[Gunnair]

martin14 martin14:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

. The same principle applies to foirest fires. Forest fire prevention measures lead to less frequent but more severe fires.

When the reverse would probably be more beneficial.

A friend of mine has abuddy in forestry who was looking at photos of the Okanagan from the 1880s and there were hell of a lot less trees back then. Looked more like what the Kelowna fire did to the mountains than what it looked like before.

See the same thing here in Victoria. The areas in the parks and forests where forest fires occurred in the last few decades are much more open then where they have not (mainly in second growth forests which are a tangled mess)

[Jonny_C]

Gunnair Gunnair:

Debunked? Uh...no way in hell.

Add to that, this guy is the economic development officer, not a scientist.

He's got this great British accent though. Don't you feel reassured?

There's nothing much from the anti's on this issue except some vague unease and the view that we shouldn't be tampering with nature (which we do all the time).

Debunking is the wrong word, agreed. It's more like Disney has made a good case, and not much has come from the other side.

Yet.

Like I said, I'll be looking forward to further developments.

[Xort]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Flood control is actually quite interesting., We don't actually control them. What we have done is traded more-or-less annual, low severity flooding events for low-probability, high-consequence flooding events. New Orleans is a good example. The same principle applies to foirest fires. Forest fire prevention measures lead to less frequent but more severe fires.

Flood control does control most floods. Only sometimes on a rare event is the flood control overcome.

Flood control doesn't cause more high consequence flooding events, it just make them almost the only flood event that people notice because the rest of the time it's not flooding.

We haven't traded off anything, we have stopped 99% of the floods that would damage property or kill people. That some people desire to build in flood risk areas is their own fault. If you live in Highriver for example, it's not called Highriver because floods never happen.

The example of forest fires (or even foirest fires) doesn't track to flood control. Not having a flood doesn't incress the intensity of the next flood, while leaving unburnt forests do.

[Zipperfish]

Xort Xort:

Flood control does control most floods. Only sometimes on a rare event is the flood control overcome.

yes, that's what I said. With control of natural complex systems (or anthropogenic complex systems, for that matter) you tend to to trade frequent, less severe evtns for lower-probability, higher-consequence events. There's a great paper on this by SFU prof WC Clark from years ago called Witches, Floods and Wonder Drugs: Historical Perspectives on Risk Management (warning: 1.5 MB) that does a great job discuessing this. That paper should be required reading for any policy analyst in government.

Clark Clark:

Anthropological studies have shown that pre-industrial "folk" societies adjust to such environmental risks largely through modifications in human behavior. From an external perspective, these adaptations often appear mystical and irrational. On closer examination, they often exhibit the virtues of being effective a good deal of the time, of being flexible and easily adapted, of requiring action only at the individual or small group level, and of imposing little stress on the environmental system as a whole. Modern industrial societies have tended to pursue an opposite course of adaptation, controlling and reducing the variability of nature by means of large, long-duration, capital-intensive "engineering" projects. These have indubitably succeeded in achieving many of their short-term goals. But a look at the historical record shows that many of these gains have been bought at the expense of expensive and unanticipated long-term consequences. We have begun to discover that variability and uncertainty are in fact important "structural" factors, responsible in large part for the way our environmental and resource systems work. In general, they cannot be removed or reduced without precipitating major changes in those "workings". In particular, the control of small, frequent fluctuations has resulted time and again in a growing vulnerability to rare but large perturbations.

$1:

Flood control doesn't cause more high consequence flooding events, it just make them almost the only flood event that people notice because the rest of the time it's not flooding.

Think of the Hurrican Katrina event. The levees could handle the year-to-year fluctuations that used to cause chaos. So people would move into areas that used to flood regularlly. And because flooding is so rare, people are not prepared for floods. Then you get, say, a 1-in-200 year storm event when the levess were designed, say, for a 1-in 100 year event and the result is a high-consequence event. That event killed almost 2000 people and cost about $81 billion in property damage.

[Xort]

"That some people desire to build in flood risk areas is their own fault." - Xort

Flood control didn't cause the flood damage, people that evaluate risks moving into a flood prone area do.

I said this already.

We could build flood control that would take any possible event, but people don't want to pay slightly more for perfect flood control. So we have engineers that build for risk levels. If you live behind a flood control system that isn't anything possible expect over a long enough period of time to get flooded.

When you said "We don't actually control them." you were talking out of your ass. A factualy correct sentance would have been, "We don't actually control them perfectly."

