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tldr scientists usually measure the % of moisture in plants to see how combustible they are by taking new growth. this year, in the SC mountains, there was no new growth to take the samples. https://twitter.com/SFGate/status/1381664856420446210
Having grown up in SC it's interesting to think about how SC reacts to environmental challenges. it is a "left" city, but does not like to contemplate things it itself may be doing wrong.
or changes the area may need to make. adaptation etc.
When I was 8 there was a longstanding debate about traffic. the city's isolation via mountains and ocean meant there was 1 main way to get anywhere, and in a town dependent on tourism, silicon valley dudes commuting, and university influxes...didn't work well.
but they spent over a decade arguing over how to fix it--build a new highway lane? bike trail? lightrail on the old traintrack? By the time they expanded the highway it didn't matter. people structure their lives around the traffic.
The imminent re-burning of the SC mountains strikes me as similar in some ways. a whole lot of people used to thinking individually and believing they are "doing good" thanks to their values, need to think about collective or political action that's not fighting new apartments
and the same features that have produced the town's "isolation" and specialness, seemingly walling them off from the concerns of the world, are also the features locking them in.
I'm sure the new influx of super-rich ppl will help solve these problems haha
oh also, droughts are nothing new either. I remember Governor Brown in 2014 said his solution to drought was to build a $25 bn pipeline to Southern CA to capture snowmelt from the Sierras. A water...system...for snowmelt...
