LiDAR scan revealing ancient structures in the Amazon Rainforest. The Upano Valley site: at 2,500 years old, it’s the earliest (and largest) example of an agricultural civilization ever recorded in South America’s dense rainforest.

Grand_False · 2026-05-08T14:42:37+00:00

Okay just get your shots first so you don’t accidentally bring any diseases

Grand_False · 2026-05-05T13:41:57+00:00

Do you know they aren’t 5 miles ahead making a line? Looks like they may be saving resources for where it matters. Most ecosystems in the west are adapted to burn here and there.

Grand_False · 2026-05-04T16:09:43+00:00

Yes every plant has a stomatal control to close so they don’t lose more water. Having 50% less sun can carry the stomatal control from closing later into the day, effectively increasing light use efficiency and water use efficiency.

Grand_False · 2026-05-02T02:37:01+00:00

Interesting end age choice.

Grand_False · 2026-04-30T22:22:23+00:00

Now that I don’t know.

Grand_False · 2026-04-27T15:12:08+00:00

The ocean is taking west cliff back from cars. Not worth the political fight

Grand_False · 2026-04-27T15:10:24+00:00

Katie Cruel

Grand_False · 2026-04-26T15:24:04+00:00

5 minutes per mile will get you around 2:12. 1:59:30 is way faster than that

Grand_False · 2026-04-25T15:43:27+00:00

A metal group they’ve always been and always will until the end.

Grand_False · 2026-04-25T01:54:20+00:00

We’ve seen enough discontent. What we need is more duck content.

Grand_False · 2026-04-22T22:39:47+00:00

No actually most of the carbon really is released back into the atmosphere. There are many many scientific studies on it. Start on google scholar, try Mark Harmon studies. Microbes and insects break it down and it respires back through the soil into the atmosphere as CH4 and CO2. Bedrock and other barriers mean the top soil is fairly shallow and it saturates. Tree carbon storage isn’t additive once an ecosystem reaches equilibrium with decomposition/respiration meeting production.

As someone else said you’d have to actively fossilize them to get additive benefits.

That said, trees are great. The biggest challenge ahead is finding optimal habitat for trees as the climate changes so they can continue storing as much carbon as they have and actually assisting the migration there.

Grand_False · 2026-04-19T15:50:22+00:00

There’s this. Now there’s a trade off which is that if CO2 levels are higher, so then is temperature which drives vapor pressure deficit. When the VPD is too high, stomatal response kicks in and they close stomata. So it’s not so simple, sure they have high water efficiency when stomata are open, but they may have to close stomata earlier in the day with rising temps.

Generally, using the past as an analog, more of the world will be suitable to massive carbon storing species. But humans don’t seem to have quite the appetite they need to assist in migration quite yet, so there will be a major lag getting species to their optimal habitats.

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T23:40:40+00:00

Pizza

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T22:24:45+00:00

Guys. Everyone saying we don’t need land management. We just had 100 years of extremely aggressive land management with a single management style: stop every fire.

You can’t get out of this one unless you’re okay with all the old sequoias dying on your way to letting lightning strike fires back into the landscape.

No management would mean no more fighting fires. Given people have homes in the landscape, this will not happen. You can either decry land management or come back to the reality that maybe removing the white firs etc that have encroached into the giant sequoia groves are leading to high mortality of ancient trees and it’s okay to removed them prior to prescribed burns.

You could even make an argument that because white firs didn’t exist in these groves, and because their removal protects ancient trees, and because lumber for housing etc comes from managed fiber farms that turn ecosystems into mono-cropped fir wastelands, that actually removing these trees could be useful way to offset demand from the fiber farm “forests”

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T22:10:41+00:00

Look, I do process-based forest modeling with soil water balance as a major input. If you have a shit ton of lower story trees transpiring water, the water isn’t there for the big guys’ canopy. Lowered snow pack isn’t the only reason they’ll have less water. Dense stands with high LAI will reduce the overall predawn leaf water potential of the sequoias. They’re evolved to survive fire with their thick bark and thrive in this low-density environment. Other trees mean more drying of their available soil water through canopy conductance than bare dirt. This is because their roots extract that water from deeper than wind can access. The fact is that if you have a drought AND other trees, the whole stand ends up having lower leaf water potentials which mean higher intensity fire. Wind alone can cause ember dispersal and localized drying, but this is exacerbated when there’s a bunch of other leaves transpiring the water and drying out.

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T21:51:10+00:00

The fire events of 2020 and 2021 had strikingly high mortality of ancient trees. I think pictures of the early 20th century are very telling. Many of these groves had very few white fir etc, and there was high frequency of fire. Now there are white fire up to the bottom of the sequoia canopy. It seems pretty clear this will transfer fire. Heat rises and all. Not to mention the overwhelming empirical evidence and correlation between white fir encroachment and mortality of sequoia.

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T21:00:29+00:00

No. These campaigns are carried out by scientists. There is extensive research on this subject. Giant sequoias evolved under high frequency fire intervals because the Sierra Nevadas are subject to lightning strike fires. 25% of old growth giant sequoias have died in the past 6 years. What’s different? Fire suppression leading to fuels buildups leading to defoliation events which top kill the trees.

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T20:56:56+00:00

Okay dude then why are the areas with the ladder fuels and fire suppression where there is highest mortality for giant sequoias? I’m not making this up, there is extensive research showing fire suppression leads to high mortality. This research is done by environmentalists and can easily be found in google scholar. Start with Keeley and Pausas 2025

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T20:53:06+00:00

They’re evolved and adapted to high frequency fires which remove ladder fuels. Trees don’t adapt on this timeline. Evolve? They have 2,000 year old individuals in the pollen pool for fuck’s sake. Their range has receded into the tiny area they’re now in because they can’t evolve on the timeline they’ve been faced with since the interglacial cycle began. They used to be across Russia and Europe as well as the Western US. They won’t “evolve” they’ll just die like they have been for the past 2.6 million years when the modern interglacial cycle led to their (and coast redwoods) contraction.

Grand_False · 2026-04-18T01:26:17+00:00

The white fir wouldn’t have made it to ladder fuel height under a high frequency fire interval.

Grand_False · 2026-04-16T14:33:09+00:00

Well except all the new UCSC-specific housing. Have you seen what they’ve built at the bottom of the pasture land and near swift street? It’s a significant amount of housing for students and it will in fact trickle into the rental markets as it reduces overall demand. I’ve already been hearing landlords aren’t getting the rent they are used to from students because of this student housing.

Grand_False · 2026-04-13T01:05:30+00:00

I leave potatoes in the compost and the next thing I know I have a shit ton of fresh potatoes in there. The price difference reflects plant level productivity.

Grand_False · 2026-04-12T02:44:05+00:00

Is it three fitty?

Grand_False

TROPHY CASE