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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">https://twitter.com/SFGate/st...
Having grown up in SC it& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;s not fighting new apartments
and the same features that have produced the town& #39;s "isolation" and specialness, seemingly walling them off from the concerns of the world, are also the features locking them in.
I& #39;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...
