Posted on 07/30/2016 2:05:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
First the Obama EPA came for coal mines, coal-fired power plants, miners, workers, investors, and all who depend on reliable, affordable electricity. Then the EPA, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and other agencies came after oil and gas drilling and fracking, and the workers, industries and families that need petroleum. They’re also targeting farming, ranching, airlines and manufacturing.
It’s all to stop “dangerous manmade climate change,” rising seas, warmer and colder weather, wetter and drier seasons, and other “unprecedented” calamities. Now the Feds want us to believe worsening forest fires threaten communities, wildlife and wildlife habitats because we continue to use fossil fuels.
Thousands of fires have already burned millions of acres, amid yet another dangerous and costly fire season. It happens every year, and has for centuries. But now, the Department of the Interior misinforms us, “climate change is making it worse. Wildfire seasons are now hotter, drier and longer than in the past.” Sure they are. Wanna buy a cool bridge?
I lived out West for a decade, back in the 1970s, and saw wildfires and dozens of burned-over forests. I hiked, camped and skied during extra wet and ultra dry years. During a flight from Denver to Seattle, I watched multiple fires rage across tens of thousands of acres in four states.
I’m in Whitefish, Montana this week, where hundreds of trees are just a few inches in diameter, packed in clusters of a half dozen or more, inches from one another – perfect kindling for vicious wildfires. Over time, most will get crowded out and die, leaving just a few hardy specimens to grow into hefty 50-100 foot beauties – assuming they are not engulfed in a super-heated inferno first.
Vase stands of densely packed, water- and nutrient-starved trees – skinny matchsticks waiting for a spark – are far too common in our western states, because land mis-managers refuse to thin the trees.
The resulting fires are not the “forest-rejuvenating” blazes of environmentalist lore. They are cauldron-hot conflagrations that exterminate wildlife habitats, roast bald eagle and spotted owl fledglings alive in their nests, boil away trout and trout streams, leave surviving animals to starve, and incinerate every living organism in already thin soils … that then get washed away during future downpours and snowmelts. Areas incinerated by such fires don’t recover their arboreal biodiversity for decades.
Homes in and near the forests become ashes, chimneys and memories. Residents die in their homes or trying to flee the infernos. Smoke jumpers and other firefighters perish trying to extinguish them.
The fires can certainly be farworse in drought years. But droughts are nothing new, either. We all recall the seven-year drought that brought Joseph to prominence in pharaoh’s Egypt, and the eight-year-long Dust Bowl during the 1930s. Historians describe a 50-year “water famine” that drove Anasazis out of the American Southwest, the 200-year drought that ended Mayan civilization, and other parched periods in China, Africa, Mesopotamia and other regions.
In short, whatever “hotter, drier, longer” forest fires we are witnessing today have nothing to do with “dangerous manmade climate change.” They have a lot to do with idiotic forestmismanagement policies and practices.
Far too many environmentalists, bureaucrats, politicians and judges would rather let forests burn, than let anyone selectively cut timber, thin out overgrown trees – or even let loggers harvest usable timber left from beetle kills, devastating fires or volcanic explosions like Mount St. Helens. (Do you suppose they’d alter their policies if loggers promised to use chain saws powered by little wind turbines or solar panels?)
Eco-purists want no cutting, no thinning – no using fire retardants in “sensitive” areas because the chemicals might get into streams that will be boiled away by conflagrations. They prevent homeowners from clearing brush around their homes, because it might provide cover or habitat for endangered species and other critters that will get incinerated or lose their forage, prey and habitats in the next blaze. They rarely alter their policies during drought years.
The Obama Administration spends billions of dollars annually on manmade global warming “research,” billions more on renewable energy boondoggles for crony corporatist campaign contributors, billions more to convert more private land to federal control. But it never seems to have enough money for expanded or modernized fire control.
Meanwhile, the Administration is gearing up to plant thousands of wind turbines across these areas, to slice and dice whatever raptors and other birds aren’t obliterated by fires.
In line with environmentalist ideology and Democratic Party ideals, it’s also expanding efforts to eliminate the last vestiges of drilling, mining, timber harvesting, ranching, farming and property inholdings (private lands grandfathered within subsequently designated parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas) on government-controlled lands in America’s western states and Alaska. (Many call it cultural cleansing, to create private recreational domains for rich and famous liberals.)
