Comment by onezerozeroone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onezerozeroone | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's easy enough to google, here's one to get you started

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Are...

FWIW I never said it had to be one or the other. But it certainly is the case that one of the two (climate change) is consistently downplayed and dismissed entirely as a major contributing cause. There are of course more contributing factors than just two, such as power lines sparking the fires.

It is not physically possible to manage the amount of forest in CA to the degree that it solves the problem. Help mitigate? Sure. Remember, you're talking something like 30 million acres.

Experts acknowledge that forest management is important and a necessary component. But again...57% is the Federal government and 33% is private.

Logically, there must be some point where the temperature+climate change become so severe that regardless of how much forest is cleared eventually all 30M acres become dry tinder, are consumed, and CA becomes a desert. Global climate change WILL eventually create that situation if not addressed and the amount of change required to cause that situation isn't as high as people might imagine. Some experts think it might already be too late.

“It is not possible to manage the amount of forest in CA to the degree that it solves the problem.... Remember, you’re talking something like 30 million acres.”

Let me DuckDuckGo that for you.

What historic precedent would we have for that? According to this site, clearing forests in the Eastern Part of the US occurred at the rate of 13 sq mi (8320 acres) a day, every day for the fifty year period between 1850 and 1900.

https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-facts-on-forestland-1343...

So about 3M acres a year without the benefit of the internal combustion engine. So 10 years to clearcut all the CA forests if we only used axe and mule. I’m guessing a chainsaw and bulldozer could go a bit faster. It’s mountainous terrain so newer custom technology might be needed. And there might be a wee bit of backlash from some ecofolks if we destroyed all the trees, including me.

But physically impossible? That’s hyperbole. In fact, history suggests it wouldn’t be impracticable. It would be expensive. But it could be started today on a pretty significant scale. The science and engineering on how to do it on a sound ecological footing is well-established. The barriers are administrative, logistical, economic and emotional.

Sadly, none of those barriers are overcome by a focus on the climate change debate. There’s only so much attention an eyeball can spend, and if it’s spent on the climate change debate, it isn’t around to focus on fixing any actual current environmental and public health problem.

I think of it as Gore v. Carter. Al Gore argued grand schemes and tons of to-be-mismanaged money for possibly addressing a speculative concern. Jimmy just built another house for a family in need. I miss Jimmy...

And tomorrow, another child dies of lung disease in Delhi...

Thanks for sharing that info.

I do think we're talking past each other though. Perhaps I should have said "practical" instead of "possible". Certainly just about anything is possible with enough money and manpower thrown at it.

I still maintain that forest management alone is insufficient to address the situation. After all, there is little need for forest management if the forest has burnt to a crisp, has become a desert, and no longer exists.

Let's say we devised a perfect management plan, used machine learning to slice the forests up into optimally manageable sections with nearly no chance of spreading uncontrollably. Hell, even throw in robots that automatically "rake" the land.

What happens when the climate becomes such that any segment will burn totally if ignited and all segments will inevitably burn? What happens when the climate becomes so hot that all foliage withers and dies? Problem solved I suppose.

Unfortunately, after decades of lies, propaganda, and lobbying, people (in the U.S. at least) still perceive climate change to be, as you say, a "debate". On that I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, since IMO it is not a debate and has instead become one of those uniquely American ideological battlegrounds where one "side" has been convinced that being stubbornly contrarian is a sign of intellectual independence and superiority, despite all facts and data to the contrary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com