[andyt]

Of course fighting fires results in bigger fires down the road. It allows fuels to accumulate that would otherwise burn off in smaller patchier fires. Since lodgepole pine relies on fire for regeneration, you also change the climax species.

[Zipperfish]

Xort Xort:

"That some people desire to build in flood risk areas is their own fault." - Xort

Flood control didn't cause the flood damage, people that evaluate risks moving into a flood prone area do.

I said this already.

We could build flood control that would take any possible event, but people don't want to pay slightly more for perfect flood control. So we have engineers that build for risk levels. If you live behind a flood control system that isn't anything possible expect over a long enough period of time to get flooded.

When you said "We don't actually control them." you were talking out of your ass. A factualy correct sentance would have been, "We don't actually control them perfectly."

To build systems that would stop "any pssible event" wouldn't be incrementally more in cost. but exponentially more. Systems are typically designed according to 1 in 10, or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 year events. The cost does not increase logarithimically, but geometrically. So, for example, increasing from a 1 in 10 year to a 1 in 20 year event doesn't cost twice as much, but perhps four times as much. Same with earthquake designs. This is basic civil engineering.

Unfortunately, you've run into someone who knows what they're talking about.

[ShepherdsDog]

That means diddly when it comes to Xort Bus

[Xort]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

To build systems that would stop "any pssible event" wouldn't be incrementally more in cost. but exponentially more. Systems are typically designed according to 1 in 10, or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 year events. The cost does not increase logarithimically, but geometrically. So, for example, increasing from a 1 in 10 year to a 1 in 20 year event doesn't cost twice as much, but perhps four times as much. Same with earthquake designs. This is basic civil engineering.

So basic you don't even need to prove it, you can just state it as if it was a fact.

$1:

Unfortunately, you've run into someone who knows what they're talking about.

About the cost? Not likely.

You state as a fact an incress of 4 times the cost between a 10 to 20 year event. This doesn't always hold true. You are ignoring a base cost. So for example to get anything you need to spend 100 million, from that point forward you can apply an incress in you choice of growth pattern. So build a 100 million system, to incress it range it's not 4 times 100 million but manybe 4 times 10 thousand.

Otherwise all flood control systems would cost the same for the same level of max flood protection. Which is clearly silly; A single dam might protect a whole downsteam river chain in the mountains, while you would need to follow a river bank the whole distance in a flood plain.

But nope it's a rule, to provide 20 year flood protection it must cost 4 times as much as 10 year protection. Why? Because a guy said so on the net, and claims to know what he is talking about.

[Gunnair]

Xort Xort:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

To build systems that would stop "any pssible event" wouldn't be incrementally more in cost. but exponentially more. Systems are typically designed according to 1 in 10, or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 year events. The cost does not increase logarithimically, but geometrically. So, for example, increasing from a 1 in 10 year to a 1 in 20 year event doesn't cost twice as much, but perhps four times as much. Same with earthquake designs. This is basic civil engineering.

So basic you don't even need to prove it, you can just state it as if it was a fact.

Funny how that works. Sounds like some of your posts. Got those shooting scores yet - the ones that back up your opinion that you're a better shot at a moving target than a cop?

[Xort]

Gunnair Gunnair:

Funny how that works. Sounds like some of your posts. Got those shooting scores yet - the ones that back up your opinion that you're a better shot at a moving target than a cop?

Again you need to define what score you want. A point in which you never seem to accept. So for you my score is 7F.

I'm better than most cops because I have been under fire and returned fire more than once. I also get out to a range and practice more than once a year.

~

I would accept that price incresses in flood control might follow a cubic incress, or that for very small projects the price change might seem to be an exponential for some portion of the price/protection range but not for all of it.

[Zipperfish]

Xort Xort:

So basic you don't even need to prove it, you can just state it as if it was a fact.

Don't take my word for it. Do some research.

[Lemmy]

Gunnair Gunnair:

Funny how that works. Sounds like some of your posts. Got those shooting scores yet - the ones that back up your opinion that you're a better shot at a moving target than a cop?

What would the inflationary effects of social credit-style monetary policy be?

[Gunnair]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Gunnair Gunnair:

Funny how that works. Sounds like some of your posts. Got those shooting scores yet - the ones that back up your opinion that you're a better shot at a moving target than a cop?

What would the inflationary effects of social credit-style monetary policy be?

Depends a lot on what Vanderzalm had planned.

[Xort]

Lemmy Lemmy:

What would the inflationary effects of social credit-style monetary policy be?

It can stop inflation, or slow it as desired. Social credit has a proven history of stopping inflation.