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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>November 5, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[good to know]<br>
<b>Biden vows to rejoin Paris climate accord on 'day one' if he wins</b><br>
U.S. officially withdrew from global pact Wednesday<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-vows-to-rejoin-paris-climate-accord-on-day-one-if-he-wins-11604549000">https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-vows-to-rejoin-paris-climate-accord-on-day-one-if-he-wins-11604549000</a><br>
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[NASA says]<br>
<b>Severe Drought in South America</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147480/southamgw_grc_2020300.jpg">https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147480/southamgw_grc_2020300.jpg</a>
...<br>
Large parts of South America are in the grip of a serious drought.
Signs of the drought began to appear in satellite gravimetry
observations of southeastern Brazil in mid-2018, and had spread into
parts of Paraguay, Bolivia, and northern Argentina by 2020...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147480/severe-drought-in-south-america">https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147480/severe-drought-in-south-america</a><br>
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[from the Hill - There is no "right way" to do the wrong thing.]<b><br>
</b><b>Seven lessons we've learned from wildfires</b><br>
There are several lessons learned from this experiment. The first is
that the vast majority of all fires are small and inconsequential.
These fires remain small, not because of a lack of fuel, but because
the climate and weather do not support their spread.<br>
<br>
Indeed, extreme fire weather is the ingredient common to all large
fires across the country. When you have the right climate and
weather conditions of drought, high temperatures, low humidity and,
most importantly, wind, you get blazes that cannot be controlled --
until the weather changes.<br>
<br>
While "fuel reductions" like thinning, prescribed burning and
logging may control or stop blazes occurring under low-to-moderate
fire weather conditions, they fail under extreme fire weather. Not
to mention, the probability that a fire will encounter a fuel
reduction before plants grow back is extremely low -- typically less
than 1 percent.<br>
<br>
Why is this important? Because the very fires we seek to control are
those burning under extreme fire weather conditions.<br>
<br>
The recent fires that charred more than 750,000 acres in Oregon's
Cascade range is a classic example of how climate and weather drive
large fires through all "fuel reduction" efforts. These fires raced
through clearcuts, thinned stands, prescribed burns, and across
highways, parking lots, lakes, rivers and other areas where there is
no fuel, all driven by 70-mph winds after a summer of severe
drought.<br>
<br>
So, what are the lessons to be learned? <br>
<br>
First, we cannot log or thin our way to any massive fire reduction.
Logging can even enhance fire spread by opening up forested stands
to more significant drying and wind penetration.<br>
<br>
Second, logging has significant collateral damage, including
sedimentation into streams from logging roads, the spread of weeds,
reducing carbon storage, displacing sensitive wildlife and, in many
instances, costing taxpayers money to subsidize timber removal on
public lands.<br>
<br>
Third, climate change is exacerbating the weather conditions that
are driving large blazes. It is lengthening the period when any
ignition can grow into large blazes, drying fuels, so they more
readily burn and increase the wind that ultimately drives flames
through, over, and around "fuel reductions. <br>
<br>
Fourth, forested landscapes, even burned landscapes store a
tremendous amount of carbon. What burns in a forest fire are fine
fuels like grass, needles, cones and so forth. That is why we have
snags left after a blaze. And those snag forests all store carbon
and are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems in western
forests.<br>
<br>
Fifth, logging is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions, especially in some Western states, so proponents of
more logging are only increasing the very climate and weather
conditions that sustain large blazes. For instance, in Oregon,
logging related GHG emissions contribute to 35 percent of its carbon
releases.<br>
<br>
Sixth, until we get GHG emissions under control, we should work from
the home outward to safeguard communities. Reducing the flammability
of structures can help avoid the tragic loss of life and homes many
people experience. <br>
<br>
Seventh, large, mixed-high severity fires are the "natural" burn
pattern for nearly all ecosystems in the West except for dry pine
forests. These ecosystems, including sagebrush, all fir, lodgepole
pine, hemlock, spruce, west-side Douglas fir, juniper, chaparral,
aspen and others, tend to have long intervals without any
significant burning but then blaze away at great intensity when the
right climate and weather conditions permit.<br>
There is no "right way" to do the wrong thing. Focusing on fuel
reductions (except in the immediate area of homes and communities)
is unlikely to achieve the results advocates of "active management"
desire.<br>
<br>
Instead, our best way forward is to promote firewise home protection
policies, reduce rural sprawl into fire-prone landscapes and
ultimately get a handle on carbon emissions.<br>
<br>
George Wuerthner is an ecologist who has spent decades researching
fires. He has published two books on wildfire including "Wildfire: A
Century of Failed Forest Policy."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/524349-seven-lessons-weve-learned-from-wildfires">https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/524349-seven-lessons-weve-learned-from-wildfires</a><br>
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[text and audio]<br>
<b>Despite what the logging industry says, cutting down trees isn't
stopping catastrophic wildfires</b><br>
By Tony Schick (OPB) and Jes Burns (OPB)<br>
Gates, Ore. Oct. 31, 2020 <br>
For decades, Oregon's timber industry has promoted the idea that
private, logged lands are less prone to wildfires. The problem?
Science doesn't support that...<br>
- -<br>
In the decades since government restrictions reduced logging on
federal lands, the timber industry has promoted the idea that
private lands are less prone to wildfires, saying that forests thick
with trees fuel bigger, more destructive blazes. An analysis by OPB
and ProPublica shows last month's fires burned as intensely on
private forests with large-scale logging operations as they did, on
average, on federal lands that cut fewer trees.<br>
<br>
In fact, private lands that were clear-cut in the past five years,
with thousands of trees removed at once, burned slightly hotter than
federal lands, on average. On public lands, areas that were logged
within the past five years burned with the same intensity as those
that hadn't been cut, according to the analysis.<br>
<br>
"The belief people have is that somehow or another we can thin our
way to low-intensity fire that will be easy to suppress, easy to
contain, easy to control. Nothing could be further from the truth,"
said Jack Cohen, a retired U.S. Forest Service scientist who
pioneered research on how homes catch fire...<br>
- -<br>
Late last year, Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat and her
party's nominee for vice president, sponsored a bill to create a $1
billion grant program for making homes more resistant to wildfires.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden co-sponsored the bill in September.
He also filed a separate bill seeking a $300 million federal
investment in the use of prescribed fire.<br>
<br>
Neither bill has received a hearing.<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/31/logging-wildfire-forest-management/">https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/31/logging-wildfire-forest-management/</a><br>
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[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
November 5, 1965 </b></font><br>
<p>President Johnson's Science Advisory Committee issues a report,
"Restoring the Quality of Our Environment," that cites the hazards
of carbon pollution.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/05/scientists-warned-the-president-about-global-warming-50-years-ago-today">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/05/scientists-warned-the-president-about-global-warming-50-years-ago-today</a>
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