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From: Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: OT: Typical Globlist
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2025 03:21:48 +1100
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On 16/01/2025 2:47 am, john larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:01:30 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
> (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
> 
>> Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>>
>>> ... Los Angles has a perfectly competent fire department,
>>> which did all that was humanly possible. Sadly, they can't do anything
>>> about anthropogenic global warming
>>
>> Part of the problem was too many trees and other plants close together -
>> I don't notice anyone campaigning about that.
>>
>> Trees don't destroy CO2, they simply store it and release it later,
>> either as CO2 or as methane.
> 
> Things that grow in California must get harvested or will burn. It's
> been that way for millenia; the natives warned the Spanish about that.
> When people put out small fires, as we have done for over a century
> now, we add to the fuel load for giant firestorms. Blame Smokey The
> Bear.

In Australia we have fuel reduction burns every winter, when the weather 
is suitable - dry enough that the scrub will burn, but not so dry that 
the fires they set are likely to run away (though it has been known to 
happen).

I doubt if the people responsible for monitoring this in California 
don't know about Australian practice - American fire control aircraft 
come over here to work on our fires during the American off season.

John Larkin might be less well-informed.

> Not only are unnaturally dense forests great fuel, houses are even
> better. That was obvious in the Oakland and Paradise and Lahaina
> fires; rows of houses set one another on fire and the trees survived.

Modern houses are built to be hard to ignite. Older houses are often 
less carefully constructed. California's earthquakes favour flexible 
timber frames, but you should cover the frame with something that isn't 
inflamable.

> Pics show forests in California that are six times denser than they
> were naturally, a century ago.

Individual pictures can show individual idiosyncrsies. Surveying a whole 
forest is a rather larger job.

> And why do people build insanely flammible houses, right next to other
> insanely flammible houses?

Housing regulations are designed to avoid this. Some Americans think 
that this in government interference in their freedom of action.

> Our cabin in the mountains won't burn,
> because it would be very hard to ignite, and because we keep the
> landscape free of stuff that would burn a lot.
> 
> Let the insurance free market work.

It's less helpful than it might be. Insurance companies set rates based 
on historical records, and if anthropogenic global warming is changing 
the environment, the historical a record is less helpful than it used to be.

The atlantic multidecadal oscillation produces some long term cycles 
that people weren't aware of -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation

It wasn't even named until 2000.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney