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lambchopp59

(2,809 posts)
Tue Aug 7, 2018, 01:34 AM Aug 2018

"Strikingly Ignorant" Trump Tweet blames wildfires on "bad environmental laws"

Paste excerpt L.A. times:
Trump blamed the fires on “bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.” He complained that water needed for firefighting is being “diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”
Apparently, per article, Trump has confused the central valley's demands for more irrigation water as related to these massive wildfires, and of course, ignores the actual cause: climate change.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html

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"Strikingly Ignorant" Trump Tweet blames wildfires on "bad environmental laws" (Original Post) lambchopp59 Aug 2018 OP
yup... my congress idiot asshole lapfog_1 Aug 2018 #1
"Strikingly Ignorant". Great phrase. He'll be at "Utterly Ignorant" any day now. marble falls Aug 2018 #2

lapfog_1

(29,166 posts)
1. yup... my congress idiot asshole
Tue Aug 7, 2018, 02:00 AM
Aug 2018

apparently planted this bit of misinformation with TRE45ON-in-chief.

Jeff Denham apparently carried forth the message that central valley farms need more water (for free) which is why central valley is now a "dust bowl" (if you ever drive I-5 you will see these messages posted every few miles on signs stuck near the freeway).

And it is true that river water from the Sierra is NOT being diverted into the canal system because the estuaries and the SF Bay are becoming more brackish - more salty - which is drastically changing the entire ecosystem.

The farmers want that water diverted into the canals for them...

So they can grow more rice and almonds and pistachios... all of which are water hungry.

They have turned to pumping ground water out of the central valley so much that the valley floor is sinking... rapidly.

Anyway, this has NOTHING to do with the forest fires that are much higher up in the coastal range and the Sierras...

Not to mention that those fires are getting all the water that can be flown by helicopter and air tanker to them... and thousands of fire fighters that use heavy equipment to cut even MORE fire breaks near the fire lines. But...

We had enough water last winter to create a lot of underbrush... and now with almost no humidity in the air and hot temps and wind... well... if you stare hard at some hillsides they will simply burst into flame... the grasses are so dry that they are GREY... no golden or brown... but GREY... and that's before they light on fire from the smallest ember blown into them from god knows where.

It's climate change... so... unless you want to cut down ALL the trees and spread poison or plow up all of the hillsides to keep the underbrush down... you are going to get our current fire season, which is now about half over ( with climate change it is running from June to October ).

Other than reducing the temperature and increasing the humidity here... I don't think there is much anyone can do other than spot the fire early and massively attack it with all of the fire fighters on the planet (we are importing them from Australia right now).

But there is NO lack of water to fight forest fires... there may be a lack of planes and helicopters... and airspace / traffic control to safely fly them all to the fires.

Idiot.

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