Global heating made this possible and made it worse


Wildfire burns a home in California. NowThis image.

NowThis runs compelling video on FaceBook, but just try to find that video on their YouTube channel or website to share.

This one will have to do. It makes the point.

California’s wildfires, growing steadily worse, rapidly, demonstrate problems of global heating/climate change that we need to solve, but which offer lots of bad arguments for Do Nothings and Climate Dismissives.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell, explained in this video: Rain patterns changed. California now gets massive rains in the spring, which drive overgrowth of grasses, quick-growing shrubs and other fire-prone plants.

Then the rains stop. Hotter summers and autumns dry out the new growth, creating explosive fuel for a fire.

So when a fire starts, it’s difficult-to-impossible to control.

Do Nothings argue that rain totals haven’t dropped, or maybe have increased, so drought fears are not warranted — though the summer without rain drives soil water levels into drought.

Then, they argue that the problem is environmentalists won’t let foresters clean understory dry wood and other fuels to prevent fires. That’s a whole cloth fabrication — reality is that federal budget cuts over the past 20 years leave the U.S. Forest Service unable to do significant brush clearing.

Then, Do Nothings argue that the problem is Caliornians build too many homes, and too many homes in near-wild areas.

In short, it’s always the fault of a “librul Californian,” with no causation left over for global warming.

I found the video I want on Facebook, and you may be able to view it there (even if you are not a member).

Look at the video and please understand, much of that destruction is preventable. Fires will probably continue to get worse, with the fire season now running 12 months of the year in California.

We can fix it. We need to act soon.

NowThis explain at their site:

Plagued by historically harsh winds, California has been hit with an onslaught of wildfires—the newest of which has broken out near the famed Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It joins several other fires burning across the state, including the Oak Fire in Calabasas, the Tick Fire in Southern California and the massive Kincade Fire in Northern California. 
 
Last night, the Kincade Fire was still burning out of control in its fifth day, dropping from 10% containment to 5% due to hurricane-force winds and dry conditions that have allowed it to spread and made it difficult to control. There have been 200,000 evacuations in Sonoma County because of the fire, and it is expected to burn for another week and a half with no rain in the forecast.

Los Angeles near the Getty Center looks like Mordor right now. pic.twitter.com/ET6f1gkmre— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 6, 2017

The Getty Fire began early Monday, prompting police to ask thousands of people to evacuate, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, LeBron James, and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s parents. About 25,000 live in the LA evacuation zone, which covers a swath of high-priced real estate. A fire in December 2017 lit up the same area and forced drivers into a horrifying, apocalyptic-looking morning commute.
 
Governor Gavin Newsom secured Fire Management Assistance Grants to help fight the flames and announced a $75 million program to alleviate the fires’ impact on citizens. In an emergency declaration made Sunday, he urgent people not to ignore warnings, saying, , “It is critical that people in evacuation zones heed the warnings from officials and first responders, and have the local and state resources they need as we fight these fires.” 
At least 3,400 first responders and personnel are fighting the wildfires.
 
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) the state’s biggest utility provider, shut off power to more than a million residents to try to curb further fire risks, but has received criticism for the lack of notice given. In a statement released Sunday, PG&E said more shut offs may come later in the week. In May, Cal Fire found PG&E was responsible for the Camp Fire, which left 85 dead and destroyed nearly 14,000 homes in 2018. It was the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history. PG&E had admitted it’s equipment was “likely” culpable.
 
The people hit hardest by California’s fires are those who are already vulnerable: homeless populations, the elderly, low-income populations without access to emergency preparations. The LA Times reported that a housekeeper and gardener showed up in the midst of ash and fire to their clients’ homes for work without realizing the homeowners had already evacuated.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 28th, 2019 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Climate change, climate_change, Disasters, Global warming, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to Global heating made this possible and made it worse

  1. Ed Darrell says:
    October 30, 2019 at 1:18 pm

    While I was trying to find what 1949 document of Mao’s Kimball was talking about, I came across this feature from the Washington Post — photos of China 1949 to 2019. Very concise, and photos that communicate a lot more about what went on and what’s going on in China than many longer pieces in text. Check out the photo gallery:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/amp-stories/china-70th-anniversary/

    Like

  2. Ed Darrell says:
    October 30, 2019 at 4:35 am

    Mr. Kimball, I think you may have misremembered the article in MIT Technology Review. I Googled to find it, and this is what came up, excerpt and link:

    The Northern California fires are an ongoing event that he hasn’t analyzed and can’t draw any firm conclusions from yet, he stresses. But he notes that the drought killed “millions of trees” (in fact, more than 100 million), building up huge amounts of fuel. Separately, while the 2016-2017 winter was an extremely wet season, it was followed by a dry and blistering summer that set temperature records around the state.

