As if this comes as any big surprise....

The Core RPGC Main Forum
#1

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105992,00.html
I’m all for protecting the environment and animals, especially endangered ones, but some of those nuts need to just be bitch-slapped when they come up with their ideas to “save” the environment. When you have forests full of too many trees, and thus all the brush and crap underneath the canopy, it not only stifles growth underneath that thick, sunlight-blocking canopy, but kills plants already there and sets up a literal tinderbox for mass fires. It’s simple logic, but these boneheads don’t think logically. “Don’t cut down the trees, EVER. They’re just as important as you and me! Let them grow until it’s eternal night under their shade and everything dies in massive blazes!”

MORONS. :noway:

Oh, and yes, that IS Fox News, but whether you like that channel or not, the story is still valid.

#2

I agree

forestfires are natural, since most are caused by thunder storms, its how the forest is cleaned out. The problem now is that there is so much debre that any kind of fire would rage out of control. It’s quite a problem they have in the national forests.

#3

Originally posted by BlueMageOne
I agree

#4

Originally posted by Seawolf
I’m all for protecting the environment and animals, especially endangered ones, but some of those nuts need to just be bitch-slapped when they come up with their ideas to “save” the environment.

This is just a vague, meaningless accusation.

Originally posted by Seawolf
When you have forests full of too many trees, and thus all the brush and crap underneath the canopy, it not only stifles growth underneath that thick, sunlight-blocking canopy, but kills plants already there and sets up a literal tinderbox for mass fires.

So what causes all that “brush and crap”?

  1. Drought and insects.
  2. Firefighting practices - after a fire, a lot of brush and dead wood is created and sometimes just left where it is.
  3. Commercial logging, which destroys the biggest, oldest, most fire-resistant trees and leaves behind small trees, the brush and dead wood mentioned above, and logging debris.
  4. Livestock grazing, which leaves behind flammable brush and causes the proliferation of flammable weeds.

The fires themselves are primarily caused by human involvement, e.g. criminal arson. Many of the recent fires were caused by arsonists. Other things are related to the spread of fires, like homeowners who don’t want to cut down trees in order to preserve property values.

It’s really not that simplistic of an issue, and I wish you’d actually consider that instead of just thinking about it insofar as it lets you daemonize environmentalists because you don’t like their politics.

Originally posted by Seawolf
It’s simple logic, but these boneheads don’t think logically. “Don’t cut down the trees, EVER. They’re just as important as you and me! Let them grow until it’s eternal night under their shade and everything dies in massive blazes!”

You’re making up a straw man. In reality, of course, environmentalists hardly have a huge impact on fire prevention plans. In the major Californian forests affected by October’s fires, environmentalists have not filed a single appeal to prevent fire-prevention tree-thinning projects since 1997. They have appealed some brush-reduction projects, in areas that aren’t heavily forested and to which your “thick canopy” idea doesn’t apply.

#5

Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
This is just a vague, meaningless accusation.

Okay, I’ll be more blunt.

Radical environmentalists don’t have a clue how to help the environment. They feed animals food that messes with their eating habits, they get them used to people and then lead to people getting attacked with animals not fearing humans anymore, they set up forests for disaster by not letting logging take place, going as far as to tie themselves to the trees and live in them for months on end and give the trees names. They do more damage than good because they don’t know anything about what they try to protect, they just do it because it makes THEM feel good and special when they stop others.

You can agree or not agree, but at least it’s spelled out more now.

Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
[b]So what causes all that “brush and crap”?

  1. Drought and insects.
  2. Firefighting practices - after a fire, a lot of brush and dead wood is created and sometimes just left where it is.
  3. Commercial logging, which destroys the biggest, oldest, most fire-resistant trees and leaves behind small trees, the brush and dead wood mentioned above, and logging debris.
  4. Livestock grazing, which leaves behind flammable brush and causes the proliferation of flammable weeds.
    [/b]

All true except #3, as you put it at least. Part of commercial logging is clearing out the leftovers. Loggers are required to do that. If they aren’t, they ain’t doing their job and can get into trouble if found out.
And yes, they cut down the oldest trees sometimes. Know WHY? Because they take up the most space and are the driest and thus gasp the biggest burning hazards. At least the kind of logging that is for the purpose of cutting down on fire risk, which is what I was talking about originally. If you’re talking about something else…?

Anyways, my point is that environmental radicals don’t want any of that taken care of. They want everything left as it is, waiting to go up (literally) in smoke.

And as for your reasons, now that I’m thinking about it… #1 is accelerated by overcrowding of trees (where the trees suck up more moisture and prevent more from getting to the earth and the changed environment caused by the thick canopy causes the bugs to come out more). #4 is just silly, since livestock doesn’t eat in thick woods like I was talking about. #2 doesn’t even make sense, now that I think about it. It helps PREVENT future burning, not cause more down the line. sratches head

Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
The fires themselves are primarily caused by human involvement, e.g. criminal arson. Many of the recent fires were caused by arsonists. Other things are related to the spread of fires, like homeowners who don’t want to cut down trees in order to preserve property values.

And where did you get THAT from? And even if true, how does any of that take away from what radicals are doing?

Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
It’s really not that simplistic of an issue, and I wish you’d actually consider that instead of just thinking about it insofar as it lets you daemonize environmentalists because you don’t like their politics.

I’ll remember that in the next Bush-bashing party. :ah-ha!:

Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
You’re making up a straw man. In reality, of course, environmentalists hardly have a huge impact on fire prevention plans. In the major Californian forests affected by October’s fires, environmentalists have not filed a single appeal to prevent fire-prevention tree-thinning projects since 1997. They have appealed some brush-reduction projects, in areas that aren’t heavily forested and to which your “thick canopy” idea doesn’t apply.

My point still stands. (Though I’d be curious as to where you got that information, since it contradicts what I’ve heard. shrug) They have tried to stop logging and brush clearing, which both make fires much, much worse. Granted, in cases these things are bad, but I don’t think they take note of when it is and is not good.

#6

I’m more inclined to agree with SK. The problem doesn’t come from not thinning trees so much as not allowing fires ever so that when one finally happens, the amount of brush has built up to such a level that the fire will be massive. The best protection against forest fires is controlled burns. Fires are part of the natural cycle, and there are some trees that won’t drop their seeds without the heat of a fire.

Radical environmentalists don’t have a clue how to help the environment. They feed animals food that messes with their eating habits, they get them used to people and then lead to people getting attacked with animals not fearing humans anymore, they set up forests for disaster by not letting logging take place, going as far as to tie themselves to the trees and live in them for months on end and give the trees names. They do more damage than good because they don’t know anything about what they try to protect, they just do it because it makes THEM feel good and special when they stop others.

I’d like to see where you got that information. Surely not the article you have linked to, which provides essentially no information at all.

Who are these environmentalist who go about feeding wild animals? Oh, the idiots who tie themselves to trees or drive metal spikes into ones that loggers are going to cut down. Those radicals, the ones that people with sense realize are extremists and should not be listened to. That should not be your standard for an environmentalist, and making it so stereotypes the decent, sensible ones.

#7

Originally posted by demigod
I’m more inclined to agree with SK. The problem doesn’t come from not thinning trees so much as not allowing fires ever so that when one finally happens, the amount of brush has built up to such a level that the fire will be massive. The best protection against forest fires is controlled burns. Fires are part of the natural cycle, and there are some trees that won’t drop their seeds without the heat of a fire.

Agreed, and I shouldn’t have left that part out. I lump controlled fires and tree thinning together. Probably shouldn’t, but I do.

Fires are natural, yes. Lightning and other forces cause them without any human intervention. But the problem arises because there are so many homes in those areas now. That wasn’t a problem, say, in 1703. In 2003 it’s a different story. We can’t let those fires just go now because there’s development and homes and people to worry about now, for right or wrong. There have to be measures taken that haven’t been taken in the past, such as clearing out that brush and opening up the canopy in some spots and having occational controlled burns.

In other words, I mostly agree. :ah-ha!:

Originally posted by demigod
I’d like to see where you got that information. Surely not the article you have linked to, which provides essentially no information at all.

Indeed, it was not that article. I’ll try to track down a couple specific sources soon, however I am in the process of getting ready to release a chapter in my RPG and finding such resources may take a couple days.

Originally posted by demigod
Who are these environmentalist who go about feeding wild animals? Oh, the idiots who tie themselves to trees or drive metal spikes into ones that loggers are going to cut down. Those radicals, the ones that people with sense realize are extremists and should not be listened to. That should not be your standard for an environmentalist, and making it so stereotypes the decent, sensible ones.

Agreed. However, like many things (especially quasi-political matters like this), those radicals tend to be the most visible and vocal, and unfortunately in places like California they have a lot of say. They have real political weight to throw around, and they do. Those are the only folks I’m talking about. Many environmentalists I have no problem with. I’m an unusual conservative Republican in that I’m a big supporter of the environment (though if you look at many conservatives without media- and stereotype-tinted glasses, most of us DO support the environment, just in different ways). I feel an icepick in my chest whenever I see rainforests being flattened or endangered species being threatened or oil slicks miles wide or deer running away from fires all around them on TV. Here at home, much of the area is undergoing massive development. Now nothing against development and new homes and all that, but I HATE seeing how many trees have been razed in the process. It’s a true shame.

Anyways, I don’t let those nuts trick me into thinking that they speak for the majority. They’re just the loudest, is all. However, in some places, like California, they HAVE had a say for a while now, and that is a bad thing.

#8

Interesting debate =)

#9

which is what I was talking about originally. If you’re talking about something else…?
That’s the whole point. There are specific fire-prevention plans that involve cutting down trees, which haven’t been appealed in those forests since 1997, and then there is just regular commercial logging, which is what those environmentalists mostly oppose because of things like #3 on my list and because they don’t want to have national land sold off to the timber industry (which is a whole separate issue).

#2 doesn’t even make sense, now that I think about it. It helps PREVENT future burning, not cause more down the line.
Leaving flammable dead wood behind prevents future burning?

