Fire Country Homeowners Think They’re Prepared. Nope.

University of Colorado researchers surveyed residents of a mountain country housing subdivision about wildfire risk to their homes. Professionals rated 61 percent of households as high fire risks, while 22 percent of residents did. 70 percent of residents said their houses were at low or moderate wildfire risk, while experts said only 19 percent of housewere. 50 percent said they had 100 feet of defensible space around their homes, but only 17 percent did.

Hope springs eternal, but wildfire does, too.

More:

“Mountain residents underestimate wildfire risk, overestimate preparedness,” Kelsey Simpkins, CU Boulder Today

Related:

“Burn. Build. Repeat: Why Our Wildfire Policy Is So Deadly.” Jeffrey Ball, Mother Jones

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Top image (“Smokey Says ‘Let It Burn’”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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The Secret History of Dirt

Dirt. It’s alive! A Vox explainer by Liz Scheltens. Soil fun for the whole family.

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All I Want is Truth (for Christmas)

“All I Want is Truth (for Christmas),” written and performed by Laura Burhenn with her band The Mynabirds.

Laura Burhenn @ TEDx

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Bye-Bye Bambi: National Park Service Guns Down Deer in DC

In DC, the National Park Service begins its seasonal “Deer Management Program,” deploying NPS biologist-sharpshooters in Rock Creek Park to hunt whitetail deer in the middle of the Nation’s capital. This year the hunt may extend into Rock Creek neighbors, including Melvin Hazen Park, Soapstone Valley Park, Pinehurst Parkway, Glover Archbold Park, Battery Kemble Park and Fort Totten Park. The seasonal slaughter will commence tonight, November 16th, and continue every night until March 16, 2021. The Park Service is, um, shooting to reduce the population to 15 to 20 deer per square mile.

Last year, the NPS donated 1320 lbs. of venison harvested by the program to the DC Central Kitchen charity.

Related:

“Advocacy group presses for culling of deer population in Arlington,” Scott McCaffrey, InsideNoVA

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Image (“Rock Creek Deer Hunt, after Atelier de Walt Disney”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Fairfax County Archery Program

Like many Eastern suburbs, Virginia’s Fairfax County has way too many whitetail deer munching on backyard greenery and blundering in front of moving minivans. The county’s parks department has a chosen technology to control the antlered population boom: bows and arrows. Registered bow hunters climb into tree stand blinds and shoot down at the critters, so there’s little chance of stray shots perforating the neighbors.

More:

“Hundreds of Bow-Hunters Will Reduce Fairfax’s Deer Population This Fall,” Jane Recker, Washingtonian

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Image (“Fairfax County Deer Hunt, after Atelier Disney”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Saving the Amazon’s Soul

Brazil backed out of hosting UN climate talks after the election of reactionary President Jair Bolsonaro, an alternative climate conference is taking place In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, in a region known as Middle Earth. A Guardian video.

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Australia: Are Koalas Kaput?

Have Australia’s massive wildfires turned all it’s iconic koalas into crispy critters? An ecologist explains in this Vox video.

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DC Park Commences Annual Bambi Slaughter

The National Park Service has resumed its seasonal “Deer Management Program,” deploying sharpshooters in Rock Creek Park in the middle of the Nation’s capital to shoot whitetail deer dead. The noctural slaughter will continue until March 30th and recommence next winter. Last winter’s cull cut deer density in half, from 80 to 40 deer per square mile. The Park Service is shooting for a goal of 15 to 20 deer per square mile.

Venison harvested by the program is donated to food programs for the homeless.

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Image (“Rock Creek Deer Hunt, after Atelier de Walt Disney”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Stupid and Deadly: America’s Wildfire Policy

Forest policy, climate change, and real estate development combine to create deadly fires.

“Today’s monster fires result largely from three human forces: taxpayer-funded fire suppression that has made the forest a tinderbox; policies that encourage construction in places that are clearly prone to burning; and climate change, which has worsened everything.”

“Society masks the costs of building on the edges of the forest, a zone that planners call the “wildland-urban interface,” or the WUI. With its vast forests and penchant for sprawl, California is the epicenter of WUI wildfire damage. Between 2000 and 2013, fire destroyed more buildings in California’s WUI than in all similar areas in the United States combined, and more than 75 percent of all buildings destroyed by fire in California were in the WUI, according to a University of Wisconsin–Madison study.”

— “Burn. Build. Repeat: Why Our Wildfire Policy Is So Deadly.” Jeffrey Ball, Mother Jones

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Top image (“Smokey Says ‘Let It Burn’”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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All I Want is Truth (for Christmas)

“All I Want is Truth (for Christmas),” written and performed by Laura Burhenn with her band The Mynabirds.

Laura Burhenn @ TEDx

____________

Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-snz

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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