    “So without having analyzed this specific event, we know that the pathways by which temperature has influenced wildfire risks historically are relevant for the conditions in which this wildfire is occurring,” he says.

    The winds fanning the Northern California flames this week are a common enough occurrence to have a name, the “Diablo winds.” They blow across the interior to the coast, heating up, speeding up, and drying out as they descend from higher elevations. The same winds were a major factor in the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm that killed 25 residents and destroyed nearly 3,500 homes.

    Shifting atmospheric climate conditions can certainly affect wind patterns, but the data is mixed on whether climate change is heightening this kind of natural wind phenomenon.

    Whether climate change is a contributing factor to any single fire in California is almost beside the point. By now we know it does contribute to fires and will exacerbate many more extreme events, as climate scientists have long predicted, steadily increasing costs, damage, and deaths.

    Indeed, anthropogenic climate change has doubled the area scorched by forest fires during the last three decades across the American West, burning an additional 16,000 square miles, according to a study last year in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    And it’s only going to get worse as temperatures continue to climb.

    “No matter how hard we try, the fires are going to keep getting bigger, and the reason is really clear,” said coauthor Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. “We should be getting ready for bigger fire years than those familiar to previous generations.”

    Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609111/did-climate-change-worsen-californias-devastating-fires-probably/

    Like

  3. Ed Darrell says:
    October 30, 2019 at 12:08 am

    According to the History Channel:

    In outlining the various committees and agencies to be established under the new regime, Trump announced that “Our state system of the people power is a powerful weapon for safeguarding the fruits of victory of people’s swamp cleaning and for opposing plots of foreign and domestic enemies to stage a comeback. We must firmly grasp this weapon.” He denounced those who opposed his government as “imperialistic and domestic reactionaries.” In the future, [Trump’s America] would seek the friendship of “the Soviet Union and the new democratic countries.” Trump also claimed that Trumpism would help end the nation’s reputation as a haven for the poor. “The era in which the [Americans] were regarded as [push overs] is now over. We will emerge in the world as a highly civilized nation.”

    Is that the statement you forgot? Can you even tell the difference?

    Like

  4. Ed Darrell says:
    October 29, 2019 at 11:54 pm

    Oy. Where to start?

    Mr. Kimball said:

    Conservatives are NOT “Do Nothings”, as was stated. They are “Prevent the federal government from destroying and running roughshod over the individual liberties and states’ rights (including California’s) that hundreds of thousands of courageous and smart men and women have fought and died to preserve for US.”

    So your proposal is to do . . . nothing. Quel surprise!

    MIT Technology Review (a magazine published by a school that I attended, and that is more often found on the LEFT side of the political aisle) recently published an article stating that, although one factor in California’s fires may be climate change, a significant cause is California’s (NOT the federal government’s) mis-management of its own forests. When President Trump first pointed that out, California’s governor loudly denied it, but later quietly admitted that WAS a causal effect of the fires.

    Got a link? Citation?

    With respect to Climate change – conservatives (myself included) want to prevent Trillions of dollars of our country’s citizen’s hard-earned money to be wasted on “solutions” that, like virtually ALL of our federal government’s “solutions” (can you say “welfare”), either make the problem worse, or, as the post states, “Do Nothing” at all.

    How much do you think it costs California to fight those wildfires? Texas? The federal government?

    Oddly, your do-nothing solution is more expensive by multiples than acting to clean up the air. Of course, we’re losing ground on clean air, with Trump’s Dirty Air proposal (and don’t get me started on his Dirty Water plan).

    Once upon a time we thought saving human lives from premature deaths was a good thing. In court, we count that as added value, especially when determining how to compensate survivors of someone killed prematurely.

