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The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change

Posted by samzenpus on from the since-the-world's-been-turning dept.

Lasrick writes "Andrew Revkin at DotEarthblog posts an assessment of the drivers of wildfire trends in the American West. He shows a graph of fire activity for the past 400 years in the Yosemite-Mariposa area, and a rather surreal time-lapse video of the current Rim Fire now burning in and around Yosemite."

4 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. so its not global warming? by alen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    no way

    no one is going to believe it though since you need something simple for people to blame everything on

    1. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Then I should be able to measure the thickness of that soil, its carbon content and deduce its age. But I can't.

      Of course you can't. You are not a pedologist or edaphologist or other soil scientist; you are not an ecologist, or biologist; you are probably not any kind of scientist. You are not even well-read about the subject you write about. So no one with any sense would expect you to be able to do any kind useful soil measurements.

      You are entitled to your opinion, which you have expressed in a manner which makes it very clear how broadly it is based in fact. Which is not very broadly at all; it is so narrow that it topples under its own instabilities. Nevertheless, it is a valid opinion that you are most certainly entitled to express. And which can be used by anyone to assess the value of your contributions to these discussions.

      --
      Will
    2. Re:so its not global warming? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Protip: when you have been thoroughly pwned, all you accomplish by whining about it is to embarrass yourself and everyone else around you.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  2. Human Arrogance by billybob_jcv · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The arrogance of our species is astounding. Our perceptual timelines are far too short and our reactions are far too erratic. Nature grinds forward - with or without intervention by humans - and with or without the survival of life on this planet. It's not clear to me whether we have the power to remove all life on this planet and make it just another dead, lifeless space rock - I suspect we do not - not as long as the oceans contain micro organisms that can evolve very quickly such that even we can't easily eradicate them. Either way - the universe doesn't give d@mn - and thinking we have the ability to "control" our environment is the height of folly. Our mindset should be to try to survive and live within the current state of the planet - whatever that current state looks like. If the mean temperature of the planet is increasing, fine - then instead of trying to stop the environment's current direction - figure out how to live with the new status quo. Adapt or die - it's as easy as that. Hopefully, the squid will do a better job after we are gone and the squid rise-up to take our niche in the hierarchy.