Environment What do we make of changes we’ve made to improve the environment?

No the fires are caused more by people than anything else. Either through arson accident or ignorance. The predominant reason of their increased severity is because people are moving into areas they shouldn’t. This exposes them to greater impact and prevents taking measures such as preventative burns from being used. Read the article and understand the facts presented. If global warming is having an impact it is much less significant than these other things.
I know it’s easier to blame great conspiracies or mysterious elements but remember Occam’s razor....the simplest answer is usually the right one.

 

Ockham’s Razor is the guiding principle of my life!

I’m a bit surprised we appear to disagree on the simplest!

 

"Jennifer Balch, a wildfire ecologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, has examined just how big a role people are playing in starting wildfires in the United States. Nationwide, humans are responsible for starting 84% of wildfires, according to a paper co-authored by Balch, published this past March in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In California, the eastern United States, and the coastal Northwest, people are behind more than 90% of wildfires. "


"It's only in the Intermountain West, where it is fairly devoid of people, where you see a strong signal of lightning-started fires.

[In some mountain areas, such as Colorado,] we see predominantly human-started fires along road networks and smack against the major metropolitan areas—Boulder and Fort Collins, Denver and Colorado Springs. So we see a really strong signal of humans essentially swamping out natural, lightning-started fires.

Lightning storms [are] mainly concentrated during summer months. With people, what we're doing is effectively tripling the length of the natural fire season because we're distributing ignitions throughout the year.....Of the approximately 1.5 million wildfires in the government record, 25% were burning of trash and debris; about a quarter (22%) were unknown human causes. The next biggest category is arson, [then] heavy equipment, campfires, children, and smokers. Those are the seven biggest categories."


The discussion of fires and fire season are really not about global warming. It's about the humans who either through careless stupidity or sick intentionalism, are starting the damn things.

The Oregon fire that burned over 30,000 acres of the most beautiful land in Columbia river gorge was started by a facking teenager illegally using fireworks. It makes me sick to my stomach.


That's human stupidity, not global warming.

 

The issue is not the number of fires or how they start, but the size and duration. But again, believe what you want, it’s OK, and my thoughts will have zero impact.

 

And how much of a struggle was it to get off of leaded gas? Were there big companies who shot down the science? Or hid it? Denied because they put profits over the greater good?

 

It most certainly is the number and size. Without the spark, we aren't even having the discussion! This is no different than the abortion argument centering on the abortion rather than on reducing unwanted pregnancies.

More people, more fires. If your argument is that it's okay to have all these fires as long as they can be put out quickly, then we are truly fucked. What impact would you like your thoughts to have?

 

Not as much as you’d think. It took effort to develop a substitute that worked for 100 octane. The tetra ethyl lead process was developed in the 1930s to get 100 octane gas for high performance aircraft engines. It was expensive and had issues in the process. Other products could substitute for lower octane ratings. Now the car companies needed to develop new engines to run on the gas. They had a harder time and greater resistance though it lead to greater Sales so they weren’t totally opposed. Basically they did well by doing good.....nothing wrong with that.

 

HWR read the article. It addresses everything thing you bring up. It provides real data and comment by fire fighters and climatologists. You must be wedded to the great theory but in this case global climate change has little to do with what we’re seeing. READ AND LEARN....take the tin foil cap off your head, please.

 

Geez. Context. You misunderstood, please re read. I was addressing where longer, dryer periods manifest themselves. The number of fires are determined by people and lightening. The duration and scope depend on a number of factors, increased temperature making more dry fuel one of many.