The saddest part about these fires in California is that they are self inflicted. Californians should not allow such mismanagement to continue.
The Federalist
by Kristina Skurk
11/16/2018
Excerpts:
I grew up in California’s Ventura County and have family in both southern and northern California. Right now, the most deadly fire in California’s history is racing across northern California. The Camp Fire has already killed at least 56 people, burned down 7,700 homes, and destroyed the entire town of Paradise. A brush fire is also wreaking havoc on southern California. The Woolsey Fire has destroyed 98,362 acres, killed two people, and damaged several Hollywood landmarks such as the set of “MASH” and the Reagan Ranch.
Article after article blames two things for California’s frequent fires: global warming and human action. For example, a BuzzFeed article is titled, “How A Booming Population And Climate Change Made California’s Wildfires Worse Than Ever.” While dry conditions make fires more likely and people often start them, this misses the big picture. President Trump summed it up on Nov 10. He wrote, “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor … Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”
When trees are too close together, they fight for resources. Many of the trees are weakened and become more susceptible to disease and insect infestation. These conditions turn entire forests into tinder boxes. A 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) states that 129 million trees have died in California’s forests since 2010. The USDA report agrees with Trump — California’s forests suffer from neglect and mismanagement.
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To prevent fires, both the California’s state government and the federal government need to deregulate logging and encourage the Forest Service to make a profit by selling timber. Until the environmental protests of the 1970s, the Forest Service was one of the only departments in the federal government making a profit. It is a myth that environmental concerns and business interests are always at odds. In the case of California’s forests, thinning the trees is in the interests of both parties. Trump understands this, and his administration is expanding timber sales on federal land.
Ironically, these ill-conceived environmental policies designed to ward off climate change have been the source of massive amounts of carbon dioxide pollution. A forest fire’s initial blaze releases 5.2. million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Forest Service ecologist Leland Tarnay. This is equivalent to the amount of emissions from 1.1 million passenger cars in a year.
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View the complete article including image and links at:
http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/16/misguided-environmentalism-blame-californias-wildfires/