And where did you get THAT from? And even if true, how does any of that take away from what radicals are doing?
Uh, it was all over the news when the fires started. They believed that they were started by arsonists. And you still haven’t shown what these unspecified “radicals” are doing, aside from tying themselves to trees to protest commercial logging that isn’t designed to prevent fires. My point was that most causes of fires and the spread of fires have practically nothing to do with environmentalism and a lot with other forms of human involvement. In lieu of all of that, “what radicals are doing,” even if they do half the things you accuse them of, is approximately nil.

My point still stands. (Though I’d be curious as to where you got that information, since it contradicts what I’ve heard. shrug)
The U.S. Forest Service.

They have tried to stop logging and brush clearing, which both make fires much, much worse.
I just showed that they don’t appeal specific fire prevention plans in these specific forests (as opposed to regular commercial logging, which does as much if not more harm as benefit). Nor are they responsible for opposing the clearing of trees immediately surrounding homes - that’s something the homeowners themselves often don’t want to do because it’s expensive and drives down property values. Environmentalists do appeal fire-prevention plans sometimes over the entire country, at a very small rate, but most plans that are created pass without a hitch. (And why shouldn’t they appeal some of them? Not every plan is good or well-made, after all.) As for brush, livestock grazing is more propitious to fires than environmentalism, which was why I brought it up. Refer to the above point.

#10

Before I start, the information you present is invalid and inaccurate. You have no idea what you’re talking about. All you do is make a retarded stereotype of environmentalists based off misinformation and bullshit. You present no support for any of your claims except for your empty and baseless rhetoric. All you do is equate the behavior of a few extreme individuals and apply them to a whole population with a gradation of views, which of course is idiotic, biggoted and simple minded.

See, there’s this thing called the “ecosystem”. What is an ecosystem varies as to how you define its boundaries, but essentially, its a tightly balanced system of interacting and related organisms of different kinds. What we humans have done is interfere with these ecosystems worldwide creating a variety of issues and fucking a lot of shit up. For example, the CA fires are due to people being paranoid about fires and not wanting to let it burn. By restricting burning, shit grows. Fact of life. It grows slowly in CA, due to the lack of H2O, but it grows. However, as mentionned this creates a volatile situation. Now is this a problem created by environmentalists that have no clue what they’re talking about or a paranoid populace that doesn’t want to pay taxes and that’s fed misinformation by the media? The latter.

Your entire stance against environmentalists is utterly retarded because you simply equate them to tree huggers. The problem with that is that any half ass environmentalists understands that the undergrowth is as important as the trees in the system and that these all provide different niches for other organisms and serve different functions within each environment. To name california, if we didn’t have brush, we’d have a fuck load more landslides. Bad.

Therefore, when you say “When you have forests full of too many trees, and thus all the brush and crap underneath the canopy, it not only stifles growth underneath that thick, sunlight-blocking canopy, but kills plants already there and sets up a literal tinderbox for mass fires”, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. There are very few places in the world where a canopy that blocks out all usuable sunlight and it makes no sense that you differentiate “brush and crap” as stuff that lives under said canopy invading the area of other plants since these ARE plants. Not all plants create big phat flowers for all surrounding insects to pollinate. It depends entirely on what kind of environment they’re in. If there are no pollinators, these plants will not have been selected to attract pollinators from their surroundings in order to propagate and allow the species to survive. There is no better or worse plants. What is good or bad is entirely dependent upon the environment and the pressures this environment applise on the organisms that live there.

As for your comment about logging and brush clearing, you have to ask yourself what’s burning when there’s a fire, what burns hotter, faster and what leads to the most damage. For 1, you insinuate that logging could reduce fires. What are you basing that statement on? Secondly, you assume that anything which is wood can be harvested. Sadly, the world doesn’t work like Age of Empires and people tend to be picky about what it is they like to use, making it such that IF these were trees that were causing problems, you’d have to wonder if logging would even matter. As for the brush, yeah, some brush need clearing, but there are many reasons as to why something might or might not be happening, like paranoid individuals that elect the people that restrict these things in order to satisfy their electorate. Considering how much free space there is for shit to grow on, its not all that simple to simply go in and start selectively removing dense brush, especially when you have to make a judgement call as to what can and can’t survive. If you simply start ripping things apart, then christ only knows what the hell’s gonna happen next. If you remove all the plants, you’d expose the land to erosion and that would have much nastier effects than the current fires, to name one. Also, you have to consider that even if people within california might not be too willing to pay for the removal of millions of acres of brush, that there are a lot of powers worldwide that are fighting against anti-global warming measures. Global warming doesn’t just mean the Earth is getting hotter, it means the air and ocean movements are being fucked with. This then has effects on ecosystems worldwide.Example? El nino. Just in case you don’t know, El nino was documented to occur less than once every 25 years in the past. Nowadays, it occurs multiple times per decade.

#11

Eric Cartman: “Goddamn hippies!”

#12

It seems Sin kicks ass again… and then is ignored by someone too lazy to read his words.

#13

Jesus, that insults everyone who read Sin’s post Giz.

#14

Originally posted by Epicgamer
Jesus, that insults everyone who read Sin’s post Giz.

I was just quoting what Cartman would say :stuck_out_tongue: