Posted on 12/02/2018 8:41:26 PM PST by yesthatjallen
Forest fires in California this year released carbon emissions equivalent to the amount produced to power the state's electricity for one year, according to a new analysis from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The wildfires, including last month's record-breaking fires in Northern and Southern California, released 68 million tons of carbon dioxide as they incinerated huge swaths of land and destroyed thousands of homes this year. That is roughly the same amount of carbon emissions typically produced to power the entire state for a year, according to a statement from the Interior Department on Friday.
"We know that wildfires can be deadly and cost billions of dollars, but this analysis from the U.S. Geological Survey also shows just how bad catastrophic fires are for the environment and for the public's health," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in the statement.
The carbon emissions from the wildfires accounted for 15 percent of all California emissions, the statement noted.
November's wildfires, which included the deadliest and most destructive fires in the state's history, released 5.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.
In the statement, Zinke echoed President Trump in saying the wildfires could be mainly attributed to improper forest management.
Fire officials and lawmakers in California have vehemently pushed against this assessment, saying forest management is one of a number of issues that could have caused the wildfires. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) last month said the wildfires, which killed at least 91 people, were likely connected to the intensifying effects of climate change.
Brown called the wildfires part of California's "new abnormal."
Zinke's statement comes as he continues to cast doubt on a new dire federal climate change report, which warns that the devastating effects of climate change will slash the U.S. economy and harm peoples' day-to-day lives if leaders at all levels do not take stronger action immediately. Zinke has questioned the methods used by the 300 government and non-government scientists who contributed to the report, which was authorized by 13 federal agencies.
The report predicts that wildfires will continue to grow larger, more costly and more deadly as temperatures rise and the climate becomes drier due to human-caused climate change.
Lefties are so incredibly dumb. Allow all these people to move into danger zones, don’t allow any mitigation of threats, then expect nothing bad to happen. The level of stupid hurts my brain.
That's troubling when you put it that way. Think of all the CFL and other florescent lightbulbs that contain mercury. All the cleaners that contain ammonia, sulphuric acid (drain cleaners), and other toxics. Insulation that has fiberglass, PCBs, formaldehyde and other bad chemicals. Oil lubricants, degreasers, paint removers, etc. Shingles and tarpaper on roofs. And automobiles which are full of many toxics including lead batteries. Yep, a real toxic brew that burned.
One of my neighbors gets away with it here in South SF. He is constantly burning trash in his fireplace, which stinks up the neighborhood. I'm not talking regular firewood. He literally burns trash that includes plastics. He picks up scrap wood from various sources that is painted or was treated as exterior wood with chemicals.
How he gets away with it: for years he has said the fireplace is his only source of heat. And burns even on the hottest days. There's the exemption, just claim your furnace is broken and you get away with burning toxic garbage.
Not to mention all the plastics in homes today. IIRC some 12k homes burned in the Camp Fire.
But the sheer volume of smoke from the tens of thousands of forested acres burned dwarfs that. Pine smoke is rather toxic and those forests are almost all pine.
Good.
I got my degree in meteorology and I still cannot talk sense to my sister about global warming.
She believes it, even when I told her that we are entering a cooling phase based on the lack of sunspots.
the rescent wild fires were named “camp fires” my guess is with all the illegals and homeless living in the forest this and the enviro Nazis are the cause of it.
This is complete nonsense - as expected from Global Warming worshipers. Even if you pretend that CO2 is pollution, they are still wrong. If you burn every field and forest in CA for the next century, you release a lot of CO2. If you put out every forest and brush fire in CA for the next century and prevent all burning, the wood and grass will still decompose - releasing almost exactly the same amount of CO2. The precise chemistry involved does not matter, not when the amount of carbon is conserved.
Yeah - but a lot of illegals use PG&E electricity, so....
It will be interesting to see what happens to PG&E if it is proven they were the source. I read where somebody called in the sparking wires, and PG&E said they would send a crew out once the winds had decreased.
I can see them having rules about working on wires in high winds. But one would think they would have the foresight to at least notify the fire department.
You can thank your "air quality" management board. They are the ones who don't allow presriptive burning, even on federal land, because someone might breathe a little smoke from that. That was the cause of the catastrophic fire. Specifically Butte county AQ only allows 6000 acres out of one million acres to burned at any one time (natural or manmade) during the short safe burn season.
Ironically they are correct. The fires needed for proper management would have caused smoke for two months at least back in May and June burning somewhat wet fuels. Instead they allowed the fuel to fully dry out, causing a fire with less smoke. The tradeoff for them was 100 people burned alive.. They probably figure that was a small price to pay.
oh goody
and more illegals help this how?
Plus some warehouse’s full of bad stuff.
I’m all for global warming.
Throughout human history, whenever temperatures rose, crops and people thrived, whenever temperatures dropped, crops failed and huge percentages of the population starved.
Throughout the paleontological record life thrived in warmer climates, and became scarce when it was chilly.
You like life? Embrace warming. You do like life, right?
That’s right whi... uh, green of them.
You can blame PG&E for not violating the law and trimming under their power lines.
This year there have been burned in the USA, 8,543,463 acres of land.
In 1957, there were so many fires they would would cover the entire state of Louisiana which is 530,000,000 acres.
Yet no one blamed glo-bull warming back then.
That too!
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