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Comment by downWidOutaFite | Hacker News Reader

It's environmentalists fault! (ignore how much we're overheating the planet)

There is no contradiction between the statements “global warming is a serious problem” and “preventing wildfires completely has some disadvantages vs. controlled burns”.

When people start talking about how much smarter "indigenous practices" were I can smell the own-the-libs bullshit even above the burning forests.

Prescribed burns aren't going to stop these forests from dying out over the next 50 years.

They aren't going to die out. Forested land is increasing and has since the 50's.

Source: https://www.fao.org/3/X4995e/X4995e.htm A snapshot of current conditions is as follows:

After two centuries of decline, the area of US forestland stabilized in about 1920 and has since increased slightly. The forest area of the US is about two-thirds what it was in 1600. The area consumed by wildfire each year has fallen 90 percent; it was between eight and twenty million hectares (20-50 million acres) in the early 1900s and is between one and two million hectares (2-5 million acres) today. Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997 forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920.

It's not lumber farms that are dying

I've had four species in my bags on a lot of blocks.

Living in Australia through the 2019 bushfires (finished by 2 weeks of rain just as Covid19 incubated), I love the sweet sweet smell of a controlled burn that is reducing the load for that next dry summer.

The law of unintended consequences is called a law for a reason.

Opting to finger point and use misdirection to avoid the inescapable fact this is primarily the fault of the environmentalists paradoxically harms environmental causes even more.

> this is primarily the fault of the environmentalists

Congrats, you got your story that makes you feel good about your ideological beliefs

These are matters of fact.

Nobody wants to live in a toxic environment or leave one for their children. There might be disagreement about how to solve these problems and what those problems are, but you're conflating several things.

Whining and complaining like a petulant child because people disagree with your approach isn't going to help the environment at all. It does raise questions about the underlying motives and the legitimacy of solutions that can't stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

But there is a lot wrong with blaming "preventing wildfires" on "those environmentalists" and making that the sole root cause of this problem, which it isn't too much at all. Contributing, but far from root cause.

Controlled burns btw also easier quickly said then done...

@ixgr Exactly. Thank you.

I mean it literally is their fault; kind of funny in a ironic way but mostly just sad.

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