All these forest fires year after year...............

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

Birdbrain, exactly what is junk science? Also, please tell us where you got your PhD in climatology so we can assess the validity of your beliefs about climate science.

As for me, I am just smart enough to know that there are people much smarter than me when it comes to climate science. And that's why I believe what the thousands of scientists worldwide who make up the IPCC (Intergovernmental panel on climate change) are saying: the earth is warming because of man-made CO2 emissions, and as a result ecosystems (in places we hike and everywhere else!) are going to see all sorts of negative consequences including drought, heat waves, fires, and on and on.

And it's already happening. This past summer was the hottest in the recorded history of the planet (and probably much further back). There were studies recently showing that the ongoing California drought was made worse by climate change because temperatures are warmer than they would be otherwise, and that means more evaporation and less moisture in the soil and plants.

Folks can deny or ignore climate change all they want, but the evidence is staring us in the face and will be harder and harder to ignore in the future.

May we all assume you've completed at least undergraduate work in climatology, too, in order to assess the validity of your beliefs in climate science? We'd also be interested to hear your take on the IPCC's well-documented manipulation of data such that their predetermined outcomes fit more nicely with their rhetoric.

I'm not a denier, not one bit, but my academic foundation is a BS in Geology (Appalachian State University) and I know very well that sea levels have risen sharply for a long, long time (in terms of what non-geologists refer to as a long time--specifically hundreds to a few thousands of years). The bigger picture is that present sea level rise is only one of a great many sea level fluctuations over hundreds of millions of years of geologic time. The present sea level rise started long before any meaningful impacts from human civilization. All of the "hockey stick" graphs and IPCC manipulations of data in the world can't change that fact. It is most certainly likely human behavior is affecting sea level rise, but it is not the least bit certain that it is doing so in a fashion which is manageable absent dramatic changes in the entire world's socio-economic systems. Also uncertain is the effect of such dramatic changes in said socio-economic systems. Besides, weI can't predict any real participation in such on the part of developing nations to whom we'd be telling "do as we say, not as we did", can we? The far, far better outcome will occur if we devote our expenditure of time, trouble, effort, and expense in dealing with rising sea levels. All the angst and rhetoric, and finger-pointing, will do nothing to stop it.

AO

[Colter]

Some of the most beautiful areas I've walked through on long hikes have been through burned areas, often profuse with wildflowers.

We tend to expect things to stay the way they were in our glory days. But things change, they always have and always will. After the great Yellowstone fires of 1988 many people said Yellowstone would never be the same again. Today Yellowstone isn't the same, it's different, in some ways better, in some ways not, but few Yellowstone visitors would say the 1988 fires ruined the Park or their current experience.

The big fires today will help prevent catastrophic fires in the future, and renew the ecosystems.

“That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

[burger]

So what's your point, AO? All that gibberish about past sea level changes has zero to do with what's going on now. Do you really think that the current sea level rise has nothing to do with global temperatures? Is it just a coincidence that glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps are melting at the same time and that water expands in volume as it warms? Also your statement about "IPCC manipulations" represents a clear political bias against science. 98% of climate scientists say that the planet is getting warmer due to human pollution. Are you somehow smarter and more knowledgeable about climate than 98% of actual climate scientists? A few undergrad classes in geology is hardly a basis to criticize the work of thousands of scientists.

[Another Kevin]

It is most certainly likely human behavior is affecting sea level rise, but it is not the least bit certain that it is doing so in a fashion which is manageable absent dramatic changes in the entire world's socio-economic systems. Also uncertain is the effect of such dramatic changes in said socio-economic systems. Besides, weI can't predict any real participation in such on the part of developing nations to whom we'd be telling "do as we say, not as we did", can we? The far, far better outcome will occur if we devote our expenditure of time, trouble, effort, and expense in dealing with rising sea levels. All the angst and rhetoric, and finger-pointing, will do nothing to stop it.