    No other government since the Third Reich has claimed early death a good thing. It still costs U.S. taxpayers more than preventing deaths. Trump administration is doing its best to get rid of the experts who do those cost comparisons and cost-benefit analyses, so you can’t know the truth.

    That’s okay with you?

    Having said all that, neither climate change, nor gun control (a favorite of Ed Darrell’s), nor any other specific issues are at the heart of today’s political debate. What IS at the heart of the debate?
    Control – NOT Gun Control, nor control of climate change initiatives, nor of any (specific) thing.
    Just Control – of YOUR life.

    Bullshit.

    Do you REALLY want the Federal government (or ANY government) controlling how you are (or are NOT) allowed to get to work?

    You mean, like failing to fund efficient and cheap mass transit so it costs us a fortune in time and six years of our lives to commute to work? You agree with Jake Garn that it’s worth killing 100,000 Americans a year with dirty air so that you can control the radio in your own vehicle?

    Get an iPod and some earphones. You couldn’t get to work today without federal government involvement. Why not make those decisions wise decisions, in terms of saving lives, saving money (including taxpayer money), adding to GDP and reducing taxes, and saving time to be more productive?

    If you find it offensive to ride in air conditioned comfort with a couple dozen fellow citizens, find a nation where the citizens are different.

    Or how and when you are allowed to use energy in your home? California is controlling that right now.

    No, Pacific Gas and Electric is controlling that, a private corporation, driven by lawyers trying to avoid liability for wildfires.

    You don’t really read much about climate change, do you?

    Or how many children you are allowed to have? Think that’s far-fetched? When there isn’t enough energy to power the agricultural base of our country, what “solution” do you think a socialist-run federal government will come up with to “provide” for the masses? To produce more energy to drive more agricultural production? Hardly.

    Official U.S. policy is to reduce poverty, which leads to energy savings, and to smaller, better educated and more productive, more taxpaying families.

    You prefer the non-governmental solution? Increase poverty, waste energy, have bigger, more ignorant, lazier and public dole-residing families?

    “Do-nothing” is too polite a label.

    It will be to reduce the demand for food, which can ONLY happen by rationing food, &/or by reducing the population / growth.

    Democrats propose to not ration food, to provide guaranteed markets for larger portions of farm production.Trump proposes to increase food rationing, and has already bankrupted a few thousand soybean farmers.

    Hungry kids because food is rationed by Trump’s “no free school lunch” program is stupid, and immoral; bankrupting farmers is supremely stupid, a sell-out to China and Russia.

    You’re not on the side of America, though, right?

    A quick word about gun control and climate change (yes, really).
    If we believe that a correlation between man-made green-house gases and climate change means causation, then we MUST believe that a correlation between man-made gun control measures and gun violence is also a causal relationship.

    No one believes human-emitted carbon pollution causes global heating. It’s not a religious issue. It’s science. That’s what the science shows. Using Sherlock Holmes’s “science for the thinking-impaired” explanation, we take an effect and look for all possible causes. We eliminate all the causes that are impossible; and whatever remains, however improbable, is the cause.

    For 60 years chemists, meteorologists, physicists and others have worked hard to disprove the hypotheses that events or substances including CO2 cause global heating. All have been disproven except CO2. No one can disprove CO2 as the cause of warming. Since the extra CO2 that causes the warming is ALL due to human emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, then “we has met the enemy, and he is us,” as Pogo said.

    But let’s play: Show your work, what do you say is the cause of the unnatural, dramatically rapid warming Earth experienced over the past 40 years, melting glaciers, expanding deserts, messing up rain seasons, ruining crops with drought, or flood or both? Miami has sea water erupting from storm sewers, weekly, as sea level rises.

    What’s your solution? Do you have a clue what the real problem is, since you’re so cocksure every scientist who studied the issue in the last 100 years is wrong?

    Meaning that the gun violence we see in every major urban area, where strict gun controls are virtually universal (especially in the more violent cities), is BECAUSE of the gun control measures in those cities.

    Where gun control measures are enforced, they work.Where gun control is frustrated by easy gun trafficking in nearby political units, there is less success.

    Oh, I get it: You’re saying that in reality you support fighting climate change, you just don’t have the big boy pants to say so.

