, but if it does go up it will be of epic proportions. We will not have seen a conflagration of those proportions once it gets started," she said.

I got an announcement on a "sustainable forestry" conference in Sacramento next month. I see Andrea is going to talk about using forests to sequester carbon, supposedly to offset global warming. Wonder if she will mention that controlled combustion (ie power plant, sawmill, woodstove) is better then the uncontrolled combustion that happened today? Must be tough to believe in an ideology that requires its belivers to ignore reality.

[Carry_Okie]

Seeing as the trees are dead, they'll either burn or rot. If it doesn't burn, fungi will exhale the carbon no matter what happens. So just what does she propose to do to retain all that carbon now that we have so much that it's ready to explode?

[novacation]

Oh, clear cutting is a good idea. That's what they did in Eygpt and they never have forest fires.

[SierraWasp]

"I see Andrea is going to talk"

You tawlkin bout that former Mono County Stupidvisor, Andrea Lawrence??? If you are... Oh my goodness!!! She's gud buddies with the leftist land grabber I bumped out of office down here. A true Commonista!!!

[Carry_Okie]

Andrea Tuttle.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[Fury]

Did you consider paying landowners, ranchers, or farmers for open space or did you bitch about crop subsidies or are you planning to beg Congress to borrow more of your kids' money to finance the Healthy Forest Initiative ruse, a 10 million acre pittance against a 190 million acre fuel problem?

A question on HFI. Doesn't the FS acknowledge that the current processes in place are broke in regards to management of forests? In other words, would the HFI be worth pursuing on a larger scale, if it were not for the processes that make even doing the work so time consuming due to the litigation and appeals process, etc?

I believe you mentioned something about zoning in a previous post. I have the pleasure to work with someone who is on a regional zoning/planning board and he says that zoning (at least in the Eastern US) was designed to address urban issues, but has been do misused that now it is being applied to rural areas with zeal. Thus, the proliferation of Right To Farm laws, etc. So you end up with someone living in a rual area with a bit of land, and they are severely constrained as to what they can do with that land.

Additionally, you posted about a conservation group that folks could join that espouses responsible care of forests, etc. What about the Society of American Foresters? I know it's a professional society, but they do have a Corresponding Member class. A little pricey at $65 a year, though...

[theFIRMbss]

>Well, when you consider that most of the residents of these areas are NOT noisy, rich liberals...

Oh, come on, you guys!
For practical terms, that is,
media-wise, all

that really matters
is proximity. These fires
aren't around, say,

Salt Lake City. They're
near Los Angeles. They're near
Hollywood. That means

who ever else lives
nearby, too, celebrities
have propinquity

and that means noisy,
rich liberals... Not Mormons...
In practical terms...

[forester]

So just what does she propose to do to retain all that carbon now that we have so much that it's ready to explode?

Aww, come on, you know the answer: do nothing...let "nature take its course". (Puke, gag, cough .......)

[dalereed]

The bark bettle was infesting the pines in the Cedar Glen area over 50 years ago, it's just gotten worse in the last few years.

[Carry_Okie]

A question on HFI. Doesn't the FS acknowledge that the current processes in place are broke in regards to management of forests? In other words, would the HFI be worth pursuing on a larger scale, if it were not for the processes that make even doing the work so time consuming due to the litigation and appeals process, etc?

I honestly don't think so because land use is too complex to be managed from a top-down system. There are overlays of watershed management, fisheries, forest succession, grazing, hunting, predation, pest control... the priorities of which can vary radically in a few feet or over a few days. The response times necessary to keep a problem small demand having people with intimate knowledge of the land and immediate access. You can't do much better than a well educated property owner who loves that piece of dirt and will defend it with his life. It's certainly the most cost effective approach of which I am aware.

The problem is that the system we use devalues the very habitat management services we say are so important that the government must run an operating monopoly on those services. We know it's overloaded with bureaucracy and how inefficient that is. We seem to forget that the worse the situation becomes, the more we pay the agencies to fix it. Wildfire and forest management is a classic example. Think Nature on welfare.

It's a bit disingenuous for the Forest Service to whine about litigation because 40% of their budget is spent on lawyers (I think it's about 70% in NMFS). The USFS has been complicit in this crap for years with its critical habitat listings. So when their spokespeople open their mouths, listen carefully for weasel words.

I believe you mentioned something about zoning in a previous post. I have the pleasure to work with someone who is on a regional zoning/planning board and he says that zoning (at least in the Eastern US) was designed to address urban issues, but has been do misused that now it is being applied to rural areas with zeal. Thus, the proliferation of Right To Farm laws, etc. So you end up with someone living in a rual area with a bit of land, and they are severely constrained as to what they can do with that land.

Frankly, I regard zoning as unconstitutional. If you want to check out a theoretical discussion of the ranchette phenomenon, consider the firet chapter of my book, available here. The book contains a thirty year financial analysis of zoning and forestry. Where I live, zoning has been a crooked racket where the County uses zoning and regulatory power to slowly push timber landowners out of business without putting more developable inventory on the market than their friends can handle, essentially a crooked development market for the politically connected. There are better ways to accomplish land use goals.

Additionally, you posted about a conservation group that folks could join that espouses responsible care of forests, etc. What about the Society of American Foresters? I know it's a professional society, but they do have a Corresponding Member class. A little pricey at $65 a year, though...

SAF has been overrun with academics, but it is a good place to get information. Most of the effective "hands-on" organizations are more local than national (as they should be) and I would recommend that you go that route. The Save the Redwoods League out here is good. Treekeepers (Matt Bennet) in the Southeast is good. There are others. Be careful to check them out thoroughly.

[tubebender]

Wasn't there a pesticide that could have been aerial applied to control the beetlles and the marxist screamed bloody murder to stop it ?

[KC Burke]

Your post at number 39 should be the post of the month.

We will need a like thread when this thing is over with your points amplified. It will be the Vanity of the month.

[Carry_Okie]

Lol, I don't rant like that very often. He pissed me off, but I'm sure he had no clue as to why. It was that characteristically callow innocence so often displayed by the addled brainwashed airhead do-gooder, with boundless greed and a government knife in his hands. I can't stand that kind of thinking.

I've had to stay out of the day-to-day fire thing. It's just too upsetting to me to see people wrestling with the symptoms without seeing the real causes. It's that Kilroy thing, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

I don't know if you saw this thread, but it has some good stuff on it.