What is Digg?81 Comments
- arcticsoft, on 05/23/2008, -2/+40Fires are good for forests. This is why California fires are so bad. The environmentalists declare no cut zones and old timber just sits and drys out into great fuel for fires. Then when a large fire happens in these areas and take out a bunch of homes, we declare it a natural disaster. We did it! Look at the amount of large fires of southern California vs north-western Mexico. They have very small manageable fire becuase residents are allowed to cut dead wood for personal use and don't leave it to become fuel for a raging inferno. I live in Colorado and they have areas near residential communities that is full of dead timber and do not allow cutting. Stupid people.
- inactive, on 05/23/2008, -0/+26title should be Map of Africa's Fire Scars [pic]
- legendxx, on 05/23/2008, -1/+26I like how the legend includes the color used for water.
- briguymaine, on 05/23/2008, -4/+16a lot of times the fires are fueled because environmentalists and population growth stop proper forest management from happening like cleaning out diseased trees, dead trees, basically the tinderbox waiting to ignite on the forest floor. So when things aren't cleaned out by man, the natural way to do it is by a fire which is usually extinguished before completing the job because there are houses to protect, which leads to more tinder piling up on the forest floor, which leads to the "super fires" that occur now.
- briguymaine, on 05/23/2008, -0/+10If you are saying to allow fires to take place and do their job, then yeah, I agree with you. Otherwise, man has to go in there and clean out the old dry *****. One or the other.
Growing up, my family had hundreds of acres of forest, my dad had someone come in and take out the good logs, leaving the younger trees to mature, and cleaning out the old dead stuff. The logger made money, my dad made money, and the forest never burned down. There are sensible ways to manage forests if people think clearly and act responsibly. - legendxx, on 05/23/2008, -1/+11If you're serious..
I see a shape that looks like Africa I'm going to assume the area around it is water. - bgrah449, on 05/23/2008, -0/+10"bigger than a country like India, which is enormous!"
I had no idea India was enormous until this description educated me. Learn something new every day! - googooly, on 05/23/2008, -0/+9Thats not "EARTH" its map of Africa
- Beevo, on 05/23/2008, -0/+9Buried. Africa != Earth
- kidathinnes, on 05/23/2008, -0/+9Do we really need to know the color blue is "water". come on.
- MrAckbar, on 05/23/2008, -0/+7THE EARTH.....now with 90% less Earth.
- IphtashuFitz, on 05/23/2008, -0/+6A few years ago we took a vacation to Alaska, flying into Fairbanks. We didn't realize it at the time but they were experiencing massive forest fires in parts of Alaska at the time. The first we knew about it was as the airplane was descending into Fairbanks since the pilot came on the intercom and told us not to worry if we smelled smoke since it was just the fires in the general area. When we got on the ground it smelled of smoke everywhere. Somebody at the airport explained that there was a fire about 150 miles away that had burned an area the size of the state of Massachusetts and the smoke was blowing over the Fairbanks area. But since the area being burned was unpopulated why should they waste resources putting it out? They'd only battle the fires if they threatened populated areas. Otherwise they'd just wait for the fires to eventually burn themselves out, most likely when the first winter snows came.
- thentro, on 05/23/2008, -0/+6Both good points. This map is almost useless because there is no way of understanding what fires are normal, and what are destructive.
- kidathinnes, on 05/23/2008, -1/+7I think any educated environmentalist would know some fires are natural and good. The ones they are a "pain" about are not natural and cause more damage than benefit to the earth.
- mcquitty, on 05/23/2008, -0/+5Hey, the bark beetle needs to be protected, too!
- noahhoward, on 05/23/2008, -4/+9Just thought I'd point out that 'proper forest management' is leaving the damn forest alone.
- joeycerone, on 05/23/2008, -0/+5Um, thats not the world. Dumbass.
