Big Sis on weird weather, climate change, and wildfires: 'There's a pattern here'

Big Sis on weird weather, climate change, and wildfires: 'There's a pattern here'

Posted by Fender Stratocaster (#10) 318 days ago (http://thehill.com)

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this week linked climate change with the wildfires hitting Colorado.

NOTE: This submission was submitted under the, 'Odd Stuff' category because Napolitano explained that her view makes a connection between climate change, weather events and the wildfires without having any basis in scientific fact.

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Written by Fender Stratocaster (#10)
318 days ago

Science shows that Napolitano is just another, bat-shit crazy, leftist, lunatic. Below is an explanation of the actual problem of why Colorado and other fires are so destructive. One would think that the enlightened environmentalists and the Progressives would welcome the now abandoned 'natural burn' policies. After all, such a policy would fit in best with the Darwinian doctrines of natural selection...

Wild fires are caused by the abandonment, by the US Forest Service, of the The "natural burn" policy, an abandonment of policies insisted upon by the public, after the great Yellowstone fire of 1988.

Much of the pressure to abandon the natural burn policy was rooted in the emotions of people who did not understand the natural cycle of life, death and rebirth. In the years that followed the 1988 fire, two biologists, Dr. William H. Romme and Dr. Don G. Despain, studied the fire dynamics and history of the Yellowstone forest, placing special emphasis on ecological succession. Dr. Romme concluded, "I don't think any fire management policy would have greatly altered the events of 1988."

The findings of Dr. Romme and Dr. Despain were published in the November 1989 issues of BioScience and Scientific American. The stages of succession are summarized as follows:

The first stage: Small plants and young lodgepole pines spring up among dead trees, both standing and fallen, that have been left after a large forest fire. This stage lasts about 50 years. The forest is not very flammable because the trees are widely spaced and the vegetation is low lying, green, and moist.

The second stage: The pines form dense stands up to 50 feet tall, and their shade blocks the growth of much ground vegetation. This stage lasts about 100 years. Flammability is low at this stage. There is still some deadwood on the ground, but should this ignite, the treetops are too high to be affected.

The third stage: The original pines are thinning out and ground vegetation is increasing. Fir and spruce trees appear. This stage lasts about 100 years. Green vegetation on the forest floor prevents large fires until late in the stage when small trees can provide fuel by which fire can spread into the canopy high above.

The fourth stage: The original lodgepole pines are dying. Woody fuel is abundant, and this is the most flammable stage. The forest is ready for a major outbreak of fire. However, weather conditions must be exactly right for a major outbreak of fire to occur.

Currently, US Forest Service policy is to fight fires robustly, thus removing the benefits of allowing natural burns to eliminate the fuel found in stage four forests. Hence, the catastrophic fires we have seen in the last few decades.

Another result of federal government mismanagement of our great resources, the American forests.

http://www.x98ruhf.net/yellowstone/fire.htm

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