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Mediterranean Climate Shrubbery: Slash Pile Dismantling and Chucking
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- Fires in the Western United States September 2017
- Fires Contained 2007-2017
- Annual average prior 10 years
- Un-contained Fires, United States Totals by Agency and State 2017
- 2017 Temperature Record
- Art. 2 Principles §232 Peace: Principle of Non-Use of Force
Mediterranean Climate Shrubbery: Slash Pile Dismantling and Chucking
Source: Manzanita killer Oct. 1, 2017. Potential flame height reduction of Mediterranean climate shrubbery from >8 ft. (3 m) to < 5 ft. (1 m). Chuck just enough to remove the slash bag wick keeping the kindling dry for kerosene ignition, to reduce additional fire-hazard to between >5 and < 8 ft. (>1 m - <3 m). $ 1 million saw moratorium, new megaton fine paid Oct. 11 under 18USC§1091. Arson contempts fined $1,000 the kiloton under 24USC§154. Papa bear trained slash pile dismantling; mama bear and two cubs approved for crunching. Keep trails unobstructed. Fire the arsons!!! 1. There are no annually compiled world statistics on how many acres are burned by wildfires. Global annual burned area estimates approach 350 MHa (869 million acres) per year. The fire maps show the locations of actively burning fires around the world on a monthly basis, based on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. The colors are based on a count of the number (not size) of fires observed within a 1,000-square-kilometer area. White pixels show the high end of the count — as many as 30 fires in a 1,000-square-kilometer area per day. Orange pixels show as many as 10 fires, while red areas show as few as 1 fire per day. The fire map is not believed to be an accurate depiction of U.S. West Coast fires due to the large size of these fires of tens to hundreds of thousands of acres, the fact that there is only one pixel per fire and custom forbids campfires in affected areas. More work is needed to routinely express global wildfire activity and smoke with satellite imaging; not how many cooking fires. During 1998-2015 a study of satellite data found that burned area declined about 24 percent, with much of the decrease occurring in the world’s grasslands and savannas. They found that precipitation had little influence on the long-term decline in global burned area — but human activity, and particularly agriculture, was a strong driver. In some places, particularly tropical forest landscapes, the researchers found that agricultural activity was actually associated with an increase in fires, probably as a result of agricultural waste burning or deforestation to make room for cropland. But these increases were outweighed by the areas where agriculture was associated with a reduction in burned area, mainly in grassland and savanna landscapes, where there’s less biomass available to burn and where fire may be less abused as a land-clearing or management tool. G  lobal Wildfires September 2017 Source: NASA September 2017 2. In 2017 there were forest fires in Greenland. In southern Europe along the Mediterranean, the total area burned is already roughly three times the normal amount of summer wildfires. Back in June, 60 people died over the course of one weekend in Portugal due to wildfires. Thirty people were killed when the fires reached roads on evacuation routes. Those fires don’t seem to be abating, in part because of the hotter, drier temperatures, warmer temperatures have extended the regions fire season, potentially making weather like this increasingly the region’s new normal. Earlier this spring, Ireland, an island perhaps most synonymous with dampness battled fires primed, in part, by 75-percent less rainfall. Wildfires are also plaguing Siberia in Russia. Over 1.6 million hectares (3.95 million acres) of Russia are on fire. Back in June, South Africa was ablaze, and in New Zealand in February (during their summer) the city of Christchurch called a state of emergency after a wildfire sent thousands running from their homes and destroyed homes, and killed a pilot. In January, Chile, for whom like New Zealand January is summer, battled a similar unusual number of wildfires due to a combination of drought and high temperatures. After some trouble with agricultural fires a few years ago South Asians have adopted a rainmaking policy and the slashing burning is much reduced but remains to be abolished like their moratorium on commercial logging, elephants will never forget. Fires in the Western United States September 2017  Source: National Interagency Fire Center 3. Over the last decade, annual wildfire cost to US federal lands exceeded $1.7B US dollars and $1B US dollars in Canada not including economic losses. In Australia in 2005, total wildfire costs were estimated at nearly $9.4B US dollars or 1.3% of their Gross Domestic Product. In the United States the Forest Service is reporting that 2017 is shaping up to be a worse than average fire year based on acres of federal, private and state land burned. So far, 5.6 million acres of land has burned this year, or 1.8 million acres more than the ten year average of 3.8 million acres burned by this time. Some states like Nevada are saying that 2017 is the worst fire season in 15 years, while Montana has already used up much of its firefighting budget, even as much of the state remains in drought conditions according to the US Drought Monitor. The state may have to tap into reserve and federal funding, but that isn’t the only cost. Brent M. Witham, a 29-year-old firefighter from Mentone, California, was killed cutting down a tree while working on the Lolo Peak Fire. