Read on Twitter
People have been asking me: Is California, Oregon, Washington, just doomed to suffocating a few weeks every year or two? (ie do we move?) My educated guess is that it's up to us, it could get better or worse depending on what we do. 1/
There's this politicized debate over the cause of the fires - climate or bad forest management? Of course it's both. Climate made everything hotter, drier, more flammable. Bad historical decisions left tons of excess fuel (trees, brush, branches) to burn 2/
We are not going to change the climate trajectory in the next 10 years. That's locked in and going to get worse. But we can reduce fuels. That's already starting. Here's how: 3/
California is really getting serious about forest health. Scientists have been telling us for years we need more prescribed burns, more thinning, more masticators. We are finally starting to do all that in a big way. 4/
Rx burns can be cheap, and safer than the alternative. Today we published this piece on how DIY controlled burns are spreading like... something that spreads very fast in all directions. https://grist.org/climate/meet-the-diy-firestarters-trying-to-save-california-from-itself/ 5/
But 2/3rds of the forestland is managed by the federal government. That's why California just made this deal with the Forest Service to treat a million acres a year: https://grist.org/climate/a-california-wildfire-response-plan-actually-matches-the-scale-of-the-problem/ 6/
Experts have identified 15 million acres that need treatment - so over the next 10 years California would chip away at that footprint significantly. 7/
I haven't mentioned all the efforts underway, and there's still a lot more to be done. @MichaelWWara has the rough game plan here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-17/california-state-agency-fire-preparedness 8/
So if we continue to ramp up efforts we get progressively less smoky and apocalyptic. A little more smoky in the winter and spring from Rx burns, but the high path has things improving a lot! 9/
There's also a low path where the forces of status quo overwhelm this momentum. You could see a MAGA/Green crossover where you have people trying to stop the government and save the trees. You could see California continue to push sprawl further into forests. 10/
But I'm hopeful. In California enviros living in forests have gotten pragmatic. They want solutions and healthy forests - as I wrote about here. The bad old days of polarized timber wars are over https://grist.org/article/why-california-is-fighting-fire-with-fire/ 11/11
P.S. If you are interested in fire in California follow my sources for this last story: https://twitter.com/UCsierraforest/status/1306635958805131264
