Having driven to Denver this morning to an ophthalmologist to get help for severe allergic conjunctivitis, I can’t stop thinking about how quickly this air pollution issue has gotten extreme. For three summers now Colorado and much of the west has been covered for 2-4 months with wildfire smoke. At 72 I’d never had allergies but 3 years ago they began and now the progression of symptoms has become so severe once the smoke starts that I have become house bound. Last year it sounded crazy to seriously consider temporarily relocating but after a few weeks of “house arrest” this summer we drove 800 miles east (to outrun the smoke) and stayed a month where we could see and breathe. Back less than two weeks now it’s worse than ever. We were leaving later this week for Idaho to visit grandkids but cancelled this morning because that state is again smack in the middle of the river of smoke from the North Cal fires.

Last summer Colorado experienced the three largest wildfires on record. We were run out of our high mountain summer campsite by smoke but I felt far worse for all the hunters who’d saved and planned for a special hunt in the fall but couldn’t go because of fire or fire damage. I can’t imagine how moose hunters felt who’d waited 20-30 years to draw a tag and then saw the area they drew burn.

I’ve spent plenty of time at the reloading bench as well as my tying bench this summer but I haven’t shot clays or trout fished once since the smoke arrived in June and I know it’s going to be another month or two before any outdoor activities are an option. My airtight motorcyclist sunglasses arrive tomorrow and my N95 will filter a lot of the smoke particulates so I’m not giving up.

While my greatest grief is for those who lose their homes and livelihoods in these wildfires, it seems clear to me now (even though I can’t actually see clearly right now) that the page has turned for us in the west and perhaps the whole country and participation in year round outdoor sports may not be the same again in our lifetimes.

The objective professional management of our natural resources and intelligent logging when appropriate would solve most of the wildfire issues...not all...but most.

These mega fires are not related to forest management and logging is not going to solve the problem. It's 20 years of historic drought brought on by climate change. I know some people want to believe there is a simple solution (like logging) but there isn't.

Bullshit. Read:

https://realclimatescience.com/1500-years-of-heatwaves/

Best,
Ted

We don't need more logging. We need intelligent forest management, which entails letting fires burn whenever possible and thinning the dense stands of skinny single age trees that come up after clear cutting. Those explode in a fire, unlike park-like old growth in which the understory burns regularly and old trees don't. Unfortunately, the small trees are not economically valuable so that thinning isn't done. But between whole forests of dense matchsticks and warming-driven drought, it may be too late to start managing forests right.

Ted, how many genuine climate scientists contribute to that website? How many instances of global, coordinated, mass scientific fraud can you name? Anyone who thinks that is possible knows nothing of science or scientists. They fall all over themselves to disprove their colleagues' ideas, so the notion that tens of thousands would collude in global fraud is absurd. Anyone with data to disprove human-caused climate change would rush into print and win all the Nobels at once.

Mr. Schefelbein,

If I have written something offensive, show me where. There is no need to be rude. Also, you linked to a blog that appears to be run by a madman who carries a teacup yorkie around in a picnic basket. What does that have to do with wildfire driven by climate change?

The drought is very real as are the poor forest management practices that have led to an abundance of fuel on our Federal forest lands. Anyone who has been in the West the last three summers knows that this is not normal. Summers here use to have clear air not some of the worst air in the world. No easy solutions but an increase in logging will help. We have had small scale clearing going on in my area for sometime but not near enough of it. The levels of the Colorado River, Lake Powell and Lake Mead are are at historic lows. We in the West have been receiving far less moisture in the last 20 years than we did in the 20th century and that is a fact.

Oh to be in northern new england in the summertime.

The tempertures are delightful, the humity sublime.

Occasionally there is a drought of a month or so

but never long enough to cause us woe.

It rains enough to keep our world green

but not so much as to cause us to be mean.

Soon fall in all its glory will be here

with all of the seasonal variety we hold so dear.

These changes remind us that nothing good or bad is forever.

So endure or enjoy and be diligent at your endeavor...