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), every state in the western US has experienced an increase in the average annual number of large wildfires over past decades. Extensive studies have found that large forest fires in the western US have been occurring nearly five times more often since the 1970s and 80s. Such fires are burning more than six times the land area as before, and lasting almost five times longer. Wildfire season - meaning seasons with higher wildfire potential - has universally become longer over the past 40 years. Fires Contained 2007-2017
Source: National Interagency Fire Center 2017 4. Intensive study of historical fires has failed to document any cases wherein fire killed a forest by burning through treetops in the ponderosa pine forests of the American Southwest prior to 1900 there was not the fuel to set timber afire under 18USC§1855. In contrast, numerous fires since 1950 exceeding 5,000 acres (2,025 hectares) have burned forests more intensively than earlier fires. A 1910 article in Sunset Magazine recommended to the fledgling Forest Service that it use the indigenous method of setting “cool fires” in the spring and autumn to keep the forests open, consume accumulated fuel and in so doing protect the forest from catastrophic fire. Ironically, that recommendation came the same year that, in the space of two days fires raced across 3 million acres (1,210,000 hectares) in Idaho and Montana and killed eighty-five firefighters in what is called the “Big Blowup”. It would be ten years after the Big Blowup before many fires in western forests and grasslands were effectively controlled. For decades thereafter, the U.S. Forest Service was dedicated to putting all fires out. By 1926, the objective was to control all fires before they grew to 10 acres in size. A decade later the policy was to stop all fires by 10 am on the second day. In 2000 the nation experienced its most severe fire season in decades when some 8.4 million acres burned in 122,000 fires. In 2001, however, only 3.6 million acres burned - far below the national average for the previous eighty years (about fourteen million acres). The size of the acreage burned in 2000, while unusually large relative to the average acreage burned during the previous decade (3.8 million acres), was less than the average annual acreages burned in the four decades from 1919-1959 (24.4 million acres). Similarly, while the 6.9 million acres that burned in 2002 was substantially above the annual average during the preceding ten years (4.2 million acres), it was not unusual: fire seasons in which acreages similar to the 2002 total also burned had occurred as recently as 1996 (6.7 million acres) and 1988 (7.4 million acres). The number of fires in 2002 was less than the average number of fires occurring in every decade from the 1920s through the 1990s. These averages ranged from a low average rate of 97,599 fires per year from 1899-1929, to a high average rate of 163,329 fires per year from 1980-1989. During the 1990s, fewer acres burned annually on average than during the 1920s-1960s, and again through the 1980s. Nonetheless, with only 248,000 acres of FS land logged in 2003 ten times more is arsoned than logged. Un-contained Fires, United States Totals by Agency and State 2017
Source: National Wildfire Coordination Group 2017 5. In the 2017 fire season 195 forest fires that were not contained within 24 hours burned 2,783,813 acres in the United States. In Montana 753,850 acres burned, 287,295 acres in Lolo National Forest. Oregon burned 628,148 acres, 287,074 acres in Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest. California burned 333,386 acres, 171,798 acres in Klamath National Forest, near the Oregon border. All told 458,869 acres, 25% of 1.8 million acre Rogue-River Siskiyou National Forest burned in 2017. A total of 2,232,800 acres of National Forests were burned in the 2017 fire season. In 2017 the Forest Service burned more than 2.2 million acres, 1.2% of their 183 million acres of National Forests and Grasslands, 0.7% of 314 million acres of National Resource Lands, to cause 80% of total acres burned in the United States. The 334 units of the U.S. national park system, encompass 89 million acres of which 66,876 acres, 0.07% burned. The forty-eight national parks cover about 47 million acres of which 19,556 acres, 0.02% burned. The difference is explained by 47,320 acres burned in Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. 484,137 acres were burned on public land held by State forestry, agencies, and field offices. 4,161 acres burned in one un-contained forest fire under county jurisdiction. The hills of Los Angeles were in flames and the smoke was unbearable in Portland. To estimate damages caused by abusive agricultural practices uncut forests cost $200,000 an acre, parkland with trails and flat stumps for picnicking $175,000, commercially thinned forests $150,000, organic irrigated agricultural land $100,000, burned or organophosphate poisoned land $50,000. 