By Judy West
Mid-day today in San Francisco the sky is so dark from wildfire smoke it feels like night. Approximately 60% of trees in the Rocky Mountain forests are dead from bark beetle kill, left standing tall and highly flammable. Forest management policies for decades have imposed rules to make timber harvesting and clearing dense underbrush nearly impossible, giving priority to the spotted owl over preventing wildfires. How does that native habitat look today?
It’s not enough to reduce future CO2 emissions from fossil fuels; we need to reduce forest fires as well. Warmer climates and less moisture are hard on trees and good for bark beetles. If humankind wants to take responsibility for the warming climate, we should at least try to mitigate any damage we have caused already.
Last time I was at Yellowstone Park I was embarrassed by a Park Ranger pointing to endless horizons ravaged by fire, choked with fallen trees, “Look at all the new baby trees! Fires are natural and are allowed to burn in the National Parks.” Foreign tourists stood in disbelief!
How can promoting wildfires be reconciled with the war on climate change? No amount of windmills or solar farms will stop the wildfires across the West in time to save our forests. We need a different path forward.
Rising seal levels is another of those hard-to-handle issues. Flooding is a growing problem along our ocean shorelines, as well as mid-west river banks. Experts say it would take 50 years to change the trajectory of sea level rise, even with massive CO2 reductions that are not realistic. Not to mention that sea levels have been fluctuating for eons before humans arrived and our CO2 emissions may in fact, have little impact on sea levels.
New directions:
Beetle-kill forests should be harvested wherever feasible. These standing trees are high value timber and often clustered together. It must be better to harvest than allow them to burn. Environmental regulations should re-prioritize fire prevention over soil erosion, for example.
California does not have the bark beetle infestation of the Rockies but our forests are clearly in jeopardy as well. A new job-program to clear underbrush in targeted areas could employ some of our hard-to-hire populations with minimal skills, an alternative to incarceration?
Strengthening levies in the vast Mississippi River drainage basin is another potential work and jobs program, like Roosevelt’s 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps to put hundreds of thousands of unemployed to work on environmental projects. These might be just the kind of programs to help homeless camping on the streets to do meaningful work and get refocused.
Tiny homes on wheels can be built and used to house the new CCC-like workforce, which would be able to move to different projects as needed. Imagine the pride and empowerment of a worker who could own their tiny home, after an adequate period of employment.
Crossroads West 