BobHarris.com - Some Useful Wildfire Links

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

Main

FAS

Some Useful Wildfire Links

Tag it now -

Sunday, 28 October 2007

No idea what's going to come up exactly on CNN this morning, but for viewers who bop over here after, these might be useful links:

Forest-fire Warnings Cut From Testimony (CDC would have testified linking global warming and wildfires)

Apparent full version of CDC testimony (leaked by someone in the CDC)

San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and Fire Management

US Forest Service: Climatic Change, Wildfire, and Conservation

CBS News: Warming Climate Fuels Mega-Fires

Science Magazine: Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western US Forest Fire Activity (fire season has lengthened by up to two months; what this means: yes, it snows in Buffalo -- but if it snowed in Buffalo in August, we'd grasp that something has changed)

Science Daily: Massive California Fires Consistent With Climate Change

US Forest Service Appeals Archive (see for yourself if appeals are really holding up fuel reduction measures in California chaparral -- the answer: at least not for the last ten years)

San Diego fire chief quit for lack of requested manpower and equipment

Gotta run. If something else comes up -- which it probably will -- and I should post a link, I'll do it within a couple of hours of the show.

Thanks for stopping by.

(Added later:)

SF Chronicle: State National Guard Warns It's Stretched to the Limit (Head of California National Guard says in May that needed equipment is in Iraq, elsewhere, or unfunded; in the same article, Gov. Schwarzenegger concurs that "equipment has gone to Iraq, and it doesn't come back")

USA Today survey of National Guard equipment as of four months ago (California was rated at "50%" and reported to be short 800 Humvees, 700 tactical vehicles, and 50 heavy lifter trucks, although the spokesman maintained the state was still prepared)

Map of and photos of California chaparral (notice the distinct difference between chaparral and, for example, pine forest)

LA County Fire Dept. page on chaparral management (local ongoing activity simply not appealed by environmentalists)

United States Geological Survey brief (explains that in chaparral and coastal scrub, "catastrophic wildfires are not the result of unnatural fuel accumulation," limiting the value of prescription burning anyway)

LA Times: Forest Thinning Helps Spare Some Homes (true enough -- but note that the area under discussion is Lake Arrowhead, whose 5100-ft. altitude is more comparable to Denver than San Diego, with a markedly different ecosystem including large stands of resin-laden pine, requiring different management)

Press-Enterprise: Speed Forest Thinning to Ease Fire Threat, Experts Say (again, the discussion here concerns Big Bear, a pine-rich mountain area at 6700 feet; the story explicitly links wildfires and the buildup of dead-tree fuel in part to climate change, beginning with "the nation's worsening fire seasons are, in part, a consequence of global warming...")