What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Brain]

Can't you just rain-make the public?

[Malthus]

While "raking the forest" is, of course, moronic, there are ways to limit the damage caused by wild fires.

Ironically, the danger has been increased by the very success of human fire-suppression efforts. In the natural state, and indeed as managed by Native Americans, forest fires were reasonably regular - and so smaller, less intense, and less damaging (and less long-term carbon impact) that the really bad fires that occur less frequently.

https://www.fs.fed.us/research/highlights/highlights_display.php?in_high_id=518

Lots of forest species can survive periodic low-level burning just fine.

https://www.landcan.org/pdfs/benefits_of_prescribed_burning_low-res.pdf

[DGuller]

While "raking the forest" is, of course, moronic, there are ways to limit the damage caused by wild fires.

Ironically, the danger has been increased by the very success of human fire-suppression efforts. In the natural state, and indeed as managed by Native Americans, forest fires were reasonably regular - and so smaller, less intense, and less damaging (and less long-term carbon impact) that the really bad fires that occur less frequently.

https://www.fs.fed.us/research/highlights/highlights_display.php?in_high_id=518

Lots of forest species can survive periodic low-level burning just fine.

https://www.landcan.org/pdfs/benefits_of_prescribed_burning_low-res.pdf

Hasn't that been known for a while, though?  I thought that precisely because of this reason, controlled fires are started deliberately to burn off the underbrush.

[Malthus]

While "raking the forest" is, of course, moronic, there are ways to limit the damage caused by wild fires.

Ironically, the danger has been increased by the very success of human fire-suppression efforts. In the natural state, and indeed as managed by Native Americans, forest fires were reasonably regular - and so smaller, less intense, and less damaging (and less long-term carbon impact) that the really bad fires that occur less frequently.

https://www.fs.fed.us/research/highlights/highlights_display.php?in_high_id=518

Lots of forest species can survive periodic low-level burning just fine.

https://www.landcan.org/pdfs/benefits_of_prescribed_burning_low-res.pdf

Hasn't that been known for a while, though?  I thought that precisely because of this reason, controlled fires are started deliberately to burn off the underbrush.

Yup, it's been known for a long time - the difficulty lies in doing it on a consistent schedule over huge areas. That requires lots of money and it can require dealing with a lot of different land owners.

California has a prescribed burn program. The program website states that, as Catastrophic wildfires increase, so too will prescribed burns:

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/prescribed-burning

The point here is that this is something they are starting to implement, it isn't fully implemented yet. The obvious thing to have done would be to have rolled out a strict and comprehensive schedule of controlled burning already, **before** a season or more of catastrophic wildfires. I'm assuming the resources were not there to make that effort, though it isn't a subject I know better than second-hand.

[PDH]

One of the larger problems here is that so many people live in more rural, patchwork Government Forest-Private Land mashups.  In California, clusters of houses built into the "majestic forest" that are away from towns, etc.

These places have had very poor maintenance of surrounding trees and brush, they are often nestled right into the trees, and the owners for a long time have refused to remove trees and brush that almost guarantee that any fire coming through will destroy their home.  This in a place that in the best of years goes through 5-6 months of no rain each year, and it has not been the best of years for a while.

Anecdotally, in the recent fire outside of Santa Cruz, many structures were saved by local volunteer firefighters, who used their own pumps, hoses, water to combat fires - but they also removed trees and brush from around homes.  The structures survived, but upon returning, owners are threatening to sue the volunteer for chopping down trees and brush...

[Syt]

The Austrian twitter accounts I follow are all posting images from Endor, Lothlorien, etc. saying "Hi from Vienna/Salzburg/Innsbruck etc. pp.", or showing Ents, calling them local Austrians.

[crazy canuck]

When I was in Vienna the Ent Moot was not open to the public. 

[viper37]

What does that have to do with him being a sexual predator?

assuming he is, maybe he felt "dominated" by his partners due to his physical shape and needed to assert control over younger, vulnerable victims?

[viper37]

Wtf happened to you guys?

they made america great again. 

I believe forced sterilization was done on black and 1st nations women up to the 50s.  So, yeah, some Republicans got what they wanted.

[viper37]

The forests in California are mostly National Forests, controlled and run by the Federal Government.  Management of these forests is up to the Administration.