To the extent that youŕe talking about social controls - caps on energy use, economic drag anchors - you're right. But the things that can be done technologically - non-fossil-fuel energy sources, carbon sequestration techniques, and suchlike, can benefit rich and poor nations alike. The developing nations surely are not going to do as we did. When they build transportation networks into their hinterlands, for instance, they start with airports and not by laying heavy rail and running steam locomotives, or digging canals for mule-drawn boats. Because the technology is available, they leapfrog what we did. They don't have to repeat our past sins in other areas either.

I think that the jury is out about the precise extent to which climate change and sea level rise is anthropogenic. But it can hardly be denied that there is at least an anthropogenic component to it, and the secular trend is alarming whatever its source. But the solution will come through some totally unexpected development. In 1900, there was a major public health problem stemming from the fact that city streets were ankle deep in horse poo. The solution to that problem didn't come from dismantling the urban economy, or by imposing Draconian restrictions on who could and could not operate a horse.

Mind you, I don't know what the solutions are. I do know that there are more very smart people than ever before looking for them. And when they're found, the deniers will say, "See! I told you it wasn't a problem!"

[rocketsocks]

It's been at least 500 years since California was quite this dry.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...more-historic/

No lettuce, No tomato, No Onions...No more California Burger, oh the humanity.

crying yellow man.gif

[BirdBrain]

May we all assume you've completed at least undergraduate work in climatology, too, in order to assess the validity of your beliefs in climate science? We'd also be interested to hear your take on the IPCC's well-documented manipulation of data such that their predetermined outcomes fit more nicely with their rhetoric.

I'm not a denier, not one bit, but my academic foundation is a BS in Geology (Appalachian State University) and I know very well that sea levels have risen sharply for a long, long time (in terms of what non-geologists refer to as a long time--specifically hundreds to a few thousands of years). The bigger picture is that present sea level rise is only one of a great many sea level fluctuations over hundreds of millions of years of geologic time. The present sea level rise started long before any meaningful impacts from human civilization. All of the "hockey stick" graphs and IPCC manipulations of data in the world can't change that fact. It is most certainly likely human behavior is affecting sea level rise, but it is not the least bit certain that it is doing so in a fashion which is manageable absent dramatic changes in the entire world's socio-economic systems. Also uncertain is the effect of such dramatic changes in said socio-economic systems. Besides, weI can't predict any real participation in such on the part of developing nations to whom we'd be telling "do as we say, not as we did", can we? The far, far better outcome will occur if we devote our expenditure of time, trouble, effort, and expense in dealing with rising sea levels. All the angst and rhetoric, and finger-pointing, will do nothing to stop it.

AO

And there is a balanced view. We are doing damage. Ask a Ivory Woodpecker or Passenger Pigeon. We don't have to go back that far to see radical damage. Go to Cape Cod and try to catch a cod. All I am saying is data is being manipulated for a purpose... and that purpose has more to do with money than the environment. I am in favor of doing less damage to our planet. I really am. The reaction to my words is predictable. You have you scientist. I can quote mine. In the mean time, farting cows are being blamed for warming the planet and energy that depends on batteries is promoted and we are burning our food in the name of biofuel. 1/3 of the lakes in Maine are manmade. Chesuncook is a prime example. It is a great habitant for many species. However, if you want to harness that power, you meet great opposition from the people that that claim to care about our planet. It is just too convenient and easy to latch onto the global warming train and bash anyone who questions it. It makes some feel like they care more. I am in favor of protecting our environment. I really am. People just need to look behind some of the "solutions" before they dismiss people like me that see the purpose of the rhetoric and the destruction of the "solutions". The wind does not always blow. The sun is not always shining. The water is always moving. It is always cool a short distance down and quite hot a long ways down. Increasing revenues on vilified entities and taxing the air we breathe (that is not an exaggeration, see carbon footprint, CO2 is classified as a pollutant) are not the solutions. Okay. I have created enough material to make several people sleep better as the forests burn.