6. Russian and Canadian boreal forests are increasingly threatened by wildfire, as temperatures are rising faster in these northern regions than in other areas of the planet. Across the border from the United States, fires are also currently scorching Canada’s British Columbia. This is the province’s second worst fire season on record and NASA satellites have identified the conflagration from space. Canada has seen the worst season for fires since records began, with 894,941 hectares (2,211,444 acres) burned, the British Columbia Wildfire Service has confirmed. It’s unsurprising that the smoke is billowing over the border into nearby Seattle in Washington state which for much of last week was also under a heat advisory. On Thursday, the city hit a record breaking 94 degrees at the Seattle Tacoma airport. The regular high for the region at this time of year is 77 degrees. Between the heat and the fact that the region has been, according to US Drought Monitor is unnaturally dry that wildfires are knocking on their door is unsurprising. The new declaration regarding heating pumps in the Hudson Bay was redressed under the Polar Code of 2017. Redressing the recidivist US -Canadian thermal pollution of the northwest passage from the Potomac passed Nova Scota requires technical assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard to detect oceanic heating pumps, the Styrene Research and Information Center and AS Trust & Holdings US Patent R441A to extinguish heating pumps, magnetic cable to remove the extinguished hyrdocarbon railcars into an oil tanker or warship. Fire districts must extinguish forest fires with Rainmaker US Patent 3,429,507 of July 26, 1966. D. Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7% increase in global mean fire weather season length. A doubling (108.1% increase) of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons (>1.0 σ above the historical mean) and an increased global frequency of long fire weather seasons across 62.4 million km2 (53.4%) during the second half of the study period. If these fire weather changes are coupled with ignition sources and available fuel, they could markedly impact global ecosystems, societies, economies and climate. Weather is the most variable and largest driver of regional burned area. Temperature, relative humidity, precipitation and wind speed independently influence wildland fire spread rates and intensities, and the alignment of multiple weather extremes, such as the co-occurrence of hot, dry and windy conditions leads to the most severe fires. Between 1979 and 2013 mean number of dry days increased by 1.31 days per decade and the global area affected by anomalously dry years significantly increased by 1.6% per decade. 1. Globally, fire weather season length increased by 18.7% from 1979 to 2013, with statistically significant increases observed across 25.3% (29.6 M km2) of the global vegetated area and decreases in only 10.7% (12.5 M km2). Long fire weather season affected area, defined as the total global area observing fire weather seasons >1 s.d. from the mean, has increased by 3.1% per year from 1979 to 2013, leading to a 108.1% increase in global long fire weather season affected area. The frequency of long fire weather seasons increased across 53.4% of the global vegetated area (62.4M km2) as observed between 1996 and 2013, compared with 1979–1996, with decreased frequency only observed across 34.6% (40.4 M km2). Since 1979, there have been 6 years, all in the last decade, where >20% of the global vegetated area has been affected by long fire weather seasons (2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013). Both fire weather season metrics were strongly correlated with the global mean annual number of days without wetting rainfall (>0.1 mm), where global mean rain-free days accounted for 49.7% of the variation in global fire weather season length and 33.8% of the variation in global long fire weather season affected area. South America’s tropical and subtropical forests, grasslands and savannas have experienced tremendous fire weather season length changes, with a median increase of 33 days over the last 35 years. In the Indonesian fires of 1997–98 peat fires, following an El Niño-induced drought, released carbon equivalent to 13–40% of the global fossil fuel emissions from only 1.4% of the global vegetated land area and the heatwave over Western Russia in 2010 that led to its worst fire season in recorded history and triggered extreme air pollution in Moscow. 