that-silly-little-girl:

prolifeproliberty:

libertarirynn:

???

I don’t… think that’s how localized funding works? Like just because something receives federal funding doesn’t mean the mismanagement of funds isn’t happening on a local level. I’m not saying Trump is right about that being the case here (I’d have to look more into it or maybe some California followers have some insight), but it’s kind of nuts to say “the mismanagement must come from the top of the federal government.”

So maybe the federal government shouldn’t be involved at all…

Plus don’t forget the contribution of California’s eucalyptus trees to this issue.

I am a native Californian, who lives in the Central Valley. However, I have many ties to the Sierras, so I know a little bit about forest management.

First thing of all, that “98% of the lands burning is fed land” isn’t accurate. Only 57% of all Californian land is owned by the federals – the rest are a mixture of public, family, business, and state-owned land. (In fact, you can even see a map of this if you Google “Ownership of Forest and Ranchlands in California,” and the real hooter? This map is hosted by CalFire!)

According to this map, most of the lands currently burning are public, business, state, and family-owned. Some of the land burning belongs to the feds, yes, but not all.

And secondly, California has made it REALLY HARD for the feds to carry out their forest management. Last year, Governor Jerry Brown passed a law (here’s the ugly secret about California’s politics: despite it actually being the LAW that the voters has to approve laws first, the legislature still get around this with creative loopholes, so the legislature and the governor still manage to pass a butt-load of laws without approval from the voters) which MANDATES the feds to seek permission from the state before they’re allowed to work on THEIR OWN LAND!

Not to mention, a few years ago, Jerry Brown ALSO reduced the budget for forest management in California – from $200 million to $20 million. (When it’s been projected for years that the cost of clearing out all the dead trees – and keep in mind that between one half to two-thirds of all the trees in California are dead – and the extremely overgrown undergrowth… would cost billions. Billions.)

So… yes, technically you could, and should, blame the government for the horrendous land management. The catch is, it’s the STATE government, not the feds.

EDIT: Eucalyptus trees? No, they’re nowhere close to cracking the top five reasons for the terrible wildfire problems. It’s the pines… and the bark beetle. Specifically, the vast majority – like 80% to 90% – of all our dead trees are the pines, because they’re especially and particularly vulnerable to the bark beetles. The bark beetle population has seriously EXPLODED over the last few years thanks to the drought (which is both climate- and man-made). A healthy pine tree can repel the beetles with its sap. But when a tree doesn’t get enough water, it produces less sap than usual. And so, the beetles kill those trees. Seriously, just go for a drive through California’s forests and you’ll see that about one third to half of those trees are orange and red, which shows that they’re dead.

And the catch? When a pine tree dies, it doesn’t lose its green luster for a few years. That’s right, those green pine trees? They’re ALSO dead. It’s such a mess.

EDIT AGAIN: I forgot to add another important bit – overgrowth is seriously a problem. A healthy forest would have around 200 trees in a square mile. The forests in California has 2,000 trees in a square mile. We have literally 10 times the healthy threshold of trees.