- AmaDaden, on 05/23/2008, -0/+5They don't say. They hint at it being locals by saying "One our previous contributors Richard Rhodes witnessed influential locals creating forest fires in Thailand. You can see what damage they caused below:" and then show a video. Part of the phrase links to another article on the site but they both don't at all talk about WHY they started the fires.
This sounds like eco-FUD. Forests NEED fires to clean them self up. It's a natural part of the cycle. Am I saying all forest fires are good? Hell no, but saying that all forest fires are bad is just as stupid a statement if you understand the forest life cycle. The natives who live there might know all this and started the fire before it happened naturally so that they could prevent it from damaging property or people. - zyl0x, on 05/23/2008, -0/+5Facts?
- mnemy, on 05/23/2008, -0/+4So Africa is the world now? Good to know
- EffYoo, on 05/23/2008, -1/+5Forest fires are an important part of the ecology of areas, how does an environmental blog maintain its credibility when it's 'horrified' by a natural and beneficial process? It's like being disturbed when a predator kills something and eats it, stfu, that's the way its supposed to work.
- JosefH, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3If my fire scars could talk...
- ApokalypseNow, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3The argument is worthless with the accompanying (and unspoken) presumption that if any part of a story is true, all other parts of the story must be true, as well. We know that this presumption is definitely not true in the case of Sherlock Holmes stories (the city of London exists, but Holmes himself never did), among a near-infinite number of counterexamples; therefore, why should this presumption ever be true of any story?
The existence of the ancient city of Troy, mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey, has been verified by archaelogical research. If the Bible's stipulated accuracy on some factual matters is indeed evidence of its overall accuracy, the Illiad's and Odyssey's verified accuracy as regards the city of Troy must, equally, be evidence of their overall accuracy. Therefore, if "it's accurate on some factual matters" is a valid reason to accept that Creationism is true, it's equally a valid reason to accept that the Olympian pantheon exists.
In point of fact, the Bible gets many scientific points wrong, including:
In John 12:24, Jesus says that wheat seeds die before sprouting. However, at no point during seed germination does a seed die.
Leviticus 11:22-23 states that grasshoppers and locusts are 'flying creeping things, which have four feet'. Orthopterans (grasshoppers and locusts) have six legs and thus six feet, just like all other insects.
Both Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18 list the bat, a mammal, as a bird.
Genesis 30:37-43 says that it's the things seen during mating, not genetics, that controls traits.
Archaeology supports at most the general background of the Bible and some relatively recent details. It does not support every biblical claim. In particular, archaeology does not support anything about creation, the Flood, or the conquest of the Holy Land. If occasional scientific accuracy shows overall accuracy of the Bible, then the same conclusion must be granted to the Qur'an, Zend Avesta, and several other works from other religions, all of which can make the same claims to scientific accuracy. - inactive, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3I am oddly reminded of Age of Empires - I remember one particular game with a few of my friends in which we basically ended up in a stalemate, and so we'd send armies after each other, the armies would be slaughtered, and we'd have to rebuild without anyone getting anywhere near taking the upper hand. Kept going until we had armies of ax-men fighting over the last little cluster of trees, because all other wood on the map had been used up and we couldn't build anything else.
- bgrah449, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3Yeah, end of your career on digg.
- elliotys, on 05/23/2008, -1/+4Since a bunch of ***** are using this article to attack environmentalists, let me say this. I am a "liberal Tree-Hugging Environmentalist" and I am 100% for natural forest fires (which most are). Any environmentalists knows that fire is just part of the natural cycle and is important for maintaining a healthy forest. If anything we put out fires far too often.
- ApokalypseNow, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3Ever notice how all prophecy is vaguely worded? Almost as if it was meant to be interpreted by the reader to correspond to events that happen frequently in order to lend credence to an outrageous claim... Nah, couldn't be!
- inactive, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3The bark beetle will destroy EVERY pine tree in Colorado in the next 5 years. That's a lot of dead wood. What's Colorado doing? Nothing.
