In The News
News articles that feature John Muir Project activities or quotes from JMP staff.
Logging for Fire Mitigation Stokes Anger Among Residents
By John Aguilar
The Denver Post
Hundreds of freshly cut ponderosa logs lay stacked in rows in Elk Meadow Park, some measuring several feet in diameter — and more than a century old. Not far away, wood chips and slash litter a clearing where trees once stood.
View ArticleScientist: Trees Felled in Vain in Name of Fire Control
By Dana Gentry
Nevada Current
An alliance between governments and the commercial logging industry under the guise of fire management is decimating forests, wreaking ecological havoc, and exacerbating risks for people and property, according to scientists at odds with what they call archaic methods that are futile in controlling fires.
View ArticleBillions in Feds’ Spending on Megafire Risks Seen as Misdirected
By Bobby Magill
Bloomberg Law
Congress is spending billions to save communities from Western megafires by thinning large swaths of forests even as scientists say climate change-driven drought and heat are too extreme for it to work.
View ArticleAre California’s Wildfires Really “Disasters”–or Just Something Natural?
By Piper McDaniel
Mother Jones
When a forest is torched by wildfire, what’s left behind is something resembling a dystopian hellscape. There are no green things, just a carpet of scorched earth and telltale piles of ash and debris: Here was a house, here a garden, here the shell of a car–and thousands of trees, stripped and blackened.
View ArticleCould the Infrastructure Bill Make Wildfires Worse?
By Adam Aton
E&E News
The West is burning, and Congress is responding with a fire hose of money. The bipartisan infrastructure deal that advanced yesterday through the Senate would spend billions of dollars on wildfire policy, with much of it earmarked for cutting trees and planting new ones. Some experts warn that approach could backfire.
View ArticleHas the Forest Service Been Making Wildfires Worse?
By Christopher Ketcham
The New Republic
The Bear fire was one of the largest of the over 8,000 wildfires that have beset California this year. Now incorporated into the still-burning North Complex Fire, the Bear started in the Plumas National Forest, sparked by a series of lightning strikes on August 17 across the northern Sierra Nevada.
View ArticleScientists Warn U.S. Congress Against Declaring Biomass Burning Carbon Neutral
By Justin Catanoso
Mongabay
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic attracts much of the world’s attention, global warming continues intensifying. Today, in a plea to not ignore the planet’s rapidly escalating climate crisis, some 200 environmental scientists from 35 states signed onto a letter delivered to U.S. congressional leaders imploring them to “oppose legislative proposals that would promote logging and wood consumption, ostensibly as a natural climate change solution.”
View ArticleCalifornia’s Housing Crunch is Pushing Developers Deeper into Dangerous Fire Zones
By Prashant Gopal & Noah Buhayar
Bloomberg
The Santa Ana winds were blowing as Greg Medeiros ducked behind his Chevy Tahoe on a remote hillside 25 miles from the edge of Los Angeles’s sprawl. He gestured to the valley below, describing his vision of Centennial, the city he’ll build in the heart of wildfire country.
View ArticlePro-Logging Republicans See an Opening in the Farm Bill
By Kari Sonde
Mother Jones
As Congress regroups after the midterms, the farm bill is back on the table. The legislation, which comes up for review twice every 10 years, funds agricultural programs in addition to food aid and conservation efforts.
View ArticleA Billion-Dollar Fortune From Timber and Fire
By Chloe Sorvino
Forbes
One of the largest fires to burn in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, the Rim Fire tore through 257,000 acres on the edge of Yosemite National Park in 2013. Not long after firefighters doused the flames, a fleet of bulldozers and trucks arrived, sent by billionaire Archie Aldis “Red” Emmerson.
View ArticleLet Forest Fires Burn? What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows
By Justin Gillis
The New York Times
With long strides, Chad T. Hanson plunged into a burned-out forest, his boots kicking up powdery ash. Blackened, lifeless trees stretched toward an azure sky. Dr. Hanson, an ecologist, could not have been more delighted. “Any day out here is a happy day for me, because this is where the wildlife is,” he said with a grin.
View ArticleWildfires: A ‘Nuked’ Landscape and Burned Tree Seeds
By Brittany Patterson
E&E Reporter
The Rim Fire blazed through the alpine forest of California’s Sierra Nevada in 2013, growing into one of the largest and most expensive wildfires in the state’s history. Today, many researchers are racing to discover how this new fire regime is affecting California’s diverse landscapes, from the highest subalpine forests to shrubby chaparral.
View ArticleExperts: Fight Fire with Fire
By Joshua Emerson Smith
San Diego Union Tribune
California’s forests could benefit from more fires, according to scientists and state officials tasked with protecting people and property from high-intensity blazes. The state’s ongoing epidemic of dead or dying trees has stoked fears about increased wildfires, but scientists and state officials agreed the dead wood may not be the threat many believe. Rather, they expressed the need for longer-term strategies to protect backcountry homes and businesses.
View ArticleFocus: Do Dead or Dying Trees Raise WildFire Risk?
By Joshua Emerson Smith
San Diego Union Tribune
As a record number of trees stand dead or dying in California’s forests due to drought and beetle infestations, concerns are mounting that the die-off is creating an abundance of fuel likely to trigger wildfires that could threaten homes and lives. However, an emerging body of science finds little evidence to support these fears.
View ArticleState, San Diego County Grapple with Historic Tree Die-Off
By Joshua Emerson Smith
San Diego Union Tribune
As wildfires burn in Southern California, a debate is smoldering about what to do with millions of dead and dying trees — which have been ravaged by drought and beetle species up and down the state.
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