Why does it seem like this is presented as a bad take? What's wrong with ecological changes and corrections taking centuries, or longer?
Too often I see environmental advocates wringing their hands over changes which absent humanity would be just a chance for other subsystems to adapt or related ecology to evolve while the initial system rebuilds itself.
Just because humanity "depends" upon the later results or effects of these processes (or just because humanity caused them) doesn't mean any anything, really.
Consider from the environment's perspective:
This, too, shall pass.
There's a climate science "gotcha" which is that the Earth's average temperature has been much higher in the past than it is now. No one disputes this. The problem is not so much the absolute level as the rate of change, which gives less time for everything to adapt.
Hearing that very small group of people (or researchers and political advocates funded by that very small group of people) paint a quaint picture of humans as one tiny part of Gaia might make some people uncomfortable.
At a personal level, the extinction of the giant sequoias or the spotted owls doesn’t seem like a very desirable outcome.
It’s natural to want to stop it, same as someone wanting to not have their wallet stolen, or a house they love destroyed and replaced with an apartment complex.
if you value things, then you have wishes and desires. if you consider people to be responsible for choices, you can assign value to actions and consequences.
some people don’t like devastation of the natural environment. if you understand yourself as part of the world, it feels a lot like self-harm.
It would be interesting to correlate forestry management practices and population density.
The Longleaf Pine episode on Smarter Every Day was also educational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWG7raBlT8
I don't know that they speak for the US Forest Service though. Between the different national level parks and forest services and then the state level ones, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are still a lot in the active suppression camp. Then there are municipalities where people can basically live in the WUI and the idea of preserving only structures is further complicated.
This talk is by someone who works for the US Forest Service.
Popular conservation, which tends towards absolute preservation, has not come around.
When the state allows construction and utility connections and so forth, it should also take up responsibility for fire management.
All it takes is one person building a cabin in the middle of a forest, and all of a sudden it's a fire that threatens property and can't be allowed to burn. We can let remote areas of the national parks burn, but it's going to take a lot of political and social change before it becomes acceptable to let people's vacation properties burn, Or to prevent development of large regions of forest so it can be allowed to burn.
That doesn’t mean that their property won’t be defended as much as possible, just that stopping the entire fire itself won’t be the goal.
And California seems to be heading in that direction, though not there yet.
Raising taxes to fix things is always the most regressive solution- the wealthy, and only the wealthy, will be able to afford it.
Instead, treat it like a rural flood plain, acknowledge that the land is simply worth less because it is prone to natural damage, and leave it at that. Fire coming? Issue an evacuation order and let nature take its course.
Why we should want water? because is a strong temperatures buffer, protecting people and providing a more stable local climate so we -should- aim to store as many water as possible in the forests.
And because all our economy is centered in water supply. A few months without absolutely no water and our big cities would collapse and be quit in mass.
And because putting the water in the ocean, and this is the main result of wildfires, will help to raise the sea level where the '90%' of the big cities are situated and would destroy zillions in people's property instead. We are risking more than a few forest cabins here.
Some conifers need fire to multiply yes, but this technology is easy to provide so is not a big problem. And those conifers are also a symptom; they are survivors that live only where the other plants can't. If you have only a sea of pine trees it means that the soil is too poor or the climate is too cold or harsh for the other trees.
To keep drying the area and destroying this soil is not always the better solution.
That's what numerous articles written on the topic from experts have said.
First one is the one you described, and the second one is that given the changes in climate that it's even possible to contain these wildfires using mechanical means, such as trenches and water drops.
It may not be.
The question then is which one is the lesser evil.
Logging generally does not have the same effect (logging takes big trees and leave small stuff, fires leave big trees and kill small stuff. Also the heat from fire is important for the germination of some types of trees)
So the point you’re making is kind of besides the point I think?
There is no apparent option where we don’t have fire. Lightning, utility failure, random people smoking, a trailer with a flat tired (that happened), prescribed burns - it’s inevitable it happens at some point.
> I don't see why climate change would affect the positive aspects of fire.
... since it has a strong effect on the fire and the forest, both pre and post fire. It changes a lot of calculus, including the relative benefit of letting things burn out.
We could have a really long discussion on the best wildlands management practices, and the tradeoffs. Prescribed burns, in recent history, have only covered a very very tiny fraction of land. Scaling that up would be logistical difficult, expensive, and probably politically infeasible. Letting things burn is also problematic, as the species mix is no longer well adapted for fire in many places. Suppressing every fire is equally problematic, kind of like plugging the vent in a pressure cooker. Fire breaks, logging, prescribed burns, and other means of fuel load reduction are all traditional fixes that we can use tactically (around cities, etc), but are only going to go so far. In my opinion, we've backed ourselves into a corner in the US west, and with climate change there isn't necessarily a good option going forward.
(disclaimer: I study wildfires as part of my work in a Climate & Energy R&D group, though by no means an expert)