    And the “solution” should therefore be eliminating all gun control measures in those cities. I personally believe there should be controls on PEOPLE who have proven (by their real actions) that they are willing to hurt or kill people without cause (i.e., not in defense of themselves or others), but NOT on law-abiding citizens, or even on non-violent criminals (tax evaders, etc.).

    It would be okay with you to deregulate automobiles so that anyone without parking tickets or speeding tickets could own an armored personnel carrier and ignore speed limits, right?

    That’s your analogy. Of course it wouldn’t work (accidents rise with speed), and it’s remarkably stupid.

    Maybe spend your time studying climate change when you talk about climate change, and gun violence when you talk about gun violence. They are not the same thing, the causes are not really analogous, and solutions are not interchangeable.

    Now we know you’re ignorant of psychology and law, and causes and effects, in two public policy areas.

    Gun Control Nuts will argue this right up to the moment they are hurt or killed by a criminal, to my utter amazement, but a “gun free zone” is nothing more than an invitation to someone who wants to hurt or kill others, including with guns.

    Which is why we keep President Trump in a gun free zone, because deep down we’re inviting someone to knock him off?

    Your analogy stretching destroyed the subjects some time back. I should just wave it on.

    That’s another area where the socialists in our country REALLY want to control you and your family – whether or not you are allowed to protect yourself.
    YES – in whether or not you are allowed to protect yourself and your family.
    If you think you CAN protect yourself and your family without guns, then I’ve got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn you might be interested in. And if you believe the government is able (or even wants) to protect you and your family, I’m upping the price on that bridge. Believe me, it’s a really good deal.

    ::Wave!::

    You believe the government, don’t you?

    Again with religion? No, I don’t believe in government. It exists, and it exists and works when we participate. It exists despite your belief, and it functions on fact, not woo. Good policies depend on good knowledge of accurate facts.

    Here, you need a refresher course:

    1. Why self-government: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
    2. How to self-govern: A. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution
    B. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights
    3. Freedom as a launching pad: https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=70
    4. Keeping freedom alive: A. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=36
    B. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=91

    I understand the U.S. government to be the best hope for sustainable freedom over the next two hundred years, a republic “if you can keep it.”

    So, which candidates do you truly believe want to preserve your ability to control your own life and circumstances?

    Most of the Democrats, none of the Republicans.

    Vote for them. If you’re wrong, and you pay careful attention to what those you vote for actually do after (and if) they are elected, it will become obvious.

    It appears you haven’t paid attention for years, maybe decades. Odd you recommend that as an action, when you don’t bother.

    Now, why would someone WANT the government to control their lives? There are at least two reasons I can think of:
    1. They are part of the group that is trying to control everyone (else), and every thing; and,
    2. Laziness. They think if they vote for people who SAY they will “Do Something”, and solve the world’s problems, then they have done their part.
    If you’re in group 2, then you may just (but I hope not) get the government you deserve.

    So you deserved to have a crooked misanthrope in the White House. Sadly, the rest of us suffer from that stupid decision, too.

    America can do better.

    I truly hope the majority of the PEOPLE will see what the main stream media, and liberals in general, are trying to do, and see PAST all the “noise” (impeachment proceedings, the “green new deal”, etc.), and recognize how close to the brink of “government control of everything” we are.

    You’re so panicked by “socialism” that you don’t understand in any way that you happily vote for a damaging, America-destructive kleptocracy?

    Why would I listen to you on any other point?

    I read an online post recently, that pointed out the statements and promises made by Mao ze Dong (sorry for likely incorrect spelling) and the Chinese Communist party in 1949.
    They were so close to the promises and statements of today’s Democratic Party, it chilled my bones. I am glad I still have the right to state my opinion, but that honestly won’t mean much if “the party of control” gains significant power. And it may not last long, either.

    Santayana warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

    Someone was pulling your leg, or your third leg. You appear wholly unfamiliar with Mao’s statements in 1949 (or any other year), what happened, and the Democratic Party platforms in any year since 1948. It was cold, hard ignorance that chilled your bones.

    Get your dog to cough up your references and see. See this for example, an imaginary “history” of what happens to America under Trump as Supreme Ruler.