- zyl0x, on 05/23/2008, -1/+4lol
- sindex, on 05/23/2008, -1/+41 Cor. 13:11 says "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
- bgrah449, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3I was satirizing your style of belief, not looking for a real explanation.
- inactive, on 05/23/2008, -0/+3I remember Revelations 7:12... And I looked, and he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became as black as sack cloth, and the moon became as blood."
- bgrah449, on 05/23/2008, -1/+4Like that one time when that dragon rose up from an ocean, and it had four heads, and fire came out of its mouth and burned up a bunch of forests and *****. I was skeptical before that, but that kind of sealed the deal for me, when that happened.
- MrScience, on 05/23/2008, -0/+2Ok. I went looking for the actual global picture.... But be careful what you ask for; Can your system handle it?
The project page can be found here: http://www-tem.jrc.it/Disturbance_by_fire/products ...
Once there, on the right under "Downloads", click on "Global Burned Areas 2000-2007 (L3JRC)".
Enter some information, then grab your 40200x14600, 560MP, 1GB TIFFs. :)
Here's the research paper from his 2000-2007 results (but no pretty pictures):
http://www-tem.jrc.it/PDF_publis/2007/Tansey_etal_ ... - ICSU, on 05/23/2008, -0/+2How did those forests even managed to survive without humans for millions of years!
- zantos420, on 05/23/2008, -1/+3i am sure he is not serious
- bgrah449, on 05/23/2008, -1/+3I was ready to believe St. Peter the Climatologist right up until the end - how can we have a "new sky"? Wouldn't the sky be the same, even if the planet was replaced, or if there was no planet? It's just space.
- simg, on 05/23/2008, -0/+2in Australia they start controlled fires on a regular (every few years) basis. This prevents the bush from getting too dense and then being at risk of a much more dangerous fire (usually started by lightning)
- MrScience, on 05/23/2008, -0/+2To reply to #1:
I went looking for the actual global picture... But be careful what you ask for; Can your system handle it? :)
The project page can be found here: http://www-tem.jrc.it/Disturbance_by_fire/products ...
Once there, on the right under "Downloads", click on "Global Burned Areas 2000-2007 (L3JRC)".
Enter some information, then grab your 40200x14600, 560MP, 1GB TIFFs. :)
Yeah, I posted this in response to the main thread, but I figure it's just going to rot way at the bottom; better to post it up here where people might be able to see it. - tweedius, on 05/23/2008, -0/+2I would consider my self an environmentalist, but using an article like this for one more stupid "global warming" pitch is pretty painful to take. Forest fires and plain type fires are part of a natural cycle. If anything, humans have gotten in the way of these regenerative fires, especially in places like my home region the midwest. An ecology professor that I had the pleasure of taking a class with told us that prairie fires used to happen almost yearly, caused by lightning, and would cause a natural regeneration of the prairies and oak savanna's that used to be a part of our landscape here before us humans decided we were going to inhabit these lands.
In short, wtf is the point of this article? To pitch global warming crap one more painful time? Fire is natural and necessary to nature. - clickwir, on 05/23/2008, -0/+1"Can your system handle it? "
That doesn't really help me. What are your specs? What was your experience? - MacSuxWindozSux, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1Seems you have two options in California...
Leave the forest alone and get fires, or cut down the forest and the fires go away.
And you are asking which is best for the environment?
Why would you ever choose to cut the forest down... - MacSuxWindozSux, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1Africa Є Earth
- bgrah449, on 05/23/2008, -1/+2I'm not sure you read the description of the article, then read my comment ... I never said that Africa was a country.
- TheKorn2, on 05/23/2008, -0/+1What? No Springfield tire fire!?!??
- plonko, on 05/23/2008, -0/+1dugg for the "world map"
- elliotys, on 05/23/2008, -0/+1Sounds good to me.
- MrScience, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Nothing that I used could open the image. Of course, I was at work, so I was limited in my options (Paint.Net, Windows, et. al.)
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