California recall election now has 70 people on the ballot

Eric said:
I think it will help but not enough to shift what the climate is doing, However, even locally they mentioned where some of the clearing of brush helped in some areas. I know there's a political football about clearing the forest floors as well, and nevermind that much of it is actually federal land, the reality is climate change is driving this.

When you watch footage of these fires it's like nothing you've ever seen, like a literal blow torch moving through the forests, taking out 50 foot trees literally by the second. All firefighters (many of which are Republicans) will tell you that over the last decade they've become exponentially harder to deal with.

I think inserting politics here is just stupid, the planet is clearly getting hotter and while it's probably a natural shift, all evidence shows that humans have played a large role in speeding it up over the last 200 hundred years. Common sense tells us we need to do our part to prevent it. Sure, raking the forest floors. Also, preventing 43 billion tons of pollution that goes into our atmosphere every year might help a bit too.
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Sadly, the fires are also creating a lot of pollution too, which just exacerbates things.
 
SuperMatt said:
I think it has a small impact. But climate change is the real reason.

Blaming “forest management” for this is like if you’re driving your car at 150MPH and then you sneeze and crash, you blame your allergies for the crash.

I liked this article from Popular Mechanics:

www.popularmechanics.com

Over 30 Wildfires Are Burning in California Right Now

Where do we start?
www.popularmechanics.com www.popularmechanics.com
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I drop in the bucket compared to the bigger picture. At best it's just a way to help slow things down that are just going to burn anyway, the biggest difference I've seen is that it elevates the fire through the trees but it certainly doesn't stop it. It's sort of a ridiculous talking point.
 
Eric said:
I drop in the bucket compared to the bigger picture. At best it's just a way to help slow things down that are just going to burn anyway, the biggest difference I've seen is that it elevates the fire through the trees but it certainly doesn't stop it. It's sort of a ridiculous talking point.
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Yep, Trump was yapping about “just rake the forests” and (surprise, surprise) his followers bought it hook, line, and sinker.

BTW, if you’re wondering what “rake the forest” entails and how long it takes:


Let’s define a unit called the man-day, which is one person working for one day on clearing an acre. In the United States, clearing every acre by hand — raking it, if you will — would require about 9 billion man-days (total acreage times four people working for three days)....

It would take the U.S. labor force 55 12-hour days to clear our forests.
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So, yeah if we assigned every worker in America to do nothing but this job, it would take 2 months of 12-hour days for it to happen.

As usual, Trump spews out some random BS that claims to be a solution, and of course it is nonsensical and would never work when you actually look into the details of making it happen.
 
Herdfan said:
Won't fix it. They will simply be moved to another location and the people who live in the area will be happy.
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There was a massive homeless encampment just south of my city, like hundreds of homeless. It was well hidden in a fairly rural area, possibly on public land, and AFAIK they weren’t bothering anybody. The county went ahead and cleared it out anyway because they had crime and health concerns within the encampment. This was pre COVID so that wasn’t a concern. Shocking to nobody these people just went back to living in the city scattered all over for everybody to enjoy. I’m not trying to say out of sight, out of mind, but I fail to see how having them spread all over back in the city was an improvement. You can’t even use the "but now we know where they are and can better help them" defense. You knew where they were when they were in the encampment and just as importantly they were all together. You trying to tell me knowing where their 25 different locations are now is better than 1 location?
 
SuperMatt said:
Yep, Trump was yapping about “just rake the forests” and (surprise, surprise) his followers bought it hook, line, and sinker.

BTW, if you’re wondering what “rake the forest” entails and how long it takes:




So, yeah if we assigned every worker in America to do nothing but this job, it would take 2 months of 12-hour days for it to happen.

As usual, Trump spews out some random BS that claims to be a solution, and of course it is nonsensical and would never work when you actually look into the details of making it happen.
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Mexicans love leaf blowers. Get where I’m going with this?

BREAKING NEWS: Entire California coastline clogged with state’s leafs.

😀😜
 
SuperMatt said:
Yep, Trump was yapping about “just rake the forests” and (surprise, surprise) his followers bought it hook, line, and sinker.


