California's age of Megafires
A There's a reason fire squads now battling more than a dozen blazes in
southern California are having such difficulty containing the flames, despite better preparedness than
ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the notorious Santa Ana winds. The wildfires
themselves, experts say, generally are hotter, move faster, and spread more erratically than in the
past.
B The short-term explanation is that the region, which usually has dry
summers, has had nine inches less rain than normal this year. Longer-term, climate change across the
West is leading to hotter days on average and longer fire seasons. Experts say this is likely to yield
more megafires like the conflagrations that this week forced evacuations of at least 300,000 resident in
California's southland and led President Bush to declare a disaster emergency in seven counties on
Tuesday.
C Megafires, also called "siege fires," are the increasingly frequent blazes
that burn 500,000 acres or more – 10 times the size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. One of
the current wildfires is the sixth biggest in California ever, in terms of acreage burned, according to
state figures and news reports. The trend to more superhot fires, experts say, has been driven by a
century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The unintentional
consequence was to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for megafires. Three
other factors contribute to the trend, they add. First is climate change marked by a 1-degree F. rise in
average yearly temperature across the West. Second is a fire season that on average is 78 days longer
than in the late 1980s. The third is the increased building of homes and other structures in wooded
areas.
D "We are increasingly building our homes … in fire-prone ecosystems," says
Dominik Kulakowski, adjunct professor of biology at Clark University Graduate School of Geography in
Worcester, Mass. Doing that "in many of the forests of the Western US … is like building homes on the
side of an active volcano." In California, where population growth has averaged more than 600,000 a year
for at least a decade, housing has pushed into such areas. "What once was open space is now residential
homes providing fuel to make fires burn with greater intensity," says Terry McHale of the California
Department of Forestry firefighters union. "With so much dryness, so many communities to catch fire, so
many fronts to fight, it becomes an almost incredible job."
E That said, many experts give California high marks for making progress on
preparedness since 2003, when the largest fires in state history scorched 750,000 acres, burned 3,640
homes, and killed 22 people. Stung then by criticism of bungling that allowed fires to spread when they
might have been contained, personnel are meeting the peculiar challenges of a neighborhood – and
canyon-hopping fires better than in recent years, observers say.
F State promises to provide newer engines, planes, and helicopters have been
fulfilled. Firefighters unions that then complained of dilapidated equipment, old fire engines and
insufficient blueprints for fire safety are now praising the state's commitment, noting that funding for
firefighting has increased despite huge cuts in many other programs. "We are pleased that the
Schwarzenegger administration has been very proactive in its support of us and come through with
budgetary support of the infrastructure needs we have long sought," says Mr McHale with the firefighters
union.
G Besides providing money to upgrade the fire engines that must traverse the
mammoth state and wind along serpentine canyon roads, the state has invested in better
command-and-control facilities as well as the strategies to run them. "In the fire sieges of earlier
years, we found out that we had the willingness of mutual-aid help from other jurisdictions and states,
but we were not able to communicate adequately with them," says Kim Zagaris, chief of the state's Office
of Emergency Services, fire and rescue branch. After a 2004 blue-ribbon commission examined and revamped
those procedures, the statewide response "has become far more professional and responsive," he says.
H Besides ordering the California National Guard on Monday to make 1,500
guardsmen available for firefighting efforts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Pentagon to send all
available Modular Airborne Fighting Systems to the area. The military Lockheed C-130 cargo/utility
aircraft carry a pressurized 3,000-gallon tank that can eject fire retardant or water in fewer than five
seconds through two tubes at the rear of the plane. This load can cover an area 1/4-mile long and 60
feet wide to create a fire barrier. Governor Schwarzenegger also directed 2,300 inmate firefighters and
170 custody staff from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to work for hand in
hand with state and local firefighters.
I Residents and government officials alike are noting the improvements with
gratitude, even amid the loss of homes, churches, businesses, and farms. By Tuesday morning, the fires
had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres – 384 square miles – ablaze. Despite such
losses, there is a sense that the speed, dedication, and coordination of firefighters from several
states and jurisdictions are resulting in greater efficiency than in past "siege fire" situations.
J "I am extraordinarily impressed by the improvements we have witnessed
between the last big fire and this," says Ross Simmons, a San Diego-based lawyer who had to evacuate
both his home and business on Monday, taking up residence at a Hampton Inn 30 miles south of his home in
Rancho Bernardo. After fires consumed 172,000 acres there in 2003, the San Diego region turned
communitywide soul-searching into improved building codes, evacuation procedures, and procurement of new
technology. Mr Simmons and neighbors began receiving automated phone calls at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning
telling them to evacuate. "Notwithstanding all the damage that will be caused by this, we will not come
close to the loss of life because of what we have … put in place since then," he says.
