2020-21 Orygun: The Optimist’s Thread

[Sharon Needles]

If our forests were healthy fire would be a regular occurrence. It would not be catastrophic.

The natives in our area (southern valley) used to regularly burn the land to aid with hunting and foraging. Im not sure how “natural” that is but it’s what happened for thousands of years before we got here.

[abraham]

that's a
pretty solid looking fence ya go there.... what are you trying to keep in (or out)?

Smoke

[jonesy]

I stand corrected

[Sharon Needles]

Steep
instead of being an intentionally provocative asshole
how about sharing a bit about the proximity of fires in the eug/springfield zone?
are you in zone 1?

[this is not the climate change thread, but it’s at least the local OR thread]

No evacuation order for us-> we are on the other side of town.

Observing people’s reactions to all this is quite eye opening. It’s uneasy.

A lot of fear and finger pointing. Everything very politically charged.

Neighbors forming organized patrols.

It’s like a gun nut/survivalist wet dream in a way.

[::: :::]

confirmation event for preppers, fer sure

[jonesy]

Antifa is in Redmond today, that could go sideways. We have armed bikers crusing the streets.

[Sharon Needles]

[k2skier112]

I haven't seen cementhead in a long time...

[pipedream]

Air quality sensor down in Cle Elum just clocked a PM_2.5 value of 999 µg/m³

It's yellow-orange outside. This sucks, pray for rain & snow!

[k2skier112]

Steep
instead of being an intentionally provocative asshole
how about sharing a bit about the proximity of fires in the eug/springfield zone?
are you in zone 1?

[this is not the climate change thread, but it’s at least the local OR thread]

I missed this post. Guess I nailed it. Its sad how much time and effort those with broken lives spend online being insufferable

[Sharon Needles]

If that's your take, you're even dumber than I first assumed, take a lap.

And you're a brainwashed partisan hack who is clueless about infectious diseases

You need to STFU. You're sounding dumber each and every post. Plus every point you're trying to make is false and verifiable. But that facts don't mean anything anymore. Trump tweets, Fox Fake News repeats it and you eat the shit up

buh bye cunt chunks, troll away chicken shit

dumber and dumber and dumber and dumber......

I missed this post. Guess I nailed it. Its sad how much time and effort those with broken lives spend online being insufferable

Mental illness is sad to witness.

[TBS]

that's a
pretty solid looking fence ya go there.... what are you trying to keep in (or out)?

Not my fence. This is two blocks from La Ponderita

Pole fence is for looks. The hot wire is for Elk.

Elk are no more. ODFW insisted they put in a 12’ double fence to keep the domesticated herd away from the wild herd. So it was sold and new owners run some exotic cattle. Trying to get a permit for a dude ranch and wedding venue as well.

[TBS]

Oh yea, I came here with this before getting sidetracked by fencing
Here’s a reason to be optimistic
https://ktvz.com/news/central-oregon...o-a-long-life/

Jonesy and I met Art at Mt B’s sunrise lot about six(?) years ago. He was 96 at the time IIRC. He was skiing with his daughter. Gave them brats and beer. Jonesy may have a photo. I think it’s in a prior OR stoke thread.

Cool that Arts still kicking it. Back then he attributed his longevity to “a sensible diet and vigorous exercise”

[jonesy]

Just keep moving said Art.

[Sharon Needles]

“Oregon’s historic wildfires: unusual but not unprecedented”

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020...7mLFsMKqRoBq0k

Well isn’t that interesting and a wee bit inconvenient for the climate truthers.

[::: :::]

Please take that topic and start a thread with it. This isn’t the thread for arguing about climate science.

[Sharon Needles]

Edit-

Lulz.

Just scrolled thru the page. Sure are a lot of posts about the fires and the cause of the problem.


Funny you just now have a issue with the discussion when a reputable source counters the preferred narrative

[::: :::]

If you legitimately care about the topic, start a thread.
I don’t give a fuck for arguing about it, and this just dilutes what is supposed to be the OR thread.
Prove that you are not here just to be a contrarian asshole.

[Sharon Needles]

We own a lot of forest land. This topic is very near and dear to me. That is why I call out the feeble minded who try to use climate change as a blanket for every issue.

There is no debate. You either accept what the experts say or you try to link the problem solely to climate change with yelling and shouting.

Reality is that this would still be a issue if climate change didn’t exist.

As far as why I’m here, well... I had planned on posting stoke- I was going to do that with this alias to keep somewhat anonymous due to the numerous threats I’ve received... but a mod with the authority complex doxed me.

