And now...some fire.

Glenn Holland

Joined Dec 26, 2014
703
I live in San Francisco on the Golden Gate and the air smells like mesquite barbecued pork.

If you didn't know the smell was from whole towns going up in smoke, the odor is delicious. o_O
 

Glenn Holland

Joined Dec 26, 2014
703
Didn't they just have record rainfall?

Note to tree huggers: you might want to clear some of that dry brush. Maybe a controlled burn on occasion?
Most of the fires are homes and buildings (rather than trees and vegetation) which catch fire in a chain reaction like what happened in San Francisco after the earthquake in 1906. Despite the risk of another mega disaster, San Francisco is still promoting increased "densification" -IE- cramming more and more people into already crowded cities.

It's just another example of how open ended population growth and development is paving the path toward oblivion.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
It all started when the Souix started putting their Teepees too close to the Wigwams of the Chippewa tribe.
I used to be an alarmist about world population. I used to think that, since eliminating most of the natural checks and balances which kept our population relatively constant for so long - since the population explosion... we were all headed for disaster. We would run out of food, out of oil, and it would literally be "the end of the world." Well I haven't 100% reversed my thinking, but now I see it as a new norm. A new set of checks & balances that will keep our population at a new number. Before it was malaria, famine, the plague. Now it's employment, gas prices, and nuclear weapons. Before the population limit was in the millions. Now it's in the billions. When we hit that food-ceiling or oil-ceiling, or wildfire-ceiling, whatever ceiling (we're not there yet) I see our population dropping off and/or leveling off until (or if) we conquer the next set of challenges. How would the world food shortage of the future be any worse than the localized famines of the past? How would the oil shortage of the future be any worse than the prior collapse of empires? There always have been, and always will be, things that hold us back from overrunning the land and spilling over into the ocean. Nothing we do can make the world stop turning. I no longer understand all the doom & gloom.
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,237
I used to be an alarmist about world population. I used to think that, since eliminating most of the natural checks and balances which kept our population relatively constant for so long - since the population explosion... we were all headed for disaster. We would run out of food, out of oil, and it would literally be "the end of the world." Well I haven't 100% reversed my thinking, but now I see it as a new norm. A new set of checks & balances that will keep our population at a new number. Before it was malaria, famine, the plague. Now it's employment, gas prices, and nuclear weapons. Before the population limit was in the millions. Now it's in the billions. When we hit that food-ceiling or oil-ceiling, or wildfire-ceiling, whatever ceiling (we're not there yet) I see our population dropping off and/or leveling off until (or if) we conquer the next set of challenges. How would the world food shortage of the future be any worse than the localized famines of the past? How would the oil shortage of the future be any worse than the prior collapse of empires? There always have been, and always will be, things that hold us back from overrunning the land and spilling over into the ocean. Nothing we do can make the world stop turning. I no longer understand all the doom & gloom.
Not sure if you've noticed, but the most prosperous, capitalistic societies tend to have the smallest organic population growth -- as opposed to growth due to immigration. Perhaps prosperity (and capitalism!) is a check on population growth?
 
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