Congressional testimony demonstrates that man-made intensive livestock grazing since 1879 has reduced the size and intensity of U.S. wildfires to lowest levels since the 1600s.  In congressional testimony regarding "Natural Disasters in the Wake of Climate Change" hearings, Dr. Judith Curry, former chair of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech, agreed that "climate variations have been important drivers of wildfire occurrence in ponderosa pine forests across western North America for at least 400 years."  But she demonstrates that human land use associated with "intensive livestock grazing disrupted fuels continuity and fire spread and then active fire suppression maintained the absence of widespread surface fires during most of the 20th century." The 2014 "National Climate Assessment Report" claimed that the Southwest would be the most vulnerable U.S. region to CO2 emissions' generated...(Read Full Post)