Controlled burns do produce less carbon though. They burn the lighter underbrush at lower temperatures while leaving lots of the carbon dense older growth (relatively) untouched.
And sometimes it’s used to create a barrier so the fire encounters a span of spent fuel to contain its spread. It’s still just addressing the symptom. The author seems to be under the belief that people are ignoring “black carbon,” when in reality, things like controlled burns never stopped. Nobody is ignoring it, and its increased intensity and frequency is a symptom of the climate change we’re causing.
It’s like arguing that we need to cool the oceans. Duh. We’ll do that by focusing on the core problem of our emissions, and we’ll still have work to do as the climate recovers (should we make it that far).
Controlled burns do produce less carbon though. They burn the lighter underbrush at lower temperatures while leaving lots of the carbon dense older growth (relatively) untouched.
And sometimes it’s used to create a barrier so the fire encounters a span of spent fuel to contain its spread. It’s still just addressing the symptom. The author seems to be under the belief that people are ignoring “black carbon,” when in reality, things like controlled burns never stopped. Nobody is ignoring it, and its increased intensity and frequency is a symptom of the climate change we’re causing.
It’s like arguing that we need to cool the oceans. Duh. We’ll do that by focusing on the core problem of our emissions, and we’ll still have work to do as the climate recovers (should we make it that far).
Agreed, just wanted to point out that controlled burns are good and not as bad as uncontrolled ones :)