"I don't think science knows."
US President Donald Trump has downplayed the impact of climate change on raging west coast wildfires, saying he doesn't think "science knows" and that it "will soon get cooler".
Latest: https://t.co/q5Yx0QT2ia pic.twitter.com/t3pFIrinLF
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) September 14, 2020
Plenty of aging narcissists have wanted the whole world to die with them. Not many have had as many willing accomplices as the GOP death cult.
Science knows. https://t.co/Pwx8meY4zw
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 14, 2020
I reject the idea that when the President goes west and says “it will get cooler” with a smirk on his face that we are supposed to be like “well that’s Trump, that rascal.”
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) September 14, 2020
This type of action increases the risk of injury to everyone at one of these roadblocks. We have had extra deputies patrolling Corbett all day and will through the rest of the weekend. Please report suspicious activity to us and do not take action yourselves.
— Multnomah Co Sheriff (@MultCoSO) September 12, 2020
Let me say this as plainly as possible:
We have become so politically polarized, & consume so much misinformation and fear-mongering from social media, that people are literally defying wildfire evacuation orders because they want to beat up fake looters. https://t.co/CkoOt6jiqa pic.twitter.com/lZcx7J7WuY
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) September 11, 2020
To be fair these guys ALSO want to wage war against the Bureau of Land Management. https://t.co/wwMl3C0YnJ
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 12, 2020
Before a Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy spread unfounded antifa wildfire rumors, a supervisor did — in a public meeting https://t.co/SY3FbeWO4F pic.twitter.com/dBmgEyVhZ2
— The Oregonian (@Oregonian) September 14, 2020
In January, Kate Brown proposed a wildfire management plan that would treat over 300K acres to prevent wildfire, mandate defensible space around homes, and update building codes.
Republicans killed the legislation with their walkout. #orpolhttps://t.co/ZI2a02J7Jn
— Andrew Damitio (@AndrewDamitio) September 11, 2020
Tucker is so skilled at being a white nationalist that he somehow finds a way to make a segment about wildfires & climate change incredibly racist. https://t.co/61rzAyA1PM
— Centrism Fan Acct ? (@Wilson__Valdez) September 12, 2020
Trump comments like these are important for the historical record, because if the science is remotely correct there's going to be a massive effort to retcon this period as "Of course everyone wanted to deal with climate change, the far left just wouldn't agree to a carbon tax" https://t.co/Nvn9JRaYqV
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) September 14, 2020
trollhattan
Can man-baby virgin Ben stop glaring at me? It’s not working, bro.
japa21
Watching that yesterday, Trump started listening to the comment, semi-seriously, then looked to his right with a smirk on his face, like “Here we go again.” He is the existential threat that al Qaeda and Isis never were.
tokyokie
Of course it’s going to get cooler soon. It happens every autumn.
MomSense
There is so much I want to say, more like scream, but I’ve been at the point of crying all day. It’s kind of like the feeling you get when a sneeze is coming and you are suspended in the waiting for it.
Mag
One of the Republican Oregon state senators that walked out of the Oregon Senate to deny quorum, Fred Girod, had his house burn down one of the state’s wildfires. His and his colleagues’ actions had consequences, but who could have known they’d be so personal and immediate? Will he change his tune? Don’t count on it.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I’m sorry.
In the previous thread we were talking about sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll.
Baud
+1 on the title.
trollhattan
@Mag:
Not and get reelected, I’m guessing.
Quinerly
This ICE whistleblower/hysterectomy story finally being reported out in MSM. BBC reported earlier today. Nicolle Wallace has a segment coming up.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
There are no words for how much I fucking hate these motherfucketyfucking people.
Baud
@Mag: “Why weren’t the environmentalists more persuasive?”
Kent
Fuck these people. I hate that they have forced us into taking grim satisfaction at their own ignorant misfortune. I really hate that they have forced me to loose all sympathy. But that is where we are at. Actions have consequences.
Kent
They walked out over a climate change bill that would have imposed some lightweight milquetoast sort of carbon tax on diesel trucks and such. I forget the exact details. There was also some sort of tightened vaccination rules that eliminated the personal choice exemption from school vaccine requirements. That triggered a bunch of them too.
Baud
Good Twitter game by Biden.
dm
Ezra Klein has had an engineer named Saul Griffith on his podcast twice in the past year. Griffith’s commentary has left me feeling pretty optimistic about the potential to alleviate the climate crisis, as he walks through the steps needed to completely decarbonize our economy by 2040. Plus the Green-New-Deal-phobic can still have their hamburgers, their McMansions, and their SUVs (though electric ones that perform better and require less maintenance). In other words, something that’s politically possible as well as physically possible. Also: jobs.
