The environmentalists and the California fires.

[TNDemo]

This seems to be the right wing screaming point for some people. Last night my right wing uncle cornered my husband and blathered on about how the environmentalists refused to allow those trees to be cut down and they are responsible for the fires. I know that Davis had sent in a request to have the trees cut since they were dead from beetle infestation and that the government refused it about a week ago. I have a problem thinking that the environmentalists would try to protect dead, beetle-infested trees from being cut down. What is the real story here?

[bleedingheart]

1. Its the Bush Admin's fault...but the spin will be to blame it on

environmentalists... another thread in LBN about Ridge going on the defensive gives you an idea that the GOPers may have screwed up big time with refusing Davis that funding...

They are playing the Deflection game...

[xchrom]

2. there have been programs

to cut back diseased timber here in cali for years. we even get rid of eucalyptus stands in certain areas. it's just conservative lies that blames this on environmentalists.

[Melsky]

3. They are ready to blame davis for that

then when it turn out it really was their fault, that he wanted to clear the dead trees, all of the sudden "lets not play the blame game". Every time I think I could not be more discusted, I am!

[realFedUp]

4. When dead trees on private lands cost $4,000 upwards each

to cut down...not everyone could afford to remove them
unfortunately...a lot of government owned areas aren't accessible
to cut them down and chip or remove them. It's really
the culprit -flameable undergrowth that any Healthy Forest bill wouldn't really address or pay for removing.

This is just the way of nature and until people
build their houses more defensively, remove undergrowth
and dead trees from areas around them, this is going
to happen again. It's not rocket science.

[Snellius]

5. It's getting impossible to argue with these people any more.

Even when the truth is on your side. They've been gourging themselves on a steady diet of talk-radio propaganda directed at yuppies or intellectuals or tree-huggers or gays or anyone else they can use to blame all their troubles on. The best anyone can do is ask them how they know what they believe is true.

[Philosophy]

6. Yeah I heard that on Hannity last week

It's like the official right-wing talking point after any forest fire. That was before the beetle thing came out though, but I'm sure he wouldn't do a retraction.

[leesa]

7. Your Uncle means LIVE trees. He means for logging.

Radically different from clearing dead trees. Logging has produced the vast tracts of brush that burned in California. So your Uncles solution is to clear-cut trees so that we have vast areas of brush that ignite regularily. Your Uncle does not have his thinking cap on.

[StClone]

8. If Tree Huggers were so potent

Why is there so much developement in the wooded lands of California? If Tree Huggers can keep trees from being cut certainly they would be able to keep bulldozers from pushing them over! Or, does that make too much sense?

Real reasons

-Global climate change
-Building in the forests
-Beetles
-Logging

[slackmaster]

9. Fires in SD County had little to do with trees

Most of the fuel here is grass and brush - Chaparral and coastal sage scrub. Even if all of the trees dead from pine bark beetle infestation had been removed in advance the Cedar fire would have destroyed just as many homes and burned just as wide a swath.

[KingNot]

10. Glad someone mentioned the grass

Thanks for mentioning this. I was nauseated hearing a lot of right wingers openly blame "Tree Huggers" for the fires. They of course implied that the resistance to cutting down trees allowed a lot of fuel for the fire.

However, cutting down trees, besides massive erosion, also brings back huge areas of grassland. It takes extreme conditions like dry spells and exotic beetles to make healthy trees tinderwood. On the other hand, grass grows dry easily and spreads fire rapidly. I'd bet the flare that sparked it did not hit a tree, but fell as embers on the grass.