US Congressman asks if the US Forest Service can modify the orbits of the Earth or moon

Rep. Louie Gohmert
Rep. Louie Gohmert. Still image from video of the July 8 hearing.

A member of the United States House of Representatives elected by the people of Texas had an unusual question for an employee of the US Forest Service Tuesday.  Jennifer Eberlein, the Associate Deputy Chief for the National Forest System in Washington, was testifying during a live streamed broadcast of a hearing before the House Natural Resources subcommittee on national parks, forests and public lands.

Rep. Louie Gohmert asked her a question. The topic at the time was climate change.

“I understand from what’s been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM you want very much to work on the issue of climate change,” Rep. Gohmert said. “I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they found that the moon’s orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth’s orbit around the sun,” he continued. “And we know there’s been significant solar flare activity. And so is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate.”

After a pause, Ms. Eberlien replied. “I would have to follow up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah, well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service can make that change,” Rep. Gohmert said, “I’d like to know.”

After word got around about the unusual question, Rep. Gohmert tweeted about it. But he only wanted to clarify that he was referring to the Bureau of Land Management, not Black Lives Matter, and to make an accusation of “fake news” when someone quoted him correctly.

Astrophysicist Katie Mack weighed in:

Fire management and the presidential election

As we have said often here at Wildfire Today, we do not get into politics unless it directly affects firefighters or fire management. And there is nothing more political than a presidential election.

However, I ran across an op-ed written by Ken Pimlott, former chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, who mentioned that one candidate has a wildfire plan. I do not recall any major candidate saying much about wildland fire, so it got my attention.

To be clear, Wildfire Today is not endorsing any candidates, but in an effort to inform voters we will be happy to write about all substantive written positions related to fire that are taken by presidential candidates as long as they have more than 2 percent in a reliable nationwide poll on the election such as this one at fivethirtyeight.

We have already covered the incumbent’s plan, the proposed budget for next fiscal year.

The candidate Chief Pimlott wrote about is Mike Bloomberg. Below is the text from his “Wildfire Resilience” webpage:

Lead a Nationwide Effort to Strengthen the Nation’s Resilience against Wildfires

Responsibility for preventing and fighting fires crosses multiple jurisdictions and interests — federal, state, local, private and tribal. In the West in particular, multiple landowners can be involved between the point where a fire starts and where it causes the most damage. This kind of large-scale action demands strong leadership and coordination. To ensure our country is protected from future harm and is equipped to mitigate future damages, Mike knows that it’s up to the federal government, as the majority landowner of forests in the West, to take the lead. Mike’s plan will:

  • Make fire resilience a top priority of the U.S. Forest Service, as well as other federal land management agencies. Task the agency with coordinating the development of a far-reaching new plan for firefighting and fire prevention for each Western state.
  • Increase collaboration among all levels of government, and public and private sectors. The Forest Service will work with other federal partners, local communities, state and local agencies, tribal leaders, environmental groups, private timber companies, rural land owners, utilities and the insurance industry to develop region- or state-specific plans with the goal of reducing life and property loss by half within four years.
  • Improve community resilience and prevent redlining by the insurance industry. Collaborative fire protection plans will include measures to reduce risk to communities and property, minimize damages in case of fire, and thereby improve the chances of getting or maintaining insurance, so that current homeowners who don’t have alternatives aren’t left without the ability to insure for disasters.

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Statement from the IAWF about climate change

The following is a statement from the International Association of Wildland Fire.

Climate Change Week at the United Nations
September 23 – 29, 2019

Climate change has already had significant consequences in the global wildfire reality, affecting citizens as well as the global wildland fire community. Many key issues of importance to the IAWF – including firefighter and civilian safety, fire management expenses, changing weather patterns, natural role of fire, fire regimes and ecosystem succession, as well as the wildland urban interface– all require recognition of the role of climate change.

Globally, we regularly see new reports about the “worst”, “largest”, “most expensive”, and “deadliest” fires and fire seasons. In 2019 and 2018, striking headlines read “Arctic on Fire” (Sweden, Russia, Greenland, Canada and Alaska), and the most expensive and largest fire years were recorded in 2018 in California and British Columbia, respectively, breaking the previous records set in 2017. The Camp Fire (CA, 2018), Attica Greece (2018), Black Saturday Australia (2009), and Portugal (2017) fires were all ranked amongst the top 11 deadliest fires in the last 100 years.

Under current climate change scenarios, fire regimes will change in terms of increases in burned area, severity, fire season length, frequency, and ignitions from lightning. Many parts of the world have already experienced an increase in record breaking temperatures and recurring droughts that have led to shifts in wildland fire. There is already evidence of climate-driven fire regime change in the Northern Hemisphere upper latitudes with fire risk increasing in non-traditional fire-prone countries. The consequences of human actions are here today, not in some distant future, and these are alarming and, most important, escalating.