Here’s a link to let you see what I mean: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/8/27/21403184/saul-griffith-ezra-klein-show-solve-climate-change-green-new-deal-rewiring-america
JPL
@Quinerly: Yahoo had a story about it. The AJC and several other publications are high lighting the lack of Covid testing. She’s on the local tv now
nothing on the forced sterilizations
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
Just dealing with all the feelings that come up with my son’s school closure today.
LuciaMia
@tokyokie: I first thought he meant cooler temps maybe helping calm the wild fires. But he was actually talking about climate change?? His ass-holishnish knows no limits.
LuciaMia
Jared was just on with Wolf Blitzer. Dear God, what an oily little weasel!
Aziz, light!
@Mag: The wingnuts in Oregon have their new talking point. The reason we had all these fires is that environmentalists stopped our patriotic timber companies from logging all the trees.
Baud
@LuciaMia: He was on the Today show this morning. He’s making the rounds today. He’s awful.
Baud
@Aziz, light!: very few fires in the desert.
lamh36
Don’t know if anyone posted this yesterday, but how cool is this!
FRFR, how cool is Dave Grohl? Here’s Nandi’s response video:
https://twitter.com/nandi_bushell/status/1305568424769269769?s=21
Roger Moore
@Mag:
If those wacky environmentalists hadn’t stopped the loggers from cutting down the forest, it wouldn’t be there to burn. Checkmate, libtard!
lamh36
JPL
@Quinerly: Thanks for the heads up on MSNBC reporting about the specific doctor. Since Dawn’s info was light, I think that is why the local news didn’t air that segment.
MomSense
@lamh36:
I am loving the friendship between Nandi and Dave Grohl.
John Revolta
Nothing gets past Trump. Just a few months ago he predicted it was gonna get warmer. He Knows All!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Actually, we do get fires in the desert.
Kent
He was talking about climate change. It was sheer outright climate change denial, not some misinterpretation of his comment.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I blame the environmentalists.
Seriously, what’s burning? Cacti?
Chyron HR
What would happen if the next time Trump started in on his shit, the person he’s talking to just asked, “Why shouldn’t we have you shot, you fucking imbecile?”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I posted some daytime pics from Joshua Tree for OTR, you can see there’s quite a bit of vegetation on the desert floor and Joshua Trees
MomSense
@Quinerly:
There is no end to the fucking evil with these Republicans. I pity the fool who dares say something about “pro-life” or abortion to me. I’m a donkey on the edge.
Baud
@Chyron HR:
I’m guessing arrest and prosecution, coupled with a Trump fundraising email.
JMG
When it snows for the first time this winter, Trump will say it proves he was right it would get cooler.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JMG: Just like Senator Inhofe and his snowball.
Mike G
@Baud:
Joshua trees. It’s not easy to start them burning but it is possible, in this case a rare lightning strike.
The densest concentration of them on earth burned up in the Dome Fire near Baker, CA.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
ROFL My god, is he right about that.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
But if fifty people a day do it they may think it’s a movement.
piratedan
@Baud: not all deserts are saharan sand dunes or death valley … ,
Enhanced Voting Techniques
He’s that much of dumb ass; it snows in the winter, therefor these is no Global Warming in Trump’s mind.
Miss Bianca
@Mag: OK, with the caveat that I’m not getting out of the boat, how the fuck does he manage to blame wildfires on “environmentalists”?
ETA: OK, if some of the other commenters who speak wingnut are to believed, it’s because…
video killed the radio starenvironmentalists killed logging? Duh, OF COURSE, libtard!Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Mike G:
Cut. Them. Down.
piratedan
@Miss Bianca: he’s a Republican, no need to make any sense, remember their feelings count for more than science, logic or reason…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Did you look at the link I added, there’s a lot more underbrush that can burn as well.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I did. It’s pretty.
craigie
“I don’t think science knows.”
Does Trump think “Science” is some guy who works somewhere in the Federal government?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@craigie: Probably the EPA.
Baud
@craigie:
Johnny Science, GS-13.
Coming to CBS this fall.
NotMax
Winter comes, winter goes. No one can explain it.
//
Kent
A lot of western forests are really overgrown with fuel and enormous fire hazards. Mainly because they were logged off long ago and are now filled with dense secondary growth. Actual old-growth forests are not nearly the same sort of fire hazard. There are basically three ways to deal with this:
First, controlled burns, which can be difficult, especially in densely overgrown forests and have their own environmental impacts. You can’t just coat a nearby city with smoke. And once a forest is too overgrown, it’s dangerous to set it on fire intentionally.
