One problem with the article is they again claim trees take away carbon from atmosphere.<p>This is only true if you look at short term. In long term trees do nothing to CO2 because they only participate in a <i>CYCLE</i>.<p>For carbon to be permanently removed the tree would have to be somehow buried forever. For these sequoias the future is either they burn or they fall down and rot. In both cases the carbon is released.
> Brigham, the study's lead author, cautioned that the numbers are preliminary and the research paper has yet to be peer reviewed. Beginning next week, teams of scientists will hike to the groves that experienced the most fire damage for the first time since the ashes settled.<p>It's hard to believe those trees died in this fire. Tragic if true.
According to [1] there were more fires during the medieval warm period. "The scientists found the years from 800 to 1300, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had the most frequent fires in the 3,000 years studied."<p>[1]: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2010-03-giant-sequoias-yield-longest-history.html" rel="nofollow">https://phys.org/news/2010-03-giant-sequoias-yield-longest-h...</a>
Apropos: <a href="http://cantrip.org/slow.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cantrip.org/slow.pdf</a><p>Gotta read to the end. Only 2 pages, though.
Has there been any evidence of the cause of all these fires? It seems like I used to hear how fires may have started in the past, now it seems like it’s ignored.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now that some evidence is accrued. The conventional wisdom, we just need more controlled burns; fires are good”, is fallacy. It’s convenient to think that way. It appeals to our taste for “the old ways of doing things” but it pretends to situation is unchanged and it ignores all nuance, namely regional variation in the causes and consequences of these fires, and the changing nature of the ecosystem. I hear people say, “we just need controlled burns because that’s the way it always worked” and it’s like hearing people say “we should just go back to the 1950’s way of life, everything was better then.”<p>It’s appeals to simpletons with an agenda. California is filled with such special interests. We can’t get old growth back. What about beatles? Are all trees the same? How long does it take undergrowth to regenerate after a controlled burn? People can’t answer these, they just repeat mindlessly, “fires are a fact.” Just like the globalization zombies. Imagine if humans had never changed things. We’d still have slavery and be living in caves.
These are the biggest trees on earth.[0] They're absolutely stunning up close if you ever have the chance to see the ancient ones before they disappear. This is a recent list of their last natural groves, some of which are now gone.[1]<p>Are we witnessing the last march of the Ents?[2]<p>[0]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum</a>
[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_sequoia_groves" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_sequoia_groves</a>
[2]<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKl3gPGdtpc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKl3gPGdtpc</a>
This is just awful, but it's pretty clear the forests of the Western US are doomed. It just makes me sad, as I remember those forests from my youth, when they were still vibrant and healthy. 50 years is a long time in a human's life, but it's just a moment in the life of a forest.
Don't the cones need fire to open and disperse the seeds? I thought this is how that biome works, no matter how many pretty houses you build in it, it's still a wooded desert.