[ExI] Wildfires are erasing Western forests

[spike at rainier66.com]

...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
Subject: [ExI] Wildfires are erasing Western forests

>...Wildfires are erasing Western forests. Climate change is making it permanent.
The evidence is clear: Forests are shifting to scrublands across large swaths of the Western U.S.
Nathanael Johnson Sr. Staff Writer   Nov 29, 2021

<https://grist.org/climate/climate-change-forest-loss/>


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>...This forest loss is probably also happening in many other countries troubled by increasing forest fires, like Australia and Europe.

BillK

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BillK, I agree that forest loss is happening, but disagree with the article on why it is happening.  For trees, the water patterns are far more important than the temperature.  Those are changing as spring runoff is channeled into reservoirs and from there down into population centers.  No matter what happens, cities will need water and power.  A tech civilization will do whatever is necessary to make that happen.  

Since we seem to be slow to build nuclear plants and want to move away from burning carbon fuels, this leads to greater reliance on renewables, such as wind and solar, both of which take huge land area.  Currently the USA has seething hordes crossing the southern border every day.  They come from countries such as Guatemala, where the per capita power use is about 5% what it is here.  So in a sense, every person who crosses that border is equivalent to 20 Guatemalans.  Every one of them will need water, power, food, a place to live.

Western forests are not regrowing, but they would need to go anyway.  We don't have room for them.

spike