CA wildfires and prescribed burns

Most of the media finger-pointing by Trump and his cult has been about sullying Gavin Newsom as a presidential candidate in 2028. Trump and Fox don’t actually care about the reason for the fires (anthropogenic climate change) or how to mitigate the consequences.

Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum has a long but excellent summary of the history and challenges of controlled burns as a way to mitigate risk. I recommend you read the whole thing (link below) if you really care about the California fires and their implications.

Tl;dr?

“Bottom line: regulatory hurdles are real for both prescribed burns and mechanical treatments, but they aren't the biggest obstacles by any means. The biggest impediments are public opposition, rising insurance costs, resource constraints, and the risk-averse views of forest managers, many of whom are still wary of prescribed burns. This is partly for technical reasons and partly out of fear. Only one out of a thousand prescribed burns gets out of control, but that's enough.” 

https://jabberwocking.com/why-dont-we-do-more-prescribed-burning-an-explainer/

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