Also- I can’t be the only one who thinks a thread started prematurely is not the official thread?

[spanghew]

sorry, sharing needlessly: there are multiple ways to assess this problem, bu people who live there and make it their lives to study it, e.g. this nice Ralph Bloemers fellow:

Friends - for 20 years I have spent time in burned landscapes, with fire experts, biologists, foresters and ecologists. I have also visited with home safety experts, firefighters and first responders.
Last year I testified numerous times to the Oregon Wildfire Council about the need for Oregonians to harden their homes to fire.
I have also spent the last three years with Trip Jennings and Sara Quinn making films about fire in the West and the solutions. The feature length film is called Elemental and it is almost complete. The message from the experts is clear.
1) most big fires are driven by drought and wind (climate) not by the amount of fuels or forest conditions. While vegetation and topography are important factors, remember grasslands and shrublands burn too. In CA this year nearly 65 percent of landscapes that burned so far were not forestlands (as of Sept 6)
2) forest management - thinning, logging, clearing is a shot in the dark at reducing fire severity or risk and oftentimes it increases fire severity and danger. Around homes thinning can help to reduce the immediate risk and provide for defensible space, but in the backcountry or further from homes it makes little to no difference in terms of home safety. And the forest grows back. We do not have enough money to tend 350 million acres, and often the tending is logging that takes the most fire resistant material.
3) in extreme fire weather firefighters just try to help people escape. They don’t have enough “wet stuff to put on the red stuff” as they say. We need to stop believing that firefighting will save us and put out fires. In Detroit-Idanha, the firefighters fled. In Paradise the first responders told us they would have needed EVERY fire truck from ALL of California in town within 1 hour to be able to save SOME of the homes. The fire hit the town in about 2-3 hours after ignition as it moved very rapidly (3x normal rates) through previously logged and salvaged areas.
AND, most important
4) if we want to protect homes and communities from fire, then we have to harden our homes to fire, prevent ember penetration and home ignition. We have to make our homes less ignitable. And it is relatively easy and not high cost. Cover vents, clean gutters, hardscape perimeter, use non-flammable materials on the exterior...
As to the long held belief, promoted by industry, that it is a problem in our forests, that logging-management-thinning can solve it — well it does not hold up to scrutiny. Trying to make forests less flammable is like trying to make the ocean less wet. Let’s take a look at just one example.
Last night the Bear fire in the northern Sierra Nevada blew up.
This area has been heavily logged over the past couple of decades--clearcuts, commercial thinning, "salvage" logging of snags, you name it, mostly on private lands but also quite a bit on National Forests too. The Bear fire just dramatically expanded today when it got to this massive area of heavy logging. The fire is now over 200,000 acres (mostly from last 24 hours), and at least three people have been killed as of now. There will likely be more.
This situation is very much like the Camp fire that hit Paradise in terms of the direct threat of recent logging to lives and homes, by contributing, along with the dominant force of extreme weather and climate change, to very rapid rate of fire spread, giving people little time to evacuate.
At this point, anyone--including you and any reporters, agency or university scientists--who is still promoting logging as "fuel reduction", and saying the problem is in our forests, or a lack of firefighting resources — or denying the fact that weather and climate change are the dominant drivers of fire behavior - or not acknowledging the fact that logging is a substantial additional contributor to increased fire spread and intensity, is really just putting people at greater risk.

[Sharon Needles]

I never made any of those arguments.

But that would be a great reply had someone done so. Sans the childish attacks of course.

[k2skier112]

don't feed the trolls

[spanghew]

I never made any of those arguments.

But that would be a great reply had someone done so. Sans the childish attacks of course.

you argue in favor of logging for fuel reduction; he counters that directly, as with other specific points. Nothing childish about making fun of your childish avatar.

[Sharon Needles]

No I didn’t. And I don’t believe that.

Fire suppression and logging (well the aftermath (dense replanting and unchecked regrowth)) is what began this whole spiral.

[Sharon Needles]

don't feed the trolls

If that's your take, you're even dumber than I first assumed, take a lap.

And you're a brainwashed partisan hack who is clueless about infectious diseases

You need to STFU. You're sounding dumber each and every post. Plus every point you're trying to make is false and verifiable. But that facts don't mean anything anymore. Trump tweets, Fox Fake News repeats it and you eat the shit up

buh bye cunt chunks, troll away chicken shit

dumber and dumber and dumber and dumber......

I missed this post. Guess I nailed it. Its sad how much time and effort those with broken lives spend online being insufferable

Mental illness is sad to witness.

☹️