So, yeah if we assigned every worker in America to do nothing but this job, it would take 2 months of 12-hour days for it to happen.
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Forest management is more than raking the forests. Sure if you tried to do it all at one time it would be almost impossible, It needs to be done on a continuous basis.

The area on the left is from a managed area, the burned part on the right is from an unmanaged area. Notice the break that stopped it. Now I understand that very hot fires could jump over that break, so maybe they need to be bigger, but they do help and at the very least slow down the spread giving firefighters a chance to contain it.

1629577163761.png
 
Herdfan said:
Forest management is more than raking the forests. Sure if you tried to do it all at one time it would be almost impossible, It needs to be done on a continuous basis.

The area on the left is from a managed area, the burned part on the right is from an unmanaged area. Notice the break that stopped it. Now I understand that very hot fires could jump over that break, so maybe they need to be bigger, but they do help and at the very least slow down the spread giving firefighters a chance to contain it.

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These fires started getting really bad when temperatures started rising and droughts started to become severe. If “Forest Management” was really the problem, we would have been seeing this level of wildfires well before the last decade of extreme heat and drought.

This is just distracting from the real issue as an excuse to let the planet go to hell so the next generation has nowhere to live.

Most fires happened on federal lands, so if Trump really thought “forest management” was the problem, why didn‘t he lift a finger to fix it? The fact that the GOP panders to the oil lobby who line their pockets isn’t as pathetic as the sheep who actually believe the BS and ignore the world burning around them.
 
Herdfan said:
Forest management is more than raking the forests. Sure if you tried to do it all at one time it would be almost impossible, It needs to be done on a continuous basis.

The area on the left is from a managed area, the burned part on the right is from an unmanaged area. Notice the break that stopped it. Now I understand that very hot fires could jump over that break, so maybe they need to be bigger, but they do help and at the very least slow down the spread giving firefighters a chance to contain it.

View attachment 8274
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The fuel has been there for tens of thousands of years, it's just that in the last decade it's succumbed to climate change. This argument, particularly by those who turn a blind eye to the real science behind the cause, is pretty laughable to be honest.

The best possible outcome here is that it will be less fuel to burn, even though it's going to anyway. Additionally, there are 33 million acres to manage, with a majority being federal land. If Republicans actually cared about this maybe they would've addressed when they were in office instead spending all their resources dismantling scientific research.
 
Herdfan said:
Do you think forest management has any impact on this?
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Forest management has some effect, but unfortunately "forest management" is just something the right likes to shout because it's not "climate change". It's become a political rallying cry and often doesn't have much substance behind it.

Recent large, destructive fires like the Dixie and Camp fires have burned right through recently-thinned forests. Forest management can help, but it's not the panacea its touted as. It's also much more difficult to do certain kinds of forest management (like prescribed burns) in an increasingly warm, dry climate. The window for prescribed burns is much shorter. They can only be done during a time of year when they are not likely to turn into massive wildfires and that window gets smaller as California's climate dries and "fire season" becomes a year-round affair.

There's also the fact that many California fires do not start on government land, but start on private property or in grasslands or savannas, which are not forests and are already thin. There is only so much that can be done when the wind is really whipping up a major fire.

It's true that simply saying "it's climate change" and acting like there's nothing we can do to prevent these fires is a harmful attitude. Just because Trump said "forest management" doesn't mean forest management is BS (and unfortunately that's how some liberals have reacted to it).
 
TBL said:
Forest management has some effect, but unfortunately "forest management" is just something the right likes to shout because it's not "climate change". It's become a political rallying cry and often doesn't have much substance behind it.

Recent large, destructive fires like the Dixie and Camp fires have burned right through recently-thinned forests. Forest management can help, but it's not the panacea its touted as. It's also much more difficult to do certain kinds of forest management (like prescribed burns) in an increasingly warm, dry climate. The window for prescribed burns is much shorter. They can only be done during a time of year when they are not likely to turn into massive wildfires and that window gets smaller as California's climate dries and "fire season" becomes a year-round affair.

There's also the fact that many California fires do not start on government land, but start on private property or in grasslands or savannas, which are not forests and are already thin. There is only so much that can be done when the wind is really whipping up a major fire.