Climate change brought on by people like Al Gore.....same idiot that invented the internet.

Climate changers forget that 40 years ago scientific propaganda had us headed towards an ice age....

Thing is if the climate does change there is not a damn thing we can do to stop it.

In California bark beetle cause so much of the trees to die they were never cleared so the Forest burnt when ever there was a plan environmentalists lawyers shut it down. the globe has been warming since the last ice age nothing we do in the United States will change anything as long as China builds a coal fired power plant per week poor management of resources is a problem

There is nothing “historic” about a drought. Nothing. They have happened throughout time. The “Madman” uses actual historic archives and government data sets to demonstrate the fraud perpetrated by current media. jOe is correct, this is just the latest spin on the subject by a corrupt media looking for a tool to regulate behavior.

Have you read somewhere that this is “the warmest July on record?”

You know that is a crock of dung, right?

Your entire premise is offensive.


Best,
Ted

Gee Ted, going with the whole denial ain't just a river in Egypt thing eh?

The drought is real and historic. The media did not dry up the Colorado River, Lake Powell or Lake Mead. The forests did not burn like this in the past.

I'm not saying I think the current situation is all man made but it is happening.

Don't underestimate that you asking people to accept your assumptions is extremely offensive. If you draw a line and go right to politics and demonizing, it might be thought that you did it intentionally?

Last summer, no doubt was a hazy one in the west, but it was a summer of full lakes and ponds and flowing rivers and streams off the mountains. Most, not all, of the smoke came from California, that I could see in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Investigate for yourself if the policy change of political climatologists has basically ended the concept of controlled burns. This is one part of forrest management others have mentioned, and not just the harvest of materials for houses of excess that many might call home. This season, similar no doubt to me, it's dry, water is low, and there are fires everywhere. Overall, it is a bit better than a few weeks ago, temps are down some and a little rain has mixed in.

I'm not sure where you were in Colorado Craig but last year we had 3 of the largest fires on record in our state and plenty of local smoke.

Too funny, you do known that your two "lake" are enormous, enviro wrecking man made reservoirs. Look at why they were made and where the water gets siphoned off to, California. Take, take, take by the one hand and lead the country down a path to misery on the other? We are running out of deep pockets.

I hardly said I thought either Powell or Meade were good ideas, the fact they are going dry remains. I agree you cannot keep taking endlessly, that does not change the fact it is getting hotter and drier.

Up and down I25, visiting kids. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say there's a contrast between this summer and last. Last summer season long haze, this summer lots of visible smoke and yellow orangy blotted out sun.

Anyone here stop to think that maybe, just maybe, we have TedKazinski "wanna-bees" afoot in the West. Both CA and CO have a large wealthy population of Yuppies, the verysame folks old Teddy K sought to read out and touch- Boom-Boom, bye-bye yuppie> Easy enough to make a timed fuze in a pile of dry tinder and duff- a straight Camel cigarette and a pack of matches works like a charm- A nice breeze to fan the flames, and Bingo!! RWTF

Repurpose Keystone XL and…




___________________________
Problem solved.

The south west had an above average rain fall for almost fifty year that ended about the year 2000. Problem is as things go averages are averages for a reason and the last 20 years have been at or below average. Then on top of that populations have exploded in the last fifty years so there is more demand for water than ever. High demand and lower rainfall than average has used up a lot of stored water from periods of plenty.

As to the fires our decision to put out all small fires before they become large fires, has created a lot of areas with so much material to burn that they quickly become these mega events. Perhaps along with sane logging a bit of controlled burns would help but some extreme groups scream bloody murder to either. So we are stuck with large areas at risk for years on end. But in the end you are not going to beat Mother Nature. Fires have been part of the system for millions of years. Modify your environment but you can not change it.

What Jon said.
We most certainly are in a drought in the West, and it has significantly affected the Mearns populations in SE AZ. This Monsoon possibly too much rain for the summer hatch chicks. And major flooding off the burn scars in Flag and Globe.
We most certainly have more people, who are building homes in the forest...and in Rancho Ridiculosos in the desert.