Second, mechanical thinning where you go in and trim out the underbrush and thin out some trees. This is exceedingly expensive and difficult because much of what you remove is not commercially viable lumber except perhaps for pulp. And you can’t just use a lot of heavy machinery. It’s an expensive labor intensive grind acre by acre and costs hundreds of millions that the GOP doesn’t want to spend.
Third, just logging it all out. They often have euphemisms for this like “salvage logging”. But it means punching in roads, destroying salmon streams and habitat, and turning the mountains into prairie.
Because environmentalists oppose #3 it is all their fault that there are fires.
Aleta
@MomSense: Don’t mess with donkeys. Shah was not messing around today either. We’re on edge up here too.
Baud
@Kent:
When Dems control everything, they should make #2 a jobs program.
Wyatt Salamanca
For the first time in its 175 year history, Scientific American magazine has issued a presidential endorsement:
h/t https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-endorses-joe-biden/
MomSense
@Aleta:
A faculty member at my sons ‘s school tested positive. S/he is going to be retested and hopefully it will be negative, but the closed the school today.
WereBear
@Kent:
They won’t compromise. They see it as weakness. Like the Confederacy that is still their mindset, they will not stop.
They can only be stopped.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Shorter: The environmentalists are responsible for us still having forests, so it’s also their fault we have forest fires.
MomSense
@Aleta:
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/9d004c4f-14bb-4794-aed7-42cfa80b7fcc
Donkey from Shrek
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Is that the same son that wanted to do independent study?
Kent
@Roger Moore: pretty much
And, honestly it isn’t really the environmentalists at all. They have nowhere near that much power. All they really do is insist that the Forest Service and private timber companies follow the ACTUAL LAW when it comes to forest management. Laws that were passed in both Republican and Democratic congresses and administrations back in the day when Republicans were not all brain dead goobers
Environmental groups sue the Forest Service to force it to follow the actual damn law and it is all their fault when they win and the Forest Service has to follow the law.
That is the actual logic. Environmentalists don’t get to write forest management laws. Congress does that.
ArchTeryx
@MomSense: Too bad we don’t have a dragon to sic on these people.
Aleta
@MomSense: That blows. They’re going to test everyone at the mill in Rumford because of an outbreak. Just a few cases so far.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
Yup. He’s my last one in school. He
decided to attend remotely so he wasn’t exposed at school, but he’s angry, sad, and worried about his friends and teachers. One of his best friends decided to attend in person this year because he said he is afraid he will fail out of school if he has to be at home. He needs the support. These kids shouldn’t have been put in this position.
Aleta
@MomSense: that’s great
Kent
Dracarys!!
https://youtu.be/IU2bIzsJ8LE
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Or rake.
MomSense
@ArchTeryx:
? Very happy to see you, friend.
@Aleta: Apparently the management sent out an email today saying as of today masks are now mandatory.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
It’s infuriating that they weren’t mandatory already. It’s not as if nobody knew that masks were a good idea. Waiting until after your first outbreak to institute rules everyone should have know were necessary at the beginning is stupid.
Aleta
@MomSense: Bottom and Titania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGgsJd4_r4k
WaterGirl
@MomSense: That’s a lot of emotional weight on a caring young person’s shoulders.
trollhattan
@Kent:
That’s how I understand it. “Pay me now or pay me later” to Republicans gets an automatic “how does never sound?” but option #2 followed with controlled burns to keep undergrowth tamed eventually leads to fire-resistant mature forest that is also good habitat and recreation.
Early explorers reported driving wagons through lodgepole forest in the Sierra, so large and far-spaced were the trees. Must have been something.
Having backpacked west slope Cascade virgin doug fir forest (is any still there?) I know its special. Fly over the Sierra and Cascades and you see what’s really happened to most of it.
CapnMubbers
@Baud:
Fires in the desert do happen and can be devastating. In the fragile desert environment native vegetation takes a long time to regenerate and is frequently replaced with invasive grasses, depriving desert creatures of food. Invasive burn more readily, further reducing the opportunity for native plants to regain a foothold. The Cima Dome Fire in August (started by lightning) destroyed the heart of the Joshua Tree forest. Here in my new home in southern Utah, illegal fireworks started a 12,000+ acre fire just after July 4th. Wiped out many desert tortoises and their habitat in a reserve which was meant to protect them. Incidentally it threatened the area where my house is located. After choosing not to rebuild in Paradise, CA I did not expect to be on the verge of evacuating because of fire in the Utah desert.
catclub
There’s trouble at the mill? Has one old flayrod gone out askew on treadle?
Kathleen
@MomSense: I’m sorry you and your son are going through this. Sending you both (and your Mom) healing mojo.