[rocketsocks]

I just find it crazy that the US spends boo koo $$$ dollars cleaning up the planet while the rest of the world (By and in large) pisses, poops and spews on the planet and were stuck holding the bill. I don't disagree that there may be more fires over the last hundred years, maybe there is, but it is cyclical, always has been, always will be.

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

Read carefully, sir. I made no statements as to sea level rise not having come from rising atmospheric temps--obviously a warming atmosphere contributes to the melting of glaciers and melting of the ice caps which adds water to the oceans and their levels rise. All I'm saying it that it's been going on like that on this planet for literally hundreds of millions of years. I also emphasized the hard science reality that the present sea level rise began thousands of years before the present, in the late Pleistocene. Some geologists have measured sea level increases of between 40 to 60 meters between 36,000 and 10,000 years before present (BP), and that sea level rose another 18 meters from 8,000 to 4,000 years BP. What did man have to do with those fluctuations, which occurred within literally a blink of an eye in terms of geologic time? Take a look at a map of the United States: That large body of water between North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the one we now call Chesapeake Bay, is nothing more than the flooded valley of the Susquehanna River, flooded due to sea level having risen by, say, 40 to 60 meters in the last few 10s of thousands of years. And that, sir, is real science at work. Sea level has risen sharply in very recent times, times during which man's impact on the atmosphere was nil. For more fun with science, study the CO2 output annually arising from simple routine volcanism vs estimates of CO2 outputs from man's activities. When you've done to, you'll surely agree we must sit Kilauea, Mount St Helens, Mt Etna, and that brash arc of volcanoes we know as the Aleutians, down for a stern talking-to, as their carbon footprints are obscene.

As to the IPCC, I suggest we all have a look at their 2007 report (AR4) which featured widespread misstatements of fact, and the 2009 "Climategate" episode after which the IPCC acknowledged certain manipulations of data and admitted to having published some "junk science" as fact. The IPCC clearly represents the collective opinions of thousands of scientists, but it just as clearly doesn't represent the opinions of thousands of other scientists. And I am a trained scientist, trained well enough to recognize politically-driven "junk science" when I see it, which is actually easy when those who disseminate such admit to it, as was the case with the IPCC. There is not a shred of political bias against science in this scientist's body.

Spend an hour or two with Google under the seach categories of "Pleistocene sea levels" and "IPCC data manipulation". Those who can stop drinking the popular media's Kool-Aid long enough to do some homework and independent study will often learn something.

We're still waiting to learn of the degree(s) in applied science and mathematics you earned.

AO

[burger]

AO, I got a good laugh from your post. I'm a scientist myself, and no scientist I know would try to pass off tendentious statements about "junk science" as fact. The IPCC represents the combined knowledge of thousands of CLIMATE scientists. Other scientists, like yourself, who are ignorant about climatology, are free to hold on to your own unsupported opinions, but that doesn't make you right. Maybe you're not aware, but there are newer IPCC reports (and even newer science since the latest assessment) that supplant whatever they said in 2007. That's the great thing about science--it's self-correcting!

Like I said earlier, I don't care about what happened in the Pleistocene. CO2 levels were not that high back then. It's a whole different world now, which means that your training in geology is unsuited for understanding what's going to be happening the future.

Enjoy keeping your head in the sand. Lucky for you, your generation will be gone from the earth before the worst damage happens!

(This is my last post on this subject. Sad to see so many people here drinking the kool-aid of ignorance. I'll readily admit that the world seems like a much better place if you don't think that we're heading towards disaster unless things change fast. Unfortunately that's not true!)

[Feral Bill]

Been goin' on for melliniumallinium, just part of the cycle.

It's a matter of degree. Many more hot dry years and more vegetation burning. I sadly expect that permanent changes in major biomes will be occurring much faster that one might expect in the absence of unnaturally large and frequent fires.

