Max Moritz, a fire specialist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the lead author of a study released yesterday in Nature, said in a phone interview that people tend to oversimplify the causes of fires, and therefore the solutions, in different areas.
He said that prevention strategies either believe that the fires are caused by a build-up of fuel in the underbrush, or that it's all due to climate change.
"People don't see the nuances, the many different facets of fire problems," he said. "In general, one of the things that became screamingly obvious is that we have these solutions that are overly simplistic."
He said that this oversimplification can waste tax dollars and public resources. "We're not spending our public resources in the most effective way."
Moritz said that one of the main problems is that government agencies and building codes don't treat fire-prone areas the same way as they do when planning buildings in earthquake zones or on hillsides that could suffer from landslides.
"We're not really looking at fire like that," he said. When planning new communities or building in general, governments, developers and communities don't pay enough attention to things such as wind patterns and fuel availability.
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Moritz said that better fire hazard mapping could be taken into account for construction in some areas. "We can be proactive about where and how we build," he said. "Otherwise, we're just going to be playing catch-up."
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Ray Rasker, the executive director of Headwaters Economics, agrees with the message of Moritz's paper. "We could do a much better job of mapping fire risks," he said, adding that there are currently no national standards for mapping fire risks.
He said this means that potential homeowners have no idea whether a subdivision has an elevated fire risk.
Read More at Millions Wasted on 'Wrong Solutions' to Fire Prevention - Study
Save taxpayer's money AND defund climate change and environmental destruction by ending the enormous subsidies and tax breaks for animal agriculture!
ReplyDeleteWith 60+ BILLION food animals on the planet our best chance to mitigate climate change is to severely reduce consumption of animal foods. More than 1/3 of human induced warming is attributable to animal agriculture. Methane is 24 times more potent than CO2 but takes only 7 years to cycle out of the atmosphere. CO2 takes around 100 years to come out. Human pursuit of animal protein is the leading cause of methane release and a primary cause of CO2 concentrating in the atmosphere. Check the facts and act!
"As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease." Worldwatch Institute, "Is Meat Sustainable?"
“If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” Environmental Defense Fund
"A 1% reduction in world-wide meat intake has the same benefit as a three trillion-dollar investment in solar energy." ~ Chris Mentzel, CEO of Clean Energy
There is one single industry destroying the planet more than any other. But no one wants to talk about it... http://cowspiracy.com
Step by Step Guide: How to Transition to a Vegan Diet http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/step-by-step-guide-how-to-transition-to-vegan-diet/