Zinke is certainly a piece of work. But although the West has been plagued with his style of politics for some time, he is so blatantly compromised it is amazing the Montana voters ever returned him to office. The fact that they did and that they returned Mr. Trump to office tells us all we need to know of a weakness in our political system and the sad fate of our environment.
Thank you so much for sharing this work on fire! I work for a forest protection organization in the Southern US and am familiar with the fire debate and am currently grappling with how to communicate this in our region which does not often face these kind of fires and at the same time tends to be quite pro-logging. I appreciate you!
Thanks, Scot. I appreciate your work! You're in NC, right? I don't suppose you know Sam Krop who is a riverkeeper down there? I worked with her in Oregon. On the fires, getting ahead of the narrative that increased logging is the solution is the challenge when a big one blows up ... there's the public's desire to have a tangible action to take so it doesn't happen again, and politicians/land managers have a desire to be seen to be doing something, and often what everyone rushes to is heavy forest thinning projects. Andy Revkin has written some more good stuff on the issue in the past couple of days. Also I'll point you to ecologist Paul Hormick in southern California, if you aren't familiar with him.
You can be sure to hear questionable wisdom. Zinke road his horse to Interior when appointed. Fortunately Interior knows how to handle guys in chaps and Washington will not suffer hot air. Trump is full of it and Washington is all about power. Its going to get interesting and we should be ready to help collateral damages but most wounds will be in party.
Thank you for the shout-out, Rebecca, and for including my brief resource list. Also for the cogent discussion of why wildfires are such a huge issue today. As a botanist whose early work was in mapping historic fires (and who moonlighted as so many young federal natural resources employees did back then as a wild land firefighter), I have studied and lived the truth of your words. If the US Forest Service hadn't used Smokey the Bear wrongly to vilify all forest fires, if Disney hadn't added Bambi to the mix, would our ability to grasp that most of the ecosystems in the arid West (uphill of the hot deserts) are dependent on frequent low-intensity fires to keep them from becoming conflagrations? Hard to say. But it certainly would have made our landscapes more resilient to climate change, and our wildfire situation less catastrophic. And as Ryan Zinke knows very well but choses to ignore, the LA fires were very likely human-caused, not "natural" in any sense, and are burning in landscapes full of flammable, non-native plants we humans plant because we like how they look. Sigh. Thanks for bringing clarity to the discussion and using the facts responsibly! And now I'll step carefully off of my soap box!
I'm a big fan of soapboxes and the people on them, so if it were up to me, you'd hop right back up there, Susan! Especially when they have as much to share as you do...
You are a source of truth to cut through the greed driven propaganda, and a source of real actionable information and resources! Keep it up!
You got it, Frank. Thanks. Will do!
Zinke is certainly a piece of work. But although the West has been plagued with his style of politics for some time, he is so blatantly compromised it is amazing the Montana voters ever returned him to office. The fact that they did and that they returned Mr. Trump to office tells us all we need to know of a weakness in our political system and the sad fate of our environment.
Gah. I know. Zinke is indeed a piece of work.
Thank you so much for sharing this work on fire! I work for a forest protection organization in the Southern US and am familiar with the fire debate and am currently grappling with how to communicate this in our region which does not often face these kind of fires and at the same time tends to be quite pro-logging. I appreciate you!
Thanks, Scot. I appreciate your work! You're in NC, right? I don't suppose you know Sam Krop who is a riverkeeper down there? I worked with her in Oregon. On the fires, getting ahead of the narrative that increased logging is the solution is the challenge when a big one blows up ... there's the public's desire to have a tangible action to take so it doesn't happen again, and politicians/land managers have a desire to be seen to be doing something, and often what everyone rushes to is heavy forest thinning projects. Andy Revkin has written some more good stuff on the issue in the past couple of days. Also I'll point you to ecologist Paul Hormick in southern California, if you aren't familiar with him.
https://substack.com/@greendispatch/note/c-85662682
I have worked with Sound Rivers staff, but never Sam, I look forward to connecting.
Thank you for the great resources, impeccable timing.
You can be sure to hear questionable wisdom. Zinke road his horse to Interior when appointed. Fortunately Interior knows how to handle guys in chaps and Washington will not suffer hot air. Trump is full of it and Washington is all about power. Its going to get interesting and we should be ready to help collateral damages but most wounds will be in party.
I forgot Zinke rode into his new post on horseback! I guess I give him style points for that? (Nah.)
Thank you for the shout-out, Rebecca, and for including my brief resource list. Also for the cogent discussion of why wildfires are such a huge issue today. As a botanist whose early work was in mapping historic fires (and who moonlighted as so many young federal natural resources employees did back then as a wild land firefighter), I have studied and lived the truth of your words. If the US Forest Service hadn't used Smokey the Bear wrongly to vilify all forest fires, if Disney hadn't added Bambi to the mix, would our ability to grasp that most of the ecosystems in the arid West (uphill of the hot deserts) are dependent on frequent low-intensity fires to keep them from becoming conflagrations? Hard to say. But it certainly would have made our landscapes more resilient to climate change, and our wildfire situation less catastrophic. And as Ryan Zinke knows very well but choses to ignore, the LA fires were very likely human-caused, not "natural" in any sense, and are burning in landscapes full of flammable, non-native plants we humans plant because we like how they look. Sigh. Thanks for bringing clarity to the discussion and using the facts responsibly! And now I'll step carefully off of my soap box!
I'm a big fan of soapboxes and the people on them, so if it were up to me, you'd hop right back up there, Susan! Especially when they have as much to share as you do...