Greg Walcher
What if someone said they planned to burn down your house, but it’s
for your own good? They need to study how houses burn, so they can build
better computer models to predict future home fires. In the future,
therefore, that might help you.
Asinine
as that sounds, it is precisely what the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)
proposes to do, first in southern Utah and northern New Mexico, then in
Georgia and South Carolina. It is part of an incredible scheme called
the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE). The agency says
it needs to study the behavior of giant, fast-moving forest fires, so
it plans to set several of them, on purpose, starting this month.
The USFS plan to “study” massive fires might have a shred of
credibility if the agency had no opportunity to study these disastrous
wildfires before. But the agency has seen over 100 million acres of
forests burn over the past 20 years, while doing virtually nothing to
reduce the fuel loads or thin the forests to a more natural condition.
There are volumes of studies about these catastrophic fires and the
massive loss of resources, wildlife, property, and lives they have
caused. Several agencies (including USFS) host websites on the subject,
and have published numerous studies. Dare we wonder if there is such a
thing as “settled science,” a time to stop studying and start acting?
Officials now claim they need to study the effects of these fires on
climate change, but in doing so they will release massive amounts of
carbon into the air, instead of producing healthy trees that absorb it.
The goal of this bizarre plot, or in federal terms, the “expected
outcomes,” include “Improved scientific knowledge of the physically
coupled fuels–fire–smoke–chemistry system.” As if forest scientists do
not understand the chemistry of smoke? Another goal is to create
“Exportable methodologies for measuring fuels for fire spread, fuel
consumption, and fire emissions models.” That is, bureaucrats and
academics (yes, a university is also involved) are collaborating on
better computer models.
It is difficult to escape the observation that the forests need
better management, not computer models. Voltaire once wrote that “men
argue; nature acts.” It is an apt description of how our generation has
squandered the greatest legacy of the conservation movement – the
national forests. Devastating forest fires are constantly in the news,
but a crucial fact rarely mentioned is that these fires are not natural.
They are caused by mismanagement, and no management. Indeed, our
generation has all but stopped the professional management of public
forests, and we are witnessing the disease, death, rotting, collapse,
and burning of billions of trees covering millions of acres of
previously healthy forests.
Centuries of nature’s uncomfortable balance is easily upset when
people and cities move in. So our job is to mimic the role of nature, to
maintain the most “natural” conditions possible. We have failed
miserably.
1 comment:
Government bureaucrats are incredibly stupid, wasteful and above arson laws. Just think the Hammonds went to prison for setting a small "back fire" to stop a huge forest fire. Citizens are treated differently under the law.
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