The IAWF encourages all countries to emphasize increased international fire training and to implement easier cross-border sharing of professional fire management resources for suppression and prescribed fire opportunities. These will lessen the irrationally heavy burden any single country will have to carry to manage extreme fire seasons. Homes and communities must be better planned and built, so they are increasingly fire resistant and more adapted to natural disasters of all types. Health impacts of fires have long-term consequences, not only those that are immediate from the flames but also those from smoke and toxins, and these must be considered when planning and managing for future wildland fires. Wildfires and smoke do not recognize borders. As the global community tries to manage the new wildfire challenges, it is incumbent on everyone to prepare to support international neighbours in protecting lives and communities from fires and their impacts.

IAWF Vice-President Toddi Steelman recently said in Wildfire magazine (August 2019) that “Recent extreme weather events have catalysed public belief in, and concern about, climate change, and boosted public support for government actions to reduce its harmful impacts. This gives us a window of opportunity when conditions are right to make great strides on climate if we are strategic about it.” This window of opportunity requires people having the knowledge and political will to act now. Our global scientific community needs to publicly share knowledge learned about patterns of extreme wildland fire and weather, as well as how climate change is associated with these patterns. Our global fire management community needs to leverage its credibility to share its experiences about how climate change and its role in extreme weather is playing out in their day to day work environments. Connecting extreme weather events to real on-the-ground consequences can help more people understand how climate impacts are affecting us all.

Will efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions affect forest management?

Convection column Pioneer Fire
Convection column on the Pioneer Fire, August 30, 2016. Photo by Nick Guy of the University of Wyoming.

In case you came to our website yesterday and saw the green banner saying the site was closed for the day to recognize the global #ClimateStrike, we are back in service as you can see.

On Friday millions of people across the world, many of them young,  assembled to help bring awareness to what I and others are convinced is an emergency — a climate emergency. The more scientists learn about the changing climate the more serious the situation looks. A few years ago we were hearing that we had to reach net zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050. That is a long way off and many of us will not be around then. But the young people marching today will be stuck with the results of what we do between now and then.

We still need to reach net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, but we can’t wait until 2049 to begin making changes. Scientists are saying that to reach that goal, emissions would have to start dropping well before 2030 and be on a path to fall by about 45 percent by 2030. The longer we wait to begin making significant changes, the more difficult it will be to meet the 2050 goal.

Scientists estimate that wildland fires make up 5 to 10 percent of annual global CO2 emissions when taking into account renewed forest growth in the burned areas. Fires also release other greenhouse gasses such as methane. Experts estimate that the wildfires in California’s North Bay in October of 2017 emitted as much CO2 in one week as all of the state’s cars and trucks do in one year.

Up until now fire management in developed countries has virtually received a free pass when it comes to CO2, at least compared to what it could become in the next 10 to 15 years. There is world-wide pressure now to rapidly reduce the burning of fossil fuels. It is only a matter of time before we start hearing a chorus saying all vegetation fires are “bad”, including prescribed or “good fires”, using a term now being used by some U.S. Forest Service personnel.

Land managers should be thinking about how to deal with strong pressure to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from burning vegetation. Part of the answer is additional firefighters, engines, dozers, helicopters, and air tankers. The U.S. Forest Service budget for wildland fire has remained flat for the last several years, while the costs of suppression infrastructure has increased. In light of the climate emergency, allotting fewer real dollars to suppression is counter intuitive. Congress and the President need to take action on this budget issue.

Fuel treatment projects, including mechanical projects and prescribed fires, can reduce the size and resistance to control of wildfires. However, pressure to reduce CO2 emissions could make it more difficult to obtain approvals to conduct prescribed fires even though the results if done on a large enough scale can reduce emissions from wildfires over the long term. But it will be difficult to develop the formula for the right mix and priorities of mechanical treatments, prescribed fires, wildfire suppression, or doing nothing.

There are many irons in that fire, so to speak, such as dealing with smoke, protecting communities, restoring forests, conserving water resources, wildlife, endangered species, and of course the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses coming out of our forests as they burn one way or the other. It remains to be seen if all of those goals can be satisfied as we move closer to the climate emergency tipping point. Some of them may have to be de-emphasized. Land managers might be accused of being selfish if they insist on attempting to accomplish all of these traditional objectives that may exacerbate the climate for the entire planet. As well meaning as de-emphasis might me, unless skillfully implemented using the best science, the unintended consequences could actually increase CO2 emissions over time.