[MCN] Matt's right Re: 3 recent takes on whether wildfire risk to forests is real

[Lance Olsen]

Matt's right. It's mistaken to use " wildfires in general as 'proof' 
of climate change."

And thanks, Matt, for the charting showing acreage burned 1930-1980, 
below. That chart sure does challenge claims that today's fires break 
all records, and it bolsters claims that risk is being exxaggerated.

Using wildfires as "proof" of climate change is mistaken because 
trends in the forests only provide us with lines of evidence from 
forests. Climate science of recent decades was largely pioneered by 
physics, via the early General Circulation Models and subsequent 
revisions, but added lines of evidence have come from archeology, 
more often from botany, cryology on through fisheries, geology, 
limnology, and on to meteorology, soils, and zoology.

I'd be glad to have a link to the online FS chart below


At 10:57 AM -0800 1/10/16, Matthew Koehler wrote:
>
>For example, see this chart from the U.S. Forest Service which we 
>managed to locate in an official USFS document that is still 
>available on-line.
>
>
>In 1930 and 1931, over 50 million acres burned each year in the U.S. 
>and during the 10 year (hot and dry) period from the late 1920's to 
>the late 1930's an average of 30 million acres burned every year in 
>the U.S. Additionally, according to the 2001 National Fire Plan an 
>average of 145 million acres burned annually in the pre-industrial, 
>conterminous U.S.

-- 
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"Americans took on tons of debt to support a lifestyle which their 
incomes did not justify - an extra $3 trillion, by my calculations."

  Michael Mandel, Chief Economist, Business Week, April 20, 2008
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"We have only one planet and the time has come to transform our 
present lifestyle and consumption patterns in order to halt the 
degradation of the Earth's natural capital ..."

 From the Executive Summary, WWF:  China Ecological Footprint: Report 
2012 : Consumption, production, and sustainability.
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"Because the decimating factor of economic growth eliminates welfare 
factors for virtually all imperiled species via the principle of 
competitive exclusion, economic growth may be classified as the 
limiting factor for wildlife conservation. The wildlife profession 
has been virtually silent about this limiting factor, suggesting that 
the profession has been laboring in futility."

Brian Czech. Economic growth as the limiting factor for wildlife 
conservation. Wildlife Society Bulletin 2000, 28(1):4-15




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