A new wave of startups is tackling a huge emissions source: wildfires

www.canarymedia.com

The growing field of “firetech” is reinventing the age-old practice of prescribed burns and devising other novel methods of preventing and suppressing fires.

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It's good to hear about burn management getting more attention, but a number of forests in the US literally evolved to grow quickly and burn every few years, with larger trees surviving these fires which are milder when they happen regularly. Calling forest fires an "emissions source" is misleading, because carbon released in these fires is part of the atmospheric carbon cycle, it isn't new carbon dioxide being brought up from millennia or eons of sequestration underground or under ice.
- True, but physics doesn’t care where the carbon came from. If it can be limited it helps.
  
  It's limited by being in trees and new growth.. Even after a fire. The carbon that makes a difference was buried under the ground until we poured it out all over ourselves and the world.
  
  Humans are just so arrogant that they think they can fix nature. There's forests evolved together with fires. If you prevent fires, you can do more damage than good.
Wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem. Some ecosystems would collapse without them. But stopping wildfires doesn't cut into profits, it can even be made profitable!
- They're talking about having frequent prescribed burns, as was the practice before European arrival, instead of lower frequency hgih-intensity fires.
  
  That's nothing new. We've been doing that since the 80s.
Ah yes I'm sure capitalism can solve this issue.
- Irrespective of the economic system, it's still necessary to actually do the things they're trying
  
  I agree. But the problem comes when the investors want to start to see a return. Just look at the state of the tech industry now. Consider the failure of second sight and how it's left people with brain implants that no longer function.
  I agree the tech looks promising and we are going to need a lot of adaptation solutions but right now theyre being funded in order to take advantage of the serious cost to society and with the need for returns those costs will only spiral upward. This will be especially obvious when we consider that it is the poorest communities who are most affected by climate disasters. The richest people will get adaptation. The poorest will get refugee status.
  By relying so heavily on private solutions governments abdicate responsibility and communities get left to pick up the pieces.
how about, the fuck not ? ..
- What they're doing is showing how to make it cost-effective to go back to something like the pre-colonization fire regime of frequent low-intensity fires. This makes it possible for western North America forests to return to having fewer but older trees which sequester more carbon than growing lots of small trees fast and then having them all burn in an intense fire
  
  sounds cool, but the solution to global warming is socialism with mild capitalist traits. tech bro solutions always include extra steps and are profit driven.

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