[rocketsocks]

Burger don't Take any of this stuff personal, like many posters, I'll beat cha up in one post, and draw ya a bubble bath in another. Just gotta agree to disagree on this one I guess.

[rocketsocks]

It's a matter of degree. Many more hot dry years and more vegetation burning. I sadly expect that permanent changes in major biomes will be occurring much faster that one might expect in the absence of unnaturally large and frequent fires.

well if they quit "slashin' and burnin'" in other countries, then veggie cycle might catch up.

[BirdBrain]

We're still waiting to learn of the degree(s) in applied science and mathematics you earned.

AO

I am not sure who that was directed at. I have a degree. I have no interest in measuring members. Such pursuits detract from the truth. Nothing I wrote was intended to disagree agree with anything you said. I agree with the vast majority of what you stated. In reality, I think I would be in agreement with much of burger's concerns. In some respect we are all like grandparents arguing over who loves their grandchildren more. I just happen to believe there are those that are very happy with that fact. I believe that is a goal behind much of the rhetoric out there. Such division keeps the focus off them and keeps them employed. When people who love nature are at each other's throats, they have done their job well. I submit one should look at what happens to a scientist that does not walk in lockstep to the agenda as proof that I am not just paranoid. Many a life has been ruined all because they see the facts differently. We don't lock up those that oppose the science of the day anymore. We might as well though.

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

burger,

Interesting that your branch of science is ignorant of the geologists' intense study of paleoclimates, including atmospheric chemistry and changes thereto. Paleoclimates have everything to do with mainstream geology, as they pertain directly to depositional environments for sedimentary and volcanic rocks as well as the evolution of all flora and fauna studies so intensely by the paleontologists. We studied climates and climate change early and often, and not simplistically from a "snapshot in time" perspective, but instead from the perspective of climate change over hundreds of millions of years as is so very well documented in the rock record. I'm still wondering what science degree you have if your training didn't reveal these elementary concepts of the geological sciences. Must be a really, really big secret.

You're correct about CO2 levels during the Pleistocene not having been at today's levels. Yet it's crystal clear that sea level fluctuated dramatically during the Pleistocene, especially during the latest Pleistocene (up until around 12,000 years BP), a time during which CO2 levels were on a steep decl. Hmmm, so how is it that CO2 is the principal reason for present rise, anyway?

I didn't accuse the IPCC of disseminating junk science. They said that themselves after getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar, or in the data manipulation jar, as it were. And you're right, there have been IPCC reports subsequent to the 2007 report, namely AR5. The co-chair of the AR5 group, China's Qin Dahe, has been quoted as saying it is "impossible" that his country, the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter (excepting those ill-behaved volcanoes), would shut down the coal-fired plants which have fueled its growth.

Which takes me back to my original point: There is no amount of wringing of hands and knashing of teeth which is likely to persuade developing economies from proceeding full speed ahead with their own development. The current administration's strategy of declaring CO2 to be a pollutant and thus using the EPA to enforce Executive Orders as a bludgeon to wreck the domestic fossil fuel industry, in the face of the reality that the Chinese are laughing in our faces, is nothing more than their pandering to a portion of their power base, the portion which drinks the Kool-Aid of whatever is trending on social media and is unwilling or unable to do its own homework. It's simply meaningless symbolism and does nothing to save the Earth.

Those able to see the forests instead of having their views blocked by the trees understand that whatever man's inputs are (which I have consistently acknowledged the existence of), there is very little we can expect to change about man's activities, and we are completely without the ability to accurately estimate the effects of any changes which may be brought about. Thus the smart money is on figuring out how to deal with it.

Way back in the 1970s, we debated climate change and man's effect on it. The questions were: is the earth warming, is man the cause, and is there anything we can do about it. The answers were accepted to be: Yes. Probably. And not much.

