Can Fire Save Us?
Without question, climate change has turned California into a tinderbox. Wildfire has always been part of the state’s landscape, but never have fires been more intense and, with massive populations living in the urban-wildland interface, fires have never been so destructive and dangerous. The indigenous peoples of what is now California not only lived with wildfire but used fire as a tool and as part of their social fabric. The Yurok, Karuk, Hupa, Miwok, Chumash and others routinely set controlled fires to clear land for agriculture, wildlife and ceremonies. The arrival of the European colonists and subsequent suppression of the native tribes included making fire suppression a formal policy of government.
Early National Forest Service officials considered “the Indian way” of “light-burning” to be a primitive, “essentially destructive theory”. Championed by the Forest Service, ecologists and conservationists, new colonial notions of what is “natural” won the day. The valuable timber trees would be protected and burns would be extinguished at all costs. Fire was a killer, and America would make war on this new enemy for most of the next 100 years.
This change in policy and practice has persisted to today despite overwhelming evidence that controlled burns are one of the most effective tools to reduce the risk of wildfires. California’s giant sequoias are the largest and oldest trees on earth. They are fire and disease resistant, but it wasn’t until 1968 that Forest Service scientists realized that these mammoth trees require fire to propagate. Wildfire provides the heat to open their seed bearing cones, the fire burns away undergrowth to allow the seeds to fall into the fertile ash covered soil. Native American realized that fire in the forest, particularly when controlled was crucial to the health of the forest.
After suppressing fire in all forms, and the traditional ecological knowledge that went along with it, California’s top politicians and fire officials are now seeking out tribal guidance on fire policy as state agencies gear up to burn more than ever burn before. The state’s air quality managers are tasked with outreach to educate the public on the benefits of fire, as regions hand out more and more burn permits. In one particularly busy month in 2018, the north coast air quality management district permitted over 250 prescribed fires in the region.
Climate change has created this intense fire jeopardy for California and many other parts of the country and, in reality the world, and it’s too late for the traditional ways to salvage the situation, but they can be used to mitigate the problem and save lives and property.
Galloping to the Rescue
Using feral horses to help rewild national park grasslands in the Czech Republic has had an unanticipated positive result for several threatened butterfly species. These Exmoor ponies are acting as “ecological engineers” by altering the landscape in a way that provide environments are conducive to the needs of these butterflies.
In the Czech Republic, horses have become the knights in shining armor. A study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation suggests that returning feral horses to grasslands in Podyjí National Park could help boost the numbers of several threatened butterfly species.
It turns out that horses encourage habitats that many butterflies flock to. By trampling and feeding on tall shrubs, young twigs and fruits, horses keep the grasslands short, which some butterfly species prefer.
They also don't disturb the land as much as mowing or more intensive livestock grazing would.Konvička said he believes many projects neglect the role of missing "ecological engineers" — sometimes called "ecosystem" engineers — that is, species that serve significant functions through the alteration, maintenance or destruction of habitats. As with the Exmoor ponies in this case, they may not be the original inhabitants, but the aim of rewilding is to get the ecosystem functioning again.
FBI Looking at Democratic Pennsylvania Governor
The FBI has begun a corruption investigation into how Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration came to issue permits for construction on a multibillion-dollar pipeline project to carry highly volatile natural gas liquids across Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.
FBI agents have interviewed current or former state employees in recent weeks about the Mariner East project and the construction permits, according to three people who have direct knowledge of the agents’ line of questioning.
The focus of the agents’ questions involves the permitting of the pipeline, whether Wolf and his administration forced environmental protection staff to approve construction permits and whether Wolf or his administration received anything in return, those people say.
The pipelines run past houses, parks and schools in southeastern Pennsylvania, and have been met with protests by alarmed neighbors worried that one leak could ignite a deadly explosion. Sinkholes along the pipelines’ route have opened on lawns and construction has contaminated streams and private water wells.
Since 2016, natural gas from the U.S. has been feeding the Grangemouth petrochemical plant, a vast complex of cooling towers, flaring towers and pipelines. The gas is originally harvested in Western Pennsylvania, sent through a pipeline to Philadelphia, and put on ships across the Atlantic.
Natural gas is mostly used for heating homes or fueling power plants. But when it comes out of the ground it contains another key ingredient — ethane, a building block of plastics — that is now fueling another booming industry.
So, while the planet and its inhabitants face the potential for a massive dislocation resulting from worldwide climate change, fossil fuel companies still play the tune to which politicians all over the world dance.
Rick Perry — Fossil Fuel Tool
Under the guise of responding to consumer complaints that today's energy- and water-efficient dishwashers take too long, the Department of Energy has proposed creating a new class of dishwashers that wouldn't be subject to any water or energy efficiency standards at all. The move would not only undermine three decades of progress for consumers and the environment, it is based on serious distortions of fact regarding today's dishwashers.
According to a large consortium of consumer groups and appliance manufacturers, there is no ground swell of demand for a “new class of dishwashers”. In fact, even the most basic machines currently on the market have fast wash and dry modes that provide users with a speedy option if they need a rapid turn around of plates and glasses. This DOE move is just another effort to attack energy standards in general by creating a false demand for a product no one really wants.
When it all comes out in the wash, DOE's attempts to carve out a class of dishwashers exempt from energy efficiency standards are unlawful and unsupported by the facts. If they succeed, the result would be less-efficient dishwashers, less guardrails on energy and water waste, and higher energy and water bills for households across the U.S.
If my energy bill goes up, who benefits?
99.8% Face Extinction
Of the 459 animal species listed as endangered by the US government, researchers found that all but one, or 99.8%, have characteristics that will make it difficult for them to adapt to rising temperatures.
"This study confirms that the climate crisis could make it even harder for nearly all of our country’s endangered species to avoid extinction,” said Astrid Caldas, a study co-author and a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“While agencies have increasingly listed climate change as a growing threat to species whose survival is already precarious, many have not translated this concern into tangible actions, meaning a significant protection gap still exists.”
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Just Save One.