California’s Disastrous Forest Mismanagement

At some point in the next 30 years, global temperatures are expected to rise 1.5°C above their pre-industrial levels, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If we doubled the average fuel efficiency of all the cars on the planet, decreased the amount of global automotive travel by one half, increased solar-energy usage 100-fold, and increased wind-power capacity by ten times, we would go half of the way toward averting that temperature increase, assuming all the projections are correct and nothing else in the world changes in the interim.

A tall task, but that is how California governor Gavin Newsom plans to combat the wildfires consuming his state. “This is a climate damn emergency. This is real and it’s happening,” said Newsom during a press conference.

We wish the governor luck in reducing annual worldwide carbon emissions by the 8 billion tons necessary to stabilize temperatures while maintaining a vibrant economy. In the meantime, how about a plan B?

Fire plays a natural role in regulating the lifecycles of trees and vegetation. In the pre-industrial era, more than 4 million acres burned in California annually. “Skies were likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period,” according to environmental scientistsat the University of California, Berkeley.

Fortunately, we now have the knowledge and technology to diminish the frequency and extent of wildfires. Prescribed burns and proactive clearing of dead vegetation are known to reduce the speed and intensity of fires by diminishing the stock of combustible material, but federal and state agencies have long put a monomaniacal emphasis on suppression, rather than prevention, of fires.