Study: Wildfires release more greenhouse gases than thought
By Jenna Iacurci, Nature World News
It turns out that California wildfires release more greenhouse gases than previously thought, according to new research.
According to the study, from 2001-10, annual carbon losses from forests and wildlands in California represented as much as 5-7 percent of state carbon emissions.
Interestingly, the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, says that by the year 2020 California has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. But these findings, published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, suggest that goal may be easier said than done.
Guess the libs better start banning wildfires, too.
How does CA keep the smoke from Siberia out of the state? Controlled burns put out more smoke then a few fireplaces in the basin, go figure.
This reinforces the point that mankind’s impact on the big picture is smaller than a pimple on an elephant’s back.
Dan- Your comment intentionally misses the point; it applies when viewed in the long range, say ‘millions of years’. In terms of say, hundreds of years into thousands of years, it is not accurate. While I disagree with a lot of your opinions, you seem to be moderately intelligent, so when you make such a comment it makes me think that you only care about yourself.
Fire is also necessary for maintaining a healthy forest. While it seems counter intuitive, fire does clear out old, dead detritus on the forest floor & allow for some vegetation that requires fire for their life cycle to grow. Part of the problem with wildfires is that for many years well-intentioned so-called environmentalists felt the need to do away with wildfires & thus created the unnatural massive fuel loadings we see in forests now.
X Local, I think you are mistaken about the reasons wildfires were stopped. The timber industry had more influences during the years before the first earth day. Most forested areas are managed by the US Forest Service which is a branch of the US Dept. Of Agriculture and forests were treated as a crop. The financial incentives to keep timber as a commodity out weighed the value for trees to be left in the forest for intrinsic values. The USFS keept wild fires from burning for about 100 years so the trees could be sold to timber industry. During that time the forests were not burned but fire was suppressed by many different entities alloing the forests to become over grown and unhealthy. It wasnt until the 60’s and 70’s when the public was finally enlightened about the other values of trees that included letting some fires burn to create natural
occuring openings (not huge clearcuts). When fires did occur they did mostly good for the forest health. During that 100 years many people moved into forested areas and that has created the issues with people loosing property to wild fires in the Urban Interface areas.
The environmental groups that arrose to counter the timber industrys overcutting and clearcutting methods have been supportive of the “let it burn” policies. Its the timber industry that is against this practice.
In a perfect world, fire is healthy for the forests. The problem is, our forests are not even close to natural. Due to clear cutting, most of them are way thicker than what is natural, and there is also far more dead and flammable material in them. What does this translate too? Well, when fires start, they burn intensely hot and destroy gigantic areas of the forest, instead of simply clearing out a small area and destroying a few trees.
Also, as many of you know, people tend to start a lot of wildfires too. Are those natural? Nope. Pretty much the only way a “natural” wildfire can get started is by lightening, and those tend to be much less destructive because most are accompanied by, you guessed it, RAIN!
I think most of our wildfires today do not qualify as “natural” “beneficial” wildfires. We need to do two things: clean up the forest until it is in it’s natural state, and keep morons out so they don’t start some huge inferno. That way, we can have a few of the beneficial wildfires and drop the Rim Fire style blazes.
greengrass
Anybody notice the yellow hazey air yesterday? Know what that was from?
Massive wildfire in SIBERIA. Don’t know if it was human caused or not, but there’s a lot more to the world than just us and our emissions!
Thank you dog. EPA,CA or the US can not save the world.
The fire in Siberia which is at 800 square miles was started by farmers burning dry grass.
CO2 from wild fire and fossil fuel are completely different, one is from CO2 from million of years ago that is supposed to be out of current carbon cycle.
Basic stuff people.