California Dreaming No More 3

[Garbage1]

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/01/09/susan_crabtree_fires_obliterate_emissions_gains_from_californias_green_policies.html

 

[dik]

culling chickens appears to be a pattern in left leaning states.

It appears that the neoliberals have sold the US the rope to hang themselves... When it comes to the left, it appears that China has implemented this well.

 

[TugboatEng]

Dik, could you please try to make sense? Nobody understands what you have just said.

 

[dik]

You keep pointing at the 'left' and you don't realise the problem is actually from the 'right, the ultra conservatives aka fascists. The line was a bit of a paraphrase attributed to Lenin, "The capitalists will sell US the rope to hang them." or something of that ilk.

 

[TugboatEng]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the term "left". From now on, I will refer to you as ecofascist.

 

[dik]

I will refer to you as ecofascist.

Whatever turns your crank... subject dropped.

 

[TugboatEng]

The horseshoe effect in action.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I fail to understand how these wild fires have any relationship to Global Warming.

The way I see it, Southern California is always either in a drought, has just come out of a drought or is about to go into one. It's always been dry here. Period. The difference is urban / suburban sprawl combined with poor land management and poor water management.

FWIW, I'm guess the insurance companies that chose to cancel policies did so for a number of reasons:
a) Last winters wet weather led to lots of undergrowth that has since died out. It was never cleared and we have a VERY dry winter this year (at least in Southern CA). Those conditions mean that this is an ideal time for wild fires.

b) Insurance companies are heavily regulated in CA. They probably told the regulators that they NEEDED to raise rates to compensate for this risk. If they were told no, then their response would have been to cancel policies in the riskiest areas.... or just pull out of CA completely.

c) We can't underestimate poor water management and fire management practices in the areas that have been affected. Probably more of a local government issue than a state or federal one. There are areas near me that have had some serious fires in the past 10 or 20 years. These regions have a lot of policies not about clearing out dry brush in order to keep fires from spreading (if they occur). It's a big deal!

d) I don't doubt that there could also be a number of dumb environmental policies that are meant to protect the environment by leaving dry brush that some threatened moth or bug lives in..... That leads to more of this type of brush and more of these types of fires. It's a trade-off, of course. I wouldn't be even a little surprised to find various state or federal agencies that essentially force local governments to leave certain types of brush in some areas.

None of those items have anything to do with Global Warming.

 

[TugboatEng]

It took 45 minutes for LAFD to even respond to the fire and their initial response was only a flyover. No engines, no water. Apparently they were burdened by two other calls. I would be really curious to know what those were.

The only reason climate change should be a part of this conversation is to answer the question of how many resources we waste fighting climate change instead of building resilience.

Don't forget that our governor bragged committing $50 million to Trump proof California instead of repairing roads or filling reservoirs. He even started dancing a little when he described the developers coming into Maui after their fire.

 

[dik]

I fail to understand how these wild fires have any relationship to Global Warming.

The increased CO₂ causes the earth to heat up. As the earth heats, it dries out the soil and hence the plants. In addition as the earth heats up, there is a lot more stored energy. This excess energy affects the weather increasing the quantity, the intensity, and the rate of development of extreme weather events. What's so difficult?

 

[TugboatEng]

Most credible sources say that increased heating increases precipitation. Increased CO2 means less dilation of stoma so plants lose less water. Death due to extreme weather is lower than ever and still more die from cold exposure than heat.

Nothing you say is based on observed reality. That is what is difficult.

 

[GregLocock]

"This excess energy affects the weather increasing the quantity, the intensity, and the rate of development of extreme weather events. What's so difficult?" Poppycock. As demonstrated the Accumulated Cyclone Energy has dropped over the last 30 years. And I even gave an engineering based reason why that would happen (OK it didn't predict the amount, but it was directionally correct).

The IPCC says it can't find a link between observed changes in climate and frequency of events for anything to date that is not directly related to temperature, except maybe salinity, which is related to evaporation.