2. A U.S. Forest Service ecologist focused on four meteorological variables that affect the length of fire season: maximum temperatures, minimum relative humidity, the number of rain-free days, and maximum wind speeds. A combination of high temperatures, low humidity, rainless days, and high winds make wildfires more likely to spread and lengthens fire seasons. Jolly and colleagues used data from NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis, NOAA’s NCEP-DOE Reanalysis, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim Reanalysis. The researchers found that fire weather seasons have lengthened across one quarter of Earth’s vegetated surface. In certain areas, extending the fire season by a bit each year added up to a large change over the full study period. For instance, parts of the western United States and Mexico, Brazil, and East Africa now face wildfire seasons that are more than a month longer than they were 35 years ago. Overall, 54 percent of the world’s vegetated surfaces experienced long fire weather seasons more frequently between 1996 and 2013 as compared with 1979-1996. This amounted to a doubling in the total global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons. To reduce forest fires kerosene and metal caused lightning ignition must be prohibited and subsidies for slash and burn forest labor abolished under the Slavery Convention of 1926 and International Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) of 1978. The National Forests and Grasslands were given to the United States Department of Agriculture in 1905 but since the Big Blowup Fire in 1910 the end of the law is to Fire the Forest Service under 36CFR§261.5 whereas pyromania is a dangerous mental illness and due to disease or injury, all Forest Service employees are believed to be unable to render useful and efficient service, and are not qualified for reassignment, and therefore entitled to disability retirement under 5USC§8337. County parks are advised to act through the National Park Service Director under 54USC§100101(a) to distribute the land, property and $5.3 billion FS FY 18 budget. Due diligence of National Wildfire Coordination Group (NWCG) data, pertaining to fires that are not extinguished within 24 hours, has shown that Forest Service (FS) burns public land sixty times more than National Parks Service (NPS). If FS were fired, lightning strikes prohibited and slash piles left chipped and chucked, it is estimated that the NPS with the contract supervision of affected county parks could reduce fire risk on 314 million acres of National Resource Lands more than tenfold from 1.2% in National Forests and average rate of 0.7% FY 17 to <0.07% FY 18. 2017 Temperature Record
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, State of the Climate: Global Climate Report for August 2017. September 2017 E. The seasonal global land and ocean temperature for June–August 2017 was third highest such period since global records began in 1880 at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F). This value falls behind the record year 2016 by 0.08°C (0.14°F) and 2015 by 0.05°C (0.09°F). Warmer- to much-warmer-than-average conditions were present across much of the land and ocean surfaces during the season, with record warmth across the Middle East, western tropical Pacific Ocean, Madagascar, and western and central Indian Ocean, and scattered across parts of the contiguous U.S., South America, Africa, Asia, central Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. Near- to cooler-than-average conditions were limited to the eastern parts of North America, parts of Eurasia, central tropical and northern Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean (south of Greenland), eastern Indian Ocean, and the southern oceans. No land or ocean areas had record cold June–August temperatures. The average temperature across the land surfaces was 1.15°C (2.07°F) above the 20th century average of 13.8°C (56.9°F) and the second highest June–August period in the 138-year record, behind the record year 2016 by 0.04°C (0.07°F). Regionally, all six continents had a top seven warm June–August, with Africa having its highest June–August period since continental records began in 1910. Across the oceans, the seasonal average of 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F) was the fourth highest for such period on record. 1. The Northern Hemisphere (Arctic) sea ice extent — which is measured from passive microwave instruments onboard NOAA satellites — averaged for January 2017 was 13.38 million square km (5.17 million square miles), 1.26 million square km (480,000 square miles), or 8.61 percent, below the 1981-2010 average. This was the smallest January Arctic sea ice extent on record, dipping below the previous record of 13.64 million square km (5.27 million square miles) set just last year in 2016. Sea ice extent expanded slowly in early January with ice growth nearly stopping for a week mid-month. During the third week January ice expanded rapidly, but nearly stopped once again the last week January. Below-average sea ice extent was observed in the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, and Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Atlantic side and the Bering Sea on the Pacific side. Near-average sea ice extent was observed in Baffin Bay, Labrador Sea, and Hudson Bay. January Arctic ice extent is decreasing at an average rate of 3.2 percent per decade. S ource: NOAA 2. The January Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent was 4.04 million square km (1.56 million square miles), which was 1.19 million square km (460,000 square miles), or 22.8 percent, below the 1981-2010 average. This was the smallest Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent on record and 280,000 square km (110,000 square miles) smaller than the previous record set in 2006. The record low January Antarctic sea ice extent comes just two years after the largest January Antarctic sea ice extent on record was observed in 2015 at 7.59 million square km (2.93 million square km). Most of the Amundsen Sea off the west coast of Antarctica was ice free by early February with near-average ice across other regions. Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent is increasing at an average rate of 3 percent per decade, with substantial inter-annual variability. A “fast-moving” crack in the Larsen C ice shelf on Tuesday and warned that an iceberg larger than 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles) — bigger than Rhode Island and roughly the size of Trinidad — is likely to break off. The reason for the weakening of the Antarctic ice seems be that the warming off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and along 40°S is exacerbated by heat released by open burns of the Forest Service in the Western United States prohibited by the Antarctic Conservation Act of 1978 16USC§2403(b)(1)(B). The artifical warming of Arctic waters by Russia and Canada needs to be regulated to prevent further forest fires in Greenland and better protect the arctic marine environment under the Polar Code of January 1, 2017. Art. 2 Principles §232 Peace: Principle of Non-Use of Force A. The primary purpose of the United Nations as set forth in Art. 1 (1) of the UN Charter is to “maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace”. The fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace that should include the termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force” according to the Advisory Opinion Regarding the Legal Consequences of Constructing a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories ICJ No. 131 (2004) 1.The principle of non-use of force in Art. 2 (4) is often called the jus cogens, universal norm, of international law. It states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”. This principle may also be called the principle of non-aggression and is upheld in the Merit Judgment of Peace Palace in the Hague on 27 June 1986 regarding Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America) No. 70 (1986). 2. The principle of non-intervention codified at Art. 2 (7) of the UN Charter ensures that nothing shall authorize the United Nations or its members to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. Wherefore every sovereign State and responsible government has the right to conduct its affairs, without outside interference. Intervention is wrongful when it uses methods of coercion, particularly force, either in the direct form of military action or in the indirect form of support for subversive activities in another State. Upholding this principle, no state shall finance, instigate or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities attempting to overthrow the government of another state. 3. The Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States 2625(XXV) (1970), adopted by the General Assembly on 24 October 1970, makes it clear that “No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal”. 4. Article 1 common to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reaffirms the right of all peoples to self-determination, and lays upon the States parties the obligation to promote the realization of that right. The principle of self-determination of peoples has been enshrined in the United Nations Charter and reaffirmed by the General Assembly in resolution 2625 (XXV) pursuant to which “Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples of their right to self-determination.”
1. To this end, prohibiting; a. Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; b. Taking of hostages; c. Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; d. The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. D. The Four Original Geneva Conventions and Two Additional Protocols are the pre-eminent contemporary humanitarian laws of war. As the result of the general acceptance of these Conventions the International Committee for the Red Cross, that is authorized there under, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize four times. The Four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 are; 1. the Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Geneva, 12 August 1949 2. the Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Geneva, 12 August 1949. 3. the Convention (III) relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War Geneva Convention Geneva, 12 August 1949. The principle of releasing and repatriating prisoners of war at the cessation of active hostilities is found in Art. 118(1). Releasing prisoners of war helps to eliminate residual hostilities and is the customary international gesture for making peace. 4. the Convention (IV) for the Protection of Civilians, Geneva, 12 August 1949 E. The Two Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 are; 1. the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) Geneva, 8 June 1977 2. the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), Geneva, 8 June 1977 Download 8.93 Mb. Share with your friends:
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