The firefighters respond to the fires, and the prison labor is indeed important.  The plan was to train trustee prisoners to fight fires, so that they could learn an in demand skill, change their environment, and potentially get jobs.  However, pressure from the various interests made sure that people with guilty pleas could not become firefighters after prison - this has just been (finally) changed, where the ex-cons can ask judges to change their plea so that they can now be employed.

THAT was a fucked up bureaucratic mess, but it had to do with union interests, red tape, and basic pig-headedness of some elected officials who fought the program from the start.

Firefighters want to use controlled fire for certain parts of the forests, to burn them when they can control them, so there's less fuel when there's an uncontrolled fire. 

It's done in other countries, but Canada and the US really don't like it.  And I'm sure public opinion in either of our countries would accept it either.  But it's apparently the best way to avoid out of control wildfires like you guys are experiencing right now

[viper37]

A top communications official for the administration's coronavirus response urged President Trump's supporters to prepare for an armed insurrection after a contested election and accused government scientists of "sedition" in a Facebook Live chat that he described in detail to The Washington Post on Monday.

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseeing the coronavirus response, leveled the accusations and promoted other conspiracy theories in a Facebook Live event first reported by the New York Times. Caputo confirmed the authenticity of the video in comments he made to The Post.

Link

So there you go.  Prepare your guns

[Malthus]

One of the larger problems here is that so many people live in more rural, patchwork Government Forest-Private Land mashups.  In California, clusters of houses built into the "majestic forest" that are away from towns, etc.

These places have had very poor maintenance of surrounding trees and brush, they are often nestled right into the trees, and the owners for a long time have refused to remove trees and brush that almost guarantee that any fire coming through will destroy their home.  This in a place that in the best of years goes through 5-6 months of no rain each year, and it has not been the best of years for a while.

Anecdotally, in the recent fire outside of Santa Cruz, many structures were saved by local volunteer firefighters, who used their own pumps, hoses, water to combat fires - but they also removed trees and brush from around homes.  The structures survived, but upon returning, owners are threatening to sue the volunteer for chopping down trees and brush...

Yup, exactly. People do not take well to being told that their property ought to be burned over or cleared out, because it is better for the overall health and safety of the forest.

Even assuming the cash is there to conduct controlled burns on a rational schedule, the pure headache involved in dealing with multiple interests would be prohibitive. Not to mention that in the US, some of them may be both well armed and less than trusting of the government! 😄

Unfortunately, the alternative appears to be these terrible out of control fires. Getting ever worse as the climate shifts.

[viper37]

One of the larger problems here is that so many people live in more rural, patchwork Government Forest-Private Land mashups.  In California, clusters of houses built into the "majestic forest" that are away from towns, etc.

These places have had very poor maintenance of surrounding trees and brush, they are often nestled right into the trees, and the owners for a long time have refused to remove trees and brush that almost guarantee that any fire coming through will destroy their home.  This in a place that in the best of years goes through 5-6 months of no rain each year, and it has not been the best of years for a while.

Anecdotally, in the recent fire outside of Santa Cruz, many structures were saved by local volunteer firefighters, who used their own pumps, hoses, water to combat fires - but they also removed trees and brush from around homes.  The structures survived, but upon returning, owners are threatening to sue the volunteer for chopping down trees and brush...

Yup, exactly. People do not take well to being told that their property ought to be burned over or cleared out, because it is better for the overall health and safety of the forest.

Even assuming the cash is there to conduct controlled burns on a rational schedule, the pure headache involved in dealing with multiple interests would be prohibitive. Not to mention that in the US, some of them may be both well armed and less than trusting of the government! 😄

Unfortunately, the alternative appears to be these terrible out of control fires. Getting ever worse as the climate shifts.

one solution could be to give ample warning to the owner and ask him to cut his part of the forest, then the firefighters can do a controlled fire over what's left.  It would minimize compensation to be given.

[merithyn]

What does that have to do with him being a sexual predator?

assuming he is, maybe he felt "dominated" by his partners due to his physical shape and needed to assert control over younger, vulnerable victims?

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

He fucked and then married his daughter. You're going to blame strong women for him doing that? Seriously?

[Razgovory]

Woody Allen is rich, he can hire people to intimidate his wife.