Aleta
@catclub: ha
japa21
Only slightly OT. Per worldometer the magic number of 200,000 has been reached. Heck of a job Donnie.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
I wasn’t expecting a sort of Spanish Inquisition!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Brachiator
What an idiot.
Ignorance is not the alternative to science. Science may not know everything, but ignorance does not know anything.
Trump and his Big Boss Businessman routine is very much like a mad 18th century monarch who thinks that he can establish reality by royal decree. He really gets off on the idea that “I’m the president, so people have to listen to me.”
Imbecile Narcissist’s Delight.
So goddam tiresome.
Brachiator
@catclub:
This is usually when they send Lassie to get help.
BlueNC
@Roger Moore:
@Roger Moore: That’s because no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
(sorry not sorry)
[ETA: dammit @BillinGlendaleCA]
WaterGirl
@japa21: And let’s not forget that it’s something like 4 million people who have gotten covid (I think i have that right) some not totally recovered and many have on-going issues.
Tim C.
Whelp… time to out myself. I work in Corbett. The part of the story that needs to be mentioned is that a second group of similar, but not identical group in the community were basically saying that they were armed too and that if anyone tried to stop them, they would be shooting first.
Probably just internet macho posturing, but geez….
Sally
@Kent: As observed in other fire prone countries, controlled burns are also becoming more difficult to manage. The climatic windows for these exercises are narrowing everywhere, due to climate change. Cold and wet conditions lasted longer, and gave firefighters more opportunities to burn areas in danger, without smoking out towns and cities. Smoke that kills people, I might add. Fire seasons are lasting longer in both hemispheres, giving more chances of lightning strikes causing serious fires. It’s cause on top of cause, on top of cause.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@MomSense:
I’m with MomSense at 4. When I saw that interchange between Gov Newsom and the other California officials and Trump, I wanted to reach into the screen and punch his smirking face hard. Put yourself in the CA officials’ place: they are responsible for people’s lives, homes, for communities in the path of fiery destruction. They are there, forced to plead with a smirking stupid mountain of careless selfishness for help, for some kind of cooperation from this smirking, chuckling pile of offal who will not listen, will not help, who enjoys watching them plead and suffer. It’s like the dreams kids often have where they know something bad is going to happen, and run to adults to tell them, but the adults ignore them. Except this is adults running to a giant ignorant child.
Makes me want to throw up.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Kent:
You forgot to mention that the previous logging leaves behind lots of waste that turns into tinder and makes the fires worse. As a kid I remember talk of forest management and thinning of forests. That cost too much so we moved on to clear cutting.
There could be a solution somewhere in between but that would require an honest and responsible second party to negotiations.
Amir Khalid
I have puzzled over this term “white nationalist” ever since I first saw it. Is it anything more than a euphemism for “racist”?
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
I hope you realize that YOU are the actual
white nationalistracist for asking that question.Richard
@CapnMubbers: We used to go visit the Cima Dome area every year at least once and more often sometimes. I heard it burned but now i hear it was pretty bad. That breaks my heart. Many of those other interesting plants will be able to come back, maybe. But i think maybe the most magnificent Joshua Tree forest in the world is going to take a long time to recover. Because you live nearby, you can visit Gold Butte National Monument and similar places around here.
Maybe if we had told more people about Cima Dome, we could have asked people for more help to protect that place.
cain
We need to flip a few more seats – and then we won’t need the Republicans to show up at all. Right now, they need to be there for quorum. After that, fuck those guys they can do whatever the fuck they want. They want to go and run to Idaho and have a circle jerk with white supremacists – be my guest.
cain
@Aziz, light!:
LOL – that’s such an asinine position. Their answer is that we should have just wiped out all the trees. They seem to have forgotten that nobody wants our trees, they are getting it cheaper from China and other sources.
They’d have to hire more illegal labor – it doesnt translate to more jobs for these folks.
Auntie Fa
So how do we can get them to spend half their paychecks on gas chasing smoke in the trees?
owlbear1
@Sally: It doesn’t help there are twice as many of us than there were awhile ago.
cain
@Sally:
These people are so nuts that even if the fires continue to turn everything to ash, they’d still be angry and just sit there morose because things didn’t go their way. They will instead just die, but die gladly thinking they are going to get raptured.
Death cult indeed.
The Lodger
@Brachiator: Do you suppose Trump is an actual descendant of Mad King Ludwig, or was there just a lot of that sort of lunacy going around Bavaria in those days?
featheredsprite
@Amir Khalid: You’re correct. White nationalist does mean racist, with a sprinkling of xenophobia.
Chris T.
Exactly so. The only one that is practical in these areas is the one that Republicans nix.