    Like

  5. Charles Kimball says:
    October 29, 2019 at 8:39 pm

    Conservatives are NOT “Do Nothings”, as was stated. They are “Prevent the federal government from destroying and running roughshod over the individual liberties and states’ rights (including California’s) that hundreds of thousands of courageous and smart men and women have fought and died to preserve for US.”
    MIT Technology Review (a magazine published by a school that I attended, and that is more often found on the LEFT side of the political aisle) recently published an article stating that, although one factor in California’s fires may be climate change, a significant cause is California’s (NOT the federal government’s) mis-management of its own forests. When President Trump first pointed that out, California’s governor loudly denied it, but later quietly admitted that WAS a causal effect of the fires.
    With respect to Climate change – conservatives (myself included) want to prevent Trillions of dollars of our country’s citizen’s hard-earned money to be wasted on “solutions” that, like virtually ALL of our federal government’s “solutions” (can you say “welfare”), either make the problem worse, or, as the post states, “Do Nothing” at all.
    Having said all that, neither climate change, nor gun control (a favorite of Ed Darrell’s), nor any other specific issues are at the heart of today’s political debate. What IS at the heart of the debate?
    Control – NOT Gun Control, nor control of climate change initiatives, nor of any (specific) thing.
    Just Control – of YOUR life.
    Do you REALLY want the Federal government (or ANY government) controlling how you are (or are NOT) allowed to get to work? Or how and when you are allowed to use energy in your home? California is controlling that right now. Or how many children you are allowed to have? Think that’s far-fetched? When there isn’t enough energy to power the agricultural base of our country, what “solution” do you think a socialist-run federal government will come up with to “provide” for the masses? To produce more energy to drive more agricultural production? Hardly.
    It will be to reduce the demand for food, which can ONLY happen by rationing food, &/or by reducing the population / growth.
    A quick word about gun control and climate change (yes, really).
    If we believe that a correlation between man-made green-house gases and climate change means causation, then we MUST believe that a correlation between man-made gun control measures and gun violence is also a causal relationship. Meaning that the gun violence we see in every major urban area, where strict gun controls are virtually universal (especially in the more violent cities), is BECAUSE of the gun control measures in those cities.
    And the “solution” should therefore be eliminating all gun control measures in those cities. I personally believe there should be controls on PEOPLE who have proven (by their real actions) that they are willing to hurt or kill people without cause (i.e., not in defense of themselves or others), but NOT on law-abiding citizens, or even on non-violent criminals (tax evaders, etc.).
    Gun Control Nuts will argue this right up to the moment they are hurt or killed by a criminal, to my utter amazement, but a “gun free zone” is nothing more than an invitation to someone who wants to hurt or kill others, including with guns.
    That’s another area where the socialists in our country REALLY want to control you and your family – whether or not you are allowed to protect yourself.
    YES – in whether or not you are allowed to protect yourself and your family.
    If you think you CAN protect yourself and your family without guns, then I’ve got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn you might be interested in. And if you believe the government is able (or even wants) to protect you and your family, I’m upping the price on that bridge. Believe me, it’s a really good deal. You believe the government, don’t you?
    So, which candidates do you truly believe want to preserve your ability to control your own life and circumstances? Vote for them. If you’re wrong, and you pay careful attention to what those you vote for actually do after (and if) they are elected, it will become obvious.
    Now, why would someone WANT the government to control their lives? There are at least two reasons I can think of:
    1. They are part of the group that is trying to control everyone (else), and every thing; and,
    2. Laziness. They think if they vote for people who SAY they will “Do Something”, and solve the world’s problems, then they have done their part.
    If you’re in group 2, then you may just (but I hope not) get the government you deserve.
    I truly hope the majority of the PEOPLE will see what the main stream media, and liberals in general, are trying to do, and see PAST all the “noise” (impeachment proceedings, the “green new deal”, etc.), and recognize how close to the brink of “government control of everything” we are.
    I read an online post recently, that pointed out the statements and promises made by Mao ze Dong (sorry for likely incorrect spelling) and the Chinese Communist party in 1949.
    They were so close to the promises and statements of today’s Democratic Party, it chilled my bones.
    I am glad I still have the right to state my opinion, but that honestly won’t mean much if “the party of control” gains significant power. And it may not last long, either.

    Like

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