Griffith and American films
Movies are key cultural artefacts that offer a window into American cultural
and social history. A mixture of art, business, and popular entertainment, the popular entertainment,
the movies provide a host of insights into Americans' shifting ideas, fantasies, and preoccupations
A Many films of the early silent era dealt with gender relations. Before
1905, as Kathy Peiss has argued, movie screens were filled with salacious sexual imagery and risque
humor, drawn from burlesque halls and vaudeville theaters. Early films offered many glimpses of women
disrobing or of passionate kisses. As the movies' female audience grew, sexual titillation and voyeurism
persisted. But an ever-increasing number of the film dealt with the changing work and sexual roles of
women in a more sophisticated manner. While D.W. Griffith's films presented an idealized picture of the
frail Victorian child-woman and showed an almost obsessive preoccupation with female honor and chastity,
other silent movies presented quite different images of femininity. These ranged from the exotic,
sexually aggressive vamp to the athletic, energetic "serial queen"; the street smart urban working gal,
who repels the sexual advances of her lascivious boss; and cigarette-smoking, alcohol drinking chorus
girls or burlesque queens.
B In early 1910, director D.W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to
the west coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford,
Lionel Barrymore, and others. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling
several miles north to Hollywood, a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company
filming there. By focusing the camera on particular actors and actresses, Griffith inadvertently
encouraged the development of the star system. As early as 1910, newspapers were deluged with requests
for actors' names. But most studios refused to divulge their identities, fearing the salary demands of
popular performers. As one industry observer put it, "In the 'star' your producer gets not only a
'production' value …. but a 'trademark' value, and an 'insurance' value which are … very potent in
guaranteeing the sale of this product." As the star system emerged, salaries soared. In the course of
just two years, the salary of actress Mary Pickford rose from less than $400 a week in 1914 to $10,000 a
week in 1916. This action made Griffith believe the big potential in the movie industry. Thus many
competitors completely copy the same system as Griffith used, for the considerable profits.
Additionally, they also study the theory and methods which Griffith suggested.
C From the moment America entered the war, Hollywood feared that the industry
would be subject to heavy-handed government censorship. But the government itself wanted no repeat of
World War I, when the Committee on Public Information had whipped up anti-German hysteria and oversold
the war as "a Crusade not merely to re-win the tomb of Christ, but to bring back to earth the rule of
right, the peace, goodwill to men and gentleness he taught."
D The formation of the movie trust ushered in a period of rationalization
within the film industry. Camera and projecting equipment were standardized; film rental fees were
fixed; theaters were upgraded; which improved the quality of movies by removing damaged prints from
circulation. This was also a period of intense artistic and technical innovation, as pioneering
directors like David Wark Griffith and others created a new language of film and revolutionized screen
narrative.
E With just six months of film experience, Griffith, a former stage actor,
was hired as a director by the Biograph Company and promised $50 a week and one-twentieth of a cent for
every foot of film sold to a rental exchange. Each week, Griffith turned out two or three one-reelers.
While earlier directors had used such cinematic devices as close-ups, slow motion, fade-ins and
fade-outs, lighting effects, and editing before, Griffith's great contribution to the movie industry was
to show how these techniques could be used to create a wholly new style of storytelling, distinct from
the theater. Griffith's approach to movie storytelling has been aptly called "photographic realism."
This is not to say that he merely wished to record a story accurately; rather he sought to convey the
illusion of realism. He demanded that his performers act less in a more lifelike manner, avoiding the
broad, exaggerated gestures and pantomiming of emotions that characterized the nineteenth-century stage.
He wanted his performers to take on a role rather than directly addressing the camera.
F During the 1920s and 1930s, a small group of film companies consolidated
their control. Known as the "Big Five" – Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO, 20th Century-Fox, and Lowe's
(MGM) and the "Little Three" – Universal, Columbia, and United Artists, they formed fully integrated
companies. The old film company's opposition was shocked by new tycoons. The confusion of tongues in the
foreign version of American films deepened when American directors themselves embarked on the shooting
of the new version. They did not usually speak Spanish (or the given target language) and, at that time,
there were only a few translators at the studio's disposal. For this reason, it was more general to
contract Spanish directors, actors, and screenwriters to produce American films in Spanish for Latin
American audiences and for the public in the Iberian Peninsula. Hollywood had depended on overseas
markets for as much as 40 percent of its revenue. But in an effort to nurture their own film industries
and prevent an excessive outflow of dollars, Britain, France, and Italy imposed stiff import tariffs and
restrictive quotas on imported American movies.