The Feds haveguidelinesthat say fires in certain areas can be extinguished if they are of human origin (arson or untended campfires, eg) – but must be allowed to burn if they are “natural” (caused by lightning, for example). One must take it on faith that anyone could make that distinction in the midst of an inferno, and hope that small fires won’t become raging infernos. They even havejurisdictional policiesthat prevent aircraft from dropping water on a fire, if the crew cannot tell whether the blaze is on Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service land.
A relatively new product calledFireIcesmothers fires, by taking heat and oxygen away from combustible materials. Dropped directly onto a fire from airplanes, it penetrates through smoke, fire and treetops down to burning trees and brush. It can also be carried to blazes in standard fire and tanker trucks, or blended on location using dry FireIce powder and on-site water. Homeowners can brew up their own batches, using the dry chemical and water, and use the concoction to coat their houses, shrubs and other property – protecting them against onrushing flames.
Unfortunately, state and federal officials have employed this highly effective fire killer only sporadically. The results are predictable, as recounted above.
The Justice Department has prosecuted farmers and ranchers for trying to protect their property from current or potential fires, by starting “controlled burns” or “backfires” that got out of control and burned a few hundred acres of US forest. But when intentional Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service fires in Oregon or South Dakota got out of control and burned thousands of acres of US and private forestland, forage and livestock, no repercussions, prosecutions or compensation were forthcoming.
As to the Interior Department’s convenient claim that today’s forest fires are due to US emissions and climate change, let’s not forget that rapidly developing countries are emitting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and methane every year – way beyond what the USA can possibly eliminate – and there is still no Real World evidence that humans have replaced natural forces in climate change.
It’s time to give America’s forest management and fire control policies a thorough review and revision, before we lose more habitats, wildlife, homes and human lives.
Barely concealed contempt and outright hatred of 'common people' fuels what is the sweeping agenda of our neo-Brahmin caste (progressive socialists) to reduce middle class Americans to something on the order of an intellectually and emotionally retarded slave-caste. In this context, sustainability and social and economic justice means that Brahmins own everything and slaves have only what parasitic Brahmins allow them to have. For progressive socialists and their ego-stroking satellites, this state of affairs is their utopia.
A) it’s a power grab (gov’t control of industry)
B) it’s a money grab (global redistribution of wealth
C) it’s taking advantage of the less-well-educated, instead of helping them up the ladder.
Muslims?
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a giant nuclear furnace that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
It is time for a NATIONAL work stoppage. No work; not for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier or Sailor. Not for Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man or Thief. Not for doctors, lawyers, merchants or Indian ch1efs. Not for butchers, bakers or candlestick makers.
The author of the article is taking advantage of the less-well-educated.
The author implies that mega fires occur only in the US and began only after Obama became president.
The reality is that mega fires are occurring all over the world in tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, and grasslands. The mega fires began in the 1980s but are becoming more and more frequent
Bye the way is that another Government miss-fit (aka) Dyke in the photo?
Will filling all government higher up slots convince the masses homosexuality is OK.....?
I don’t think so only that the government is totally screwed up
This pristine cr** has got to stop. Wood is a renewable source and we waste it.
Idiotic causes like that stupid owl putting thousands out of work is ridiculous.
Let's get back to treating nature with common sense.
And your solution is what based off the fact that the AGW myth is a globalist wet dream propagated by the UN?
“The mega fires began in the 1980s but are becoming more and more frequent “
LOL!
Mega fires predate Man’s existence on earf. Just one example : What is now Lake Mattamuskeet .
Summer time heat.
Lake Mattamuskeet is one of a number of Carolina Bay lakes of disputed origin. An Indian legend attributes its formation to a fire that burned for thirteen moons.
Scientists cite the possibility of a prehistoric meteor shower or underground peat fires in speculating about how the lake formed.
The eco-terrorists finally figured that the way to stop all logging is to burn down all the forests. Brilliant move!
We need to “Go Galt”.
I bet FIRE is the reason forest fires are destructive. /geesh!
I worked fires for five years here in Montana. Fires are allowed to grow to the size that requires resources to fight them. IOW, there is a lot of money that is set aside, budgeted, to fight the fires and thousands of seasonal jobs that depend on them.
If they are put out too quickly ... nobody gets paid.
I was just in Wyoming and saw the Lava Mountain Fire and the Cliff Creek Fire up close and personal. Believe me tat they have over 100 fire fighters, plus the use of helicopters dumping water, in trying to control these.
I don’t doubt it one bit.
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