Are Government Rules Increasing Numbers of Wildfires?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/04/green-agenda-exacerbating-australias-wildfire-problem/
4th January 2020
... many are blaming the greens for exacerbating the fires by meddling in the time- honoured practice of burning off excess vegetation to mitigate wildfires.
From the Telegraph ...
"All over the world farmers
are being prevented by “experts” in government quangos from carrying out
controlled burning to manage habitats prone to catching fire. Often the
precautionary principle on climate is cited. Yet when Caithness’s Flow Country
caught fire recently the fire brigade cited the lack of precautions in allowing
moors to become overgrown.
And these wildfires massively
increase carbon in the atmosphere because they set the underlying peat alight.
While the Caithness fire was burning it was estimated that it doubled
Scotland’s carbon emissions for the six days that it burned.
Upland land managers in England
are currently in dispute with Defra over plans to restrict controlled burning
on deep peat. It started with an RSPB challenge in the European courts based on
highly questionable pre-2013 science, and EU habitat directives. This led to a
voluntary code whereby farmers could only burn to strict criteria such as
restoring habitat health. But a Natural England position paper in 2019 would
effectively “nail it down so hard as effectively to stop it” according to the
Moorland Association.
The science is hotly disputed but
research has shown that so-called “cool burning”, the
controlled burning of heather when conditions allow in winter, can –
counter-intuitively – increase carbon sequestration by turning excess
vegetation into charcoal and stimulating plant growth by regenerating sphagnum
moss and moorland grasses that absorb more CO2.
Breeding bird surveys have consistently pointed to strong correlations between
endangered wading bird numbers and moorland
that has been burnt. The golden plover, in particular, prefers to nest on
recently burnt patches; their eggs are even camouflaged accordingly. And
speaker after speaker at the 2019 Wildfires Conference in Cardiff spoke of the
need to reduce vegetation in vulnerable areas."
Californian Wildfires
WILDFIRES
Is climate change driving blazes? Experts say no
https://www.thegwpf.com/climate-change-plaid-minor-role-in-californian-wildfires-experts-conclude/https://www.thegwpf.com/climate-change-plaid-minor-role-in-californian-wildfires-experts-conclude/
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