I was reading a book to my kids yesterday that had an opening rant about how the wildfires over Australia are a massive problem and our forest management system is a disgrace globally. Flying at 10000 feet led to coughing and choking, seemed like it was everywhere in the country.
The author was Jacques Cousteau, the book was written in 1973.
Australia’s been dealing with giant wildfires forever. It’s not clear whether the fires are getting bigger or smaller with time, what impact forest management has in same, and whether smaller fires closer to population centers get more press and then make it seem like the problem is worse when it may not be.
Global heating is a slow burn, but we’re all poised to read any climate tragedy on it.
>> It’s not clear whether the fires are getting bigger or smaller with time
I'm pretty sure that it's very very clear that the fires are getting maybe not bigger, but definitely more frequent. Sure 1973 might have had a fire as bad as the one this year, the problem is that Australia is now expected to have such a fire every year or even multiple times a year, instead of once a decade or so.
This is largely a forest management issue and not one of global heating.
Forest management used to focus on eliminating fires entirely. This has the impact of building up brush to the point where any fire became massive. They thought they were reducing fires, but they actually just increased amplitude and decreased frequency.
It’s kinda like dams for flood control, but with different time scales. A few dams for flood control reduces flood frequency massively, and we build up population centers in what was previously deserted floodplain. Then a flood (dam failure eg Oroville came pretty close) has a huuuuge systemic and possibly chain reaction, trading semiannual road blockages from minor flooding into one Whoa Noah every hundred years.
The author was Jacques Cousteau, the book was written in 1973.
Australia’s been dealing with giant wildfires forever. It’s not clear whether the fires are getting bigger or smaller with time, what impact forest management has in same, and whether smaller fires closer to population centers get more press and then make it seem like the problem is worse when it may not be.
Global heating is a slow burn, but we’re all poised to read any climate tragedy on it.