I had a friend who was a career Conservation Officer, mostly in Nevada, and he observed "where there is smoke, there is money."

OTOH last week we were up in the White Mountains and visited Greer. This is the burn scar from the 2011 Wallow Fire that burned > 500,000 acres and made it VERY close to town

Lots of misinformed drivel here. You can cite some "expert" to support any stupid opinion, Fox's being the most stupid of all time, but you can't change what SKB and KY Jon are saying There's less water in the west and there's more demand for it. That's a prescription for disaster, and the disaster is unfolding now. For years, I've marveled at the contadictory views here. Everybody complaining about fewer birds but very few to admit that habitat destruction, manmade, is the cause. So-called conservative opinion has held back actions that could mitigate climate and habitat deterioration until it's an open question whether we can avoid a global meltdown.We need to see that there's more at stake here than smaller government and lower taxes. Stupidity is not ignorance; it is not a lack of education. It is a denial of reality, and it is fueled by propaganda designed to close down reason and logic and cement its audience to their tribal allies at all cost. It's a tragic effort, and it's having a lot of effect. PS: more than 120 years ago, John Westley Powell reported that water scarcity in the SW meant that widesread development there was ill-advised. That didn't hinder the railroads and the speculating developers from proceeding at full speed. Our chickens have come home to roost. Still we cut and drill as if there's no tomorrow. It may well be so.

Mmmmmmmnn…

Cool… (water)

Clear… (water)

Water… (water)

https://images.app.goo.gl/sfpB4JtgV9knCotq8



___________________________
Suck it, Arizona.

There were droughts and climate change long before Modern times.

___________________________
I’m in a country state of mind.

This summer June 15 to Aug 15 we have had record beating rainfall I live in the white mountain in AZ. At 6825 ft.they had been doing controlled burns in June when the fire danger was really high mid June early July they closed the sitgraves nat.forest there was a fire between where I live and Greer it was contained then allowed to burn in on itself like a control burn in an area that was deeply over grown so it worked out pretty well

After the Rodeo-Chediski fire in 2002 (the Rodeo fire was started by a seasonal fire fighter), the Healthy Forests Restoration Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush, which allowed forest thinning and controlled burns, but only limited logging. The fire scar is evident all along the 260 east of Heber-Overgaard.

Tom: It is estimated that there were 40,000 Hohokam living in the lower desert in 1300 A.D.
There are now 4.5 million people in Phoenix Metro, which leads the country in 10 year population growth
https://azbigmedia.com/business/phoenix-is-fastest-growing-city-in-u-s-for-5th-year-in-a-row/

It is entertaining to watch so many of the people who have cried about non-Double Gun topics once again engaging in the very same behavior they whine to Dave about.

But since "moderation" obviously isn't doing a damn thing to stop them, I may as well join the fun.

Greg McReynolds seems hung up on the author of Ted's blog having a Yorkie in a basket, and he totally ignores the guy's rather impressive credentials and resume. Here is some more dissenting information for him to mock... without even reading it:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2010/12/08/s...un-ipcc-gore-2/

It is very interesting to see that several links to information countering the Global Warming/ Man-made Climate Change crap have been eliminated by the big tech censors. Here are several that appeared here in the past, and contained very good data. Big Brother has decided that you may not see them anymore:

http://www.hiltonratcliffe.com/the-myths-of-man-made-climate-change/

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/400467/original/2010_Senate_Minority_Report.pdf

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu...generation.html

However, I did find some amusing links that are trying to convince us that those many predictions of a coming ice-age in the 1970's were actually predictions of global warming.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml

If we go by prehistoric CO2 levels, at our current CO2 level, the ocean sea levels should be over 100 feet higher than they are right now. But they aren't, are they? And humans didn't even exist at that time either, so who do we blame for that? If dinosaurs had only driven Prius's, they might still be here.

And if you can make it all the way to the end of this article, it will be seen that the correlation between CO2 levels and temperatures over the last 400,000 years being used to support the Global Warming propaganda from the Liberal Left is cherry-picking data at its' finest:

http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167

But Liberals and the Fake News have largely been successful in suppressing the 2009 Climate-gate scandal. They just stopped talking about Global Warming until the controversy died down, but they knew they could come right back and continue the B.S. LGF certainly has heard about that Climate Fraud scandal, but you won't hear him even acknowledge it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy

One part of Ted's link that deserves attention is the section on Corruption of the U.S. Temperature Record The author makes a very important point when he says,

"The US temperature record is very important, because it is the only large area on the planet with a high quality long term daily temperature record."

Unfortunately, long term means going back only to the mid 1800's. But even for that very short time span, it can easily be seen that this country has experienced broad fluctuations in heat, cold, drought, rainfall, etc., and that what we are experiencing right now is really unremarkable. The historical data on the National Weather Service website used to be much easier to access and navigate, but for some odd reason, they made it much more difficult to see that we absolutely are not spiraling out of control and headed toward a catastrophic man-caused CO2 induced melt-down.

As glaciers melt in Greenland, Iceland, Switzerland, etc., and expose ancient Viking Longhouses, tools, and other remains that have been buried under deep ice for many centuries, it is important to think for a moment, and understand that those relics and structures were there before the glaciers, and that it was obviously warm enough in the distant past for human habitation and even agriculture.

Well, that's all for now. I do hope that I won't be the only one censored after all of these other people got the opportunity to post their off-topic musings. I'll be very surprised if this Thread isn't locked very soon... even if it has generated more posts and views than anything else in the past several days. Just remember the mantra... these off-topic subjects make people leave this site. Repeat it until you believe it. And try not to think about the carbon footprint you left from shooting your last round of skeet.

I wish Ted had included his past and present photos of the sea level in Sydney Harbor. But it really doesn't matter, because being good obedient little tools of Liberal Left propagandists requires us to believe only what they spoon feed us, and to simply ignore what our own eyes can clearly see:

Where you reckon the Coyotes are moving to?


_____________________________
Living on the edge.

So many acres of pinyon juniper to try to restore to grassland.

The coyote are up here I have had them walk up to my cabin like some one is feeding them

I think Phoenix is 5th largest citi now

It appears that the Global Warming has adversely affected Greg McReynolds suppositions and thought process. Here is the real source of the dog in the picnic basket. And certainly, the tornado that hit Dorothy's farm was Donald Trump's fault.

At that close-up range, how about you feed them a load of OO buckshot- dead coyotes are good coyotes-- RWTF

Email from a friend in CA, lifelong resident, regarding his good luck/bad luck. He was finally drawn for a CA antelope tag after 20 yrs. of trying. Smoke is so bad he has cancelled his plans for the hunt, due to health risks at his age. CA will not let him "save" his points for another year. Twenty years of hoping, gone ......... like dust in the wind (go for it, lonny).

"Forest management does not exist in California! Yesterday 9 National forests were closed due to high risk of wildfires. I have killed 2 nice Antelope bucks in the past, one from Wyoming and one from Oregon. Oregon and California have small populations of Antelope whereas Wyoming has a large population. It took 14 years to draw a tag in Oregon and in 2016 I killed a nice buck. I killed my buck in Wyoming some time ago and it was easy to draw a tag. 20 years to draw a tag in California down the drain. If it takes another 20 years to draw a tag in California, I will be 101 years old!

PS - The Dixie wildfire was named after Dixie mountain, near where the wildfire started."

I hoping for a granpappy story......

Challenge accepted.




___________________________
Charlie and Bill are tight on this.

Dust in the Wind- by Kansas- one of the best ever songs from the 1960=1970 era-- who is "loony?"" RWTF

Are you saying that saying bullshit is rude?

Charlie Watts, drumming on the other side now. The Stones have been a constant throughout my cognizant life. Tick Tock! Got your fall plans in order, times a wastin folks!
Chief

Me too. Where’s granpappy? jOe, I bet he’s not antelope hunting, eh?? Come on Stan….bring us up with another granpappy story. Thx.