Ignore the predictions they us RCP 8.5 which is a massive overstatement of CO2 emissions.

So please stop dribbling nonsense. It takes me time to refute, which could be better spent doing something less repetitious and apparently futile.

 

[TugboatEng]

Remember that weather is driven by differentials, not absolutes.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Dik: The increased CO2 causes the earth to heat up. As the earth heats, it dries out the soil and hence the plants. In addition as the earth heats up, there is a lot more stored energy. This excess energy affects the weather increasing the quantity, the intensity, and the rate of development of extreme weather events. What's so difficult?

This is one of the most passive aggressive things you've ever posted.

All you give is silly platitudes about how anything and everything COULD be related to global warming.

You probably don't understand CA weather at all. That's okay, I tried to explain how we had last winter was very wet for CA. And, that this was the real cause of the excess foliage / plants. That these plants dry out in the very dry CA summers. This has ALWAYS been the case in California. It's been like this for centuries. Nothing new to see here.

Are there any published articles saying that this years dry conditions are historically unusual for the area? I don't think there are. It's a drought year for certain, but that's the NORM for California. Yet, you jump to climate change as the problem without any evidence? Why? Don't you see how this is like the boy who cried wolf over and over again? It really, really impugns your credibility.

We've had Santa Ana winds for centuries as well. These winds seem very weird to people who have not lived in Southern California for long. I will freely admit that these have been a bit worse than normal this year. However, I am basing this only on my personal experience. Are their any published articles saying that these winds are historically unusual? I don't think so. Yet you jump to climate change?

You can't constantly have it both ways. When we have wet weather, it's climate change. When we have dry weather it's climate change too.... Regardless of the fact that this is the historical norm for California. A number of years of drought followed by a year (maybe too) of wet weather.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Dik -

What I'm getting at is the "alarmists" tend to blame everything on global warming without being able to cite any data to back up their opinions. This is intellectually poor reasoning. And, I personally expect more out of you.

It's like when the DEI / social justice / neo-Marxist types (Joy Reid) tend to blame racism and white supremacy for everything bad that happens in the world. I just read this article (on FoxNews) about some ridiculous things Joy Reid said on her show. Like how the "billionaire right" is using these wild fires to drive people of color out of CA and create an apartheid state. To be completely fair (to Joy Reid) I didn't actually watch a video of her remarks and only read the summary in that article. But, what's stated in that article seems to agree with her general MO based on when I've watched her in unedited clips.

Joy Reid claims ‘billionaire right’ wants ‘apartheid’ state in post-wildfire California

Joy Reid made outrageous conspiracy claims about the right trying to "drive out" minorities from California during a rant about the Los Angeles wildfires.

www.foxnews.com

My point being that your (Dik's) constant invoking of Global Warming is every bit as delusional as Joy Reid's rant about how people are trying to turn CA into an apartheid state. Because, like Reid, you have incredibly little basis for your assertion. However, you are giving us evidence that you have some mental block / disorder / cognitive dissonance that prevents you from thinking rationally on this subject. It's something you should really take an honest look at inside yourself. I say that not as an insult, but as someone who is concerned for you.

Caveat: I genuinely believe that CO2 emissions (at least at the level we're emitting them and will continue to emit) are problematic and will lead to some Global Warming. That seems like a VERY reasonable belief based on my understanding of how atmosphere affects planetary temperatures versus planets without atmospheres. However, I see zero evidence that can tie this to any single storm, heat wave, cold wave, fire, or such. The historical weather in that area seems to be orders of magnitude related to each event.

What's more important, IMO, is that there are mountains of data that suggest that this increase in temperature will NOT be catastrophic in any way. Just as much basis to believe that adapting to these increased temperatures will be a more cost effective way to deal with this. Not just economically, but in terms of loss of life. We will kill far more people if we attempt to decrease CO2 emissions to what they were 100 years ago than if we do nothing.

 

[waross]

Waross, culling chickens appears to be a pattern in left leaning states.