G A basic problem facing today's Hollywood is the rapidly rising cost of
making and marketing a movie: an average of $40 million today. The immense cost of producing movies has
led the studios to seek guaranteed hits: blockbuster loaded with high-tech special effects, sequels, and
remakes of earlier movies, foreign films, and even old TV shows. Hollywood has also sought to cope with
rising costs by focusing ever more intently on its core audiences. Since the mid-1980s, the movie-going
audience has continued to decrease in size. Ticket sales fell from 1.2 billion in 1983 to 950 million in
1992, with the biggest drop occurring among adults. And since over half of Hollywood's profits are
earned overseas, the target market has to be changed due to the increasing costs and salary of making a
film. The industry has concentrated much of its energy on crude action films easily understood by an
international audience, featuring stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
Environmentally-friendly vehicles
A In the early 1990s, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the
government of California's "clean air agency", began a push for more fuel-efficient, lower-emissions
vehicles, with the ultimate goal being a move to zero-emissions vehicles such as electric vehicles. In
response, automakers developed electric models, including the Chrysler TEVan, Ford Ranger EV pickup
truck, GM EV1 and S10 EV pickup, Honda EV Plus hatchback, Nissan lithium-battery Altra EV miniwagon and
Toyota RAV4 EV. Ford Fusion is manufactured at Ford's Hermosillo Stamping & Assembly plant, located in
Sonora Mexico. I thought going green was supposed to provide the U.S. with more jobs.
B The automakers were accused of pandering to the wishes of CARB in order to
continue to be allowed to sell cars in the lucrative Californian market, while failing to adequately
promote their electric vehicles in order to create the impression that the consumers were not interested
in the cars, all the while joining oil industry lobbyists in vigorously protesting CARB's mandate. GM's
program came under particular scrutiny; in an unusual move, consumers were not allowed to purchase EV1s,
but were instead asked to sign closed-end leases, meaning that the cars had to be returned to GM at the
end of the lease period, with no option to purchase, despite lesser interest in continuing to own the
cars. Chrysler, Toyota, and a group of GM dealers sued CARB in Federal court, leading to the eventual
neutering of CARB's ZEV Mandate.
C After public protests by EV drivers' groups upset by the repossession of
their cars, Toyota offered the last 328 RAV4-EVs for sale to the general public during six months, up
until November 22, 2002. Almost all other production electric cars were withdrawn from the market and
were in some cases seen to have been destroyed by their manufactures. Toyota continues to support the
several hundred Toyota RAV4-EV in the hands of the general public and in fleet usage. GM famously
de-activated the few EV1s that were donated to engineering schools and museums.
D Throughout the 1990s, the appeal of fuel-efficient or environmentally
friendly cars declined among Americans, who instead favored sport utility vehicles, which were
affordable to operate despite their poor fuel efficiency thanks to lower gasoline prices. American
automakers chose to focus their product lines around the truck-based vehicles, which enjoyed larger
profit margins than the smaller cars which were preferred in places like Europe or Japan. In 1999, the
Honda Insight hybrid car became the first hybrid to be sold in North America since the little-known
Woods hybrid of 1917.
E In 1995, Toyota debuted a hybrid concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show, with
testing following a year later. The first Prius, model NHW10, went on sale on December 10, 1997. It was
available only in Japan, though it has been imported privately to at least the United Kingdom,
Australia, and New Zealand. The first-generation Prius, at its launch, became the world's first
mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid car. The NHW10 Prius styling originated from California
designers, who were selected over competing designs from other Toyota design studios.
F In the United States, the NHW11 was the first Prius to be sold. The Prius
was marketed between the smaller Corolla and the larger Camry. The published retail price of the car was
US$19,995. The NHW11 Prius became more powerful partly to satisfy the higher speeds and longer distances
that Americans drive. Air conditioning and electric power steering were standard equipment. The vehicle
was the second mass-produced hybrid on the American market, after the two-seat Honda Insight. While the
larger Prius could seat five, its battery pack restricted cargo space.
G Hybrids, which featured a combined gasoline and electric powertrain, were
seen as a balance, offering an environmentally friendly image and improved fuel economy, without being
hindered by the low range of electric vehicles, albeit at an increased price over comparable gasoline
cars. Sales were poor, the lack of interest attributed to the car's small size and the lack of necessity
for a fuel-efficient car at the time. The 2000s energy crisis brought renewed interest in hybrid and
electric cars. In America, sales of the Toyota Prius jumped, and a variety of automakers followed suit,
releasing hybrid models of their own. Several began to produce new electric car prototypes, as consumers
called for cars that would free them from the fluctuations of oil prices.
H In 2000, Hybrid Technologies, later renamed Li-ion Motors, started
manufacturing electric cars in Mooresville, North Carolina. There has been increasing controversy with
Li-ion Motors though due to the ongoing 'Lemon issues' regarding their product. And their attempt to
cover it up. California electric-car maker Tesla Motors began development in 2004 on the Tesla Roadster,
which was first delivered to customers in 2008. The Roadster remained the only highway-capable EV in
serial production and available for sale until 2010. Senior leaders at several large automakers,
including Nissan and General Motors, have stated that the Roadster was a catalyst which demonstrated
that there is pent-up consumer demand for more efficient vehicles. GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said in
2007 that the Tesla Roadster inspired him to push GM to develop the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid
sedan prototype that aims to reverse years of dwindling market share and massive financial losses for
America's largest automaker. In an August 2009 edition of The New Yorker, Lutz was quoted as saying,
"All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion technology is 10 years away, and Toyota
agreed with us – and boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, 'How come some tiny little California startup,
run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do this, and we can't?' That was the crowbar
that helped break up the log jam."