It's true that simply saying "it's climate change" and acting like there's nothing we can do to prevent these fires is a harmful attitude. Just because Trump said "forest management" doesn't mean forest management is BS (and unfortunately that's how some liberals have reacted to it).
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The news keeps showing sections of forest they've recently cleared before the fires have raged through them, it's had no impact, maybe it just doesn't burn as hot but it still blasts through in a matter of minutes.

Same for "defensible space" around homes in rural areas where they clear the area surrounding them (which of course is always a good and practical idea) but if a huge fire comes through it never makes a difference. I don't want to take away these measures as a means of additional support though, it certainly doesn't hurt.
 
Herdfan said:
Good article on possible court challenges:

MSN

www.msn.com
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This excerpt from the article shows why the recall process is terribly flawed:

In 2018, voters recalled Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton). On the recall question, 41.9% voted to retain Newman. On the second ballot question, in which voters are asked to select a successor, a Republican won with only 33.8% of the vote. An incumbent who faces a recall is not permitted to be named as a successor candidate on the second part of the ballot.

"Maybe I should have been reinstated," joked Newman, after reading a recent essay by legal scholars who helped spark the current debate by arguing that California's recall law violated the federal Constitution.

Newman was in fact reinstated — but by voters, not the courts. He booted the Republican who beat him in the recall in 2020 and now serves in Sacramento.
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A majority of people didn’t want him gone, and he got the seat back in the next election. The recall elections get the extremists out to vote, while the average citizen probably doesn’t even know the recall is happening. They vote in November and ignore things like this. It’s a huge waste of time and money.
 
SuperMatt said:
This excerpt from the article shows why the recall process is terribly flawed:


A majority of people didn’t want him gone, and he got the seat back in the next election.
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A majority of the voters did. 58.1% of them to be exact.
 
SuperMatt said:
Did you even read what I wrote? Holy shit, that’s exactly what I fucking said. Un-fucking believable.
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No, your premise was that a majority of people didn't want him gone. That is unknowable. Unless every single registered voter votes (or fewer than the margin), there is no way to know what the majority wanted.

If the voters are too wrapped up in their own little world to know what is going on, like a recall election, that is a THEM problem.
 
Herdfan said:
No, your premise was that a majority of people didn't want him gone. That is unknowable. Unless every single registered voter votes (or fewer than the margin), there is no way to know what the majority wanted.
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Yes we do fucking know because they had another election with much higher turnout soon thereafter and he won…. And he won the previous election with higher turnout too. The recall election had only 35% turnout…

There were 148K votes in the 2018 race and 418K in the 2020. These recall elections favor the minority party, and allow a candidate to take office who clearly can’t win in a one-on-one battle with the full electorate. They are garbage and should be eliminated. We have ways to remove candidates engaged in illegal activity through impeachment. If you just don’t like how the candidate is doing their job… vote them out in the next election. These recall elections are baloney. I am hoping the craziest candidate on the ballot becomes governor as a lesson to CA that they need to change this. Everybody who votes to keep Newsom should get together and pick the most absurd candidate possible as the “if he loses“ replacement.
 
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Chew Toy McCoy said:


Still voted no on the recall because nobody else is offering solutions. It's all "No mask or vaccine mandates. Yee ha!"
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I think this will make him vulnerable in the next election but Republicans will actually have to tell us "what" they'll do. Just saying "we have to address the homeless" while offering no alternatives will not fly, the same will have to happen with crime. But I can tell you if we were go get a more centrist Republican (like a Schwarzenegger) I would seriously consider the switch, his take on this pandemic has been spot on IMO.
 
Eric said:
But I can tell you if we were go get a more centrist Republican (like a Schwarzenegger) I would seriously consider the switch, his take on this pandemic has been spot on IMO.
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What about Faulconer? Don't know much about him except he was elected as a GOP mayor of mostly Democrat San Diego and seems to be a moderate.
 
Herdfan said:
What about Faulconer? Don't know much about him except he was elected as a GOP mayor of mostly Democrat San Diego and seems to be a moderate.
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He's against mandates for both masks and vaccines, something Californians largely favor (and the only saving grace for Newsom IMO). Schwarzenegger is also taking a strong stance against the virus but as long as Republicans refuse to address it they will never get my support. We're tired of going back to square one because of those who refuse to mask or vaccinate.
 
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