The governor just ordered the culling of chickens and there are so many special requirements on the raising of chickens that we can't import them. We literally have no eggs in California right now.

I couldn't find any news to support this claim.I did find that diseased chickens had been culled in other states.
"culling chickens appears to be a pattern in left leaning states."
Any theory as to why disease may be more likely to strike Democratic chickens?

 

[Garbage1]

Waross Said: "I couldn't find any news to support this claim.I did find that diseased chickens had been culled in other states.
"culling chickens appears to be a pattern in left leaning states."
Any theory as to why disease may be more likely to strike Democratic chickens?"

Waross does your search engine go the top floor?

Why I ask, is I quickly found articles on 'Chicken and Turkeys' getting "depopulated" in California. 'Depopulated' = 'Culled'

"Avian flu outbreak in California leads to depopulation of 1.5 million chickens and turkeys": "An outbreak of the avian flu on California’s poultry ranches continues to climb with more than 1.5 million chickens and turkeys being depopulated as part of the state’s eradication effort."

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article295024004.html

 

[JoshPlumSE]

waross: I couldn't find any news to support this claim. I did find that diseased chickens had been culled in other states.

I've been seeing a god amount about this recently.... I haven't really read much about it. But, I've seen headlines related to preventing the spread of bird flu. I'm not sure if it's exclusively in CA or not.

FWIW, California has regulations that essentially require cage free hens if you want to sell eggs here. I would not be at all surprised if this makes CA chickens much, much more susceptible to bird flu in that the farmer cannot as easily keep them from being in contact with the feces of other wild birds. I should point out that if CA is forced to cull flocks of chickens, then the price will go up almost exclusively in CA as a result. Because most other states do not have requirements for cage free chickens.... So, if Nevada loses ALL of their chicken farms, they can still import eggs from all neighboring states. California cannot do that!

California also has requirements on pigs / ham / port that no other state (to my knowledge) has.

These are choices that we (the voters of CA) have made about what we consider important. That is our right as a state. It GREATLY increases the costs to CA consumers, of course. I don't mind all that much because my income is pretty good and my family has been trying to cut back on the amount of pork we eat.

That being said, I am constantly amazed that the elite leftists who are constantly talking about ways to help out the lower income brackets cannot seem to grasp that these sorts of policies almost exclusively hurt people at the bottom of the income scale......

Similar things hold true for our special "gasoline" requirements. Special car requirements. Insurance regulations intended to prevent greedy insurance companies from taking advantage of the consumer almost always result in prices going up for consumers.

These examples are the illustration of left wing politics in action. We (the elites) decide what is best for us is best for everyone. Then we wonder why other people in CA can't afford to live here.... We (the elite) then always seem to blame capitalism for our problems. Without ever considering that it's the policies we've chosen that are the true reason why prices have been driven up.

 

[waross]

When we have wet weather, it's climate change. When we have dry weather it's climate change too

How about:
"When we have wetter weather, it's climate change. When we have drier weather it's climate change too"
Works for me.

 

[waross]

Garbage1;
Waross does your search engine go the top floor?

Why I ask, is I quickly found articles on 'Chicken and Turkeys' getting "depopulated" in California. 'Depopulated' = 'Culled'

The governor just ordered the culling of chickens

I don't see any mention of the Governor's involvement in your link or in my searches.

 

[Brian Malone]

Avian flu is the reason for culling the chickens. What relevance does that have to wildfires? Discussion on climate change and human interaction is difficult enough, does a red herring need to be thrown in?

Certainly, the wild fires have been devastating but as JoshPlum points out the Santa Ana winds are not new, the previous years' reasonable rainfall allowed significant plant growth and many of the populated areas that burned are not suitable to conduct prescribed burn operations. Whether California allows gas powered chain saws or moves 'x' amount of water from northern California to southern California does not change whether controlled burns could have been done in or near the population areas that burned. As can be seen by all the mixed messages in this thread, the task of protecting humans and our wants and needs and the natural environment is difficult and not a simple 1 + 1= 2 equation.