AO

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

I am not sure who that was directed at. I have a degree. I have no interest in measuring members. Such pursuits detract from the truth. Nothing I wrote was intended to disagree agree with anything you said. I agree with the vast majority of what you stated. In reality, I think I would be in agreement with much of burger's concerns. In some respect we are all like grandparents arguing over who loves their grandchildren more. I just happen to believe there are those that are very happy with that fact. I believe that is a goal behind much of the rhetoric out there. Such division keeps the focus off them and keeps them employed. When people who love nature are at each other's throats, they have done their job well. I submit one should look at what happens to a scientist that does not walk in lockstep to the agenda as proof that I am not just paranoid. Many a life has been ruined all because they see the facts differently. We don't lock up those that oppose the science of the day anymore. We might as well though.

You and I are very much on the same page, BirdBrain. My questions and comments were directed towards burger, who persists in claiming scientific expertise without revealing any background information.

AO

[burger]

Okay, one last comment since AO is lying about me and about climate change more generally.

I'm not a climate scientist--I'm an ecologist. But, unlike AO, I am smart enough to know that when there is a subject I am not expert in, I defer to the consensus of the experts (FWIW I consider myself a near expert and surely closer to an expert than anyone else on this site--half of my dissertation was on the effects of climate change on forests, and I read climate papers regularly). That's how science works, on consensus. So when 97% of climate scientists say that CO2 emissions are warming the planet and raising the sea levels, I believe them implicitly! If I thought that the 3% of climate scientists who disagree with that consensus were smarter, I'd be an arrogant fool.

Imagine if you are feeling sick and you go to the doctor for a battery of tests. 100 doctors look over your chart, and 97 say you have cancer and need treatment right away. 3 say you are fine and should go on as before. Who do you believe? Not only is 97 much bigger than 3, but the risk of getting it wrong is way higher if you believe the 3 deniers.

So, I can only guess that AO thinks he's smarter than 97% of climate scientists despite not being a climatologist! Would you ignore 97 out of 100 doctors, AO, if your life was at risk? That's some amazing arrogance. I am smart enough to know that there are people smarter than me on this issue. AO, I think, is not smart enough to understand that and seems to think that he's the smartest guy in the room, climate-wise.

Meanwhile, AO's comment there is full of the usual denier obfuscation and lies. Despite his comments these 3 facts are incontrovertible: 1) the planet is getting warmer and warmer due to climate change. 2) Climate change is having all sorts of negative effects on the planet. 3) It's going to get worse unless we act quickly. Random comments from a Chinese official and distracting protestations about something wrong in a 2007 report do not change those 3 facts.

I feel bad for people like you, AO, because when things get really bad, say, 30 or 40 years for now, people are going to blame you deniers for preventing actions that might have saved our butts. History will not look kindly on you.

[Mags]

This went from impacts about forest fires on the trails to climate change discussion (bickering, really).

Take the hint guys and get back on the closed-down-due-to-fires trail.

Much like gun control, I have my own views on climate change. But I also realize discussing these issues on a hiking forum does nothing but piss a lot of people off.

Thanks!

[BirdBrain]

(Cleaning up per request. Thank you for understanding.)

[BirdBrain]

Sorry Mags. Point taken. Feel free to clean up my irrelevant posts.

[Malto]

When we went back to the PCT, 8 years after our thruhike, I was interested to see how some of the areas that had recently burned the first time we hiked were lush with vegetation the second time through. In a normal burn, it doesn't take all that long for vegetation to return. Some of the extreme events (i.e. 1988) take longer because the fires burn hotter, but life does return eventually.

I've talked with F&W folks who said that Smoky the Bear was one of the worst things to happen to the west. Years of fire suppression made for too much fuel in areas that should have been burning regularly but weren't. The result was forests that become infernos when fires do start.

Agreed, this year's drought is a really bad one. But as the article points out, we may be in for much worse.

This was exactly what a fire chief told me in Lassen. they were there fight a fire and I was watching from a cinder cone as they were directing the crews. It was great meeting them as we walked out. The trail was being used as a fire break.