California
-
A recent paper from the Forest Service predicts higher costs for fire fighting. The title: Economic Risks: Forest Service Estimates Costs of Fighting Wildfires in a Hotter Future. The Climate Financial Risk report published by the White House Office of Management and Budget provides some estimates. A middle-of-the-road estimate is a 42% increase in suppression…
-
A recent announcement from UC Davis proclaimed, “Less Severe Forest Fires Can Reduce Intensity of Future Blazes,” and got plenty of play in regional newspapers. But like so many scientific papers, the piece has more nuance than the breathless publication might suggest. The study used remote sensing to review 700 reburns across the West. According…
-
On April 24th, 2024, the Vermont Law and Graduate School and Wild Horse Fire Brigade sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) District office in Medford, Oregon, proposing a collaboration between the Wild Horse (feral) Fire Brigade and the BLM to reduce wildfire threat through feral horse grazing on the Cascade-Siskiyou National…
-
Thinning/logging at Newberry Crater National Monument, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner One of the arguments alleged by proponents of thinning or logging forests is that it will reduce the size of wildfires and hence carbon emissions from blazes. Proponents argue that more trees survive a fire if there has been “active forest management.”…
-
In May, 2021 I happened to be traveling through northern California on my way to Lassen National Park. When I drove out of Chester, California, I encountered a number of forest thinning projects along the highway. So I photographed some of them, in part, because in many cases large fire-resistant trees were being removed. Then…
-
Hardly a day goes by when we don’t hear in the media and from the Forest Service that fire suppression is responsible for the intensity and size of wildfires. According to proponents, a “hundred years of fire suppression” has permitted the build-up of fuels, and by their assertion, more fuel results in larger conflagrations. However,…
-
Approximately 5700 cows graze national park lands at Point Reyes National Seashore. Photo George Wuerthner A federal lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) at Point Reyes National Seashore was filed on January 10th by four environmental organizations. The lawsuit contends the National Park Service in a new management plan for the Park is putting…
-
Cattle grazing and production is one of the most destructive of human activities, if a full accounting of all the costs were considered. Photo George Wuerthner I recently received a video titled Audubon Conservation Ranching: Hooves on the Ground, Wings in the Air from the Audubon Society. The video promotes beef production to save grassland…
