Most affected states are still in the reactive firefighting mode rather than thinking how to get ahead of the curve by removing a century of fuel accumulated from determined fire suppression. There's no question rising temperatures make things worse, but really the bill is just coming due sooner.
CA gov Gavin Newsome's news conference is a good sample of what's currently wrong with our approach. It's what he doesn't say that's interesting.
[1] https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/09/08/...
[0]https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/topics/tree_mortality/california/i...
Still, fire suppression is the 800 pound gorilla. We're not just seeing fires in the conifer-dominated Sierra. It's also in the savannah and scrub zones as well. These all burned regular in prehistoric times.
There are a bunch of things that could be done, but no one is happy to support it. Selective logging, brush clearing, not putting multi-million dollar homes in the forest. etc.
The way to get rid of it is to... burn it. But people don't like it burning, so they won't.
I would think the closer analogy to a pandemic would be that it calms down when it kills nearly everyone. But, I suppose that is herd immunity in some sense.
Hopefully this will finally hit some people hard and we'll reverse the decades of urban sprawl and environmental mismanagement. In all likelihood, it will be forgotten as soon as the blue sky returns.
As I understand it, half of California is federal land, so it will take two to tango.
It actually looks pretty beautiful, Blade Runner style. Unfortunate that it's because of fires though...
https://twitter.com/victor_kabdebon/status/13037150297792307...
No, your view window ends in Oregon. I don't know how one is supposed to determine anything about what's going on in Washington state from that link. Here's a more useful link for the doubtful:
What should they be doing instead?
2. Extremely expensive housing.
3. Can't go outside.
Mars? Nope, San Francisco.
It makes me long for the fresh air and clear skies of Beijing.
Three hours later it’s even darker.
I guess you could say that even giant smoke clouds sometimes have silver linings...
