[FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires

Wed May 26 03:00:27 EDT 2021

I don't question the historical link between human progress and hurting
the environment. Within walking distance from where I live there is a cave
where archaeologists led by Curtis Marean found evidence of modern
humans that lived 162 000 years ago. Curtis opines that since then modern
humans behaved like an invasive species, causing serious harm to the
environment wherever they went. My point is that there is evidence that
this human progress/harming the environment link has been happening ever
since modern humans set their feet on mother earth and it's still
happening.

But my subjective observation is that the attitude of *pedal-to-the-medal,
drill-baby-drill, burn baby burn, gangway, don't look down (or back)! *is
changing and it's changing very fast. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I compare the
attitude of people when I was young to now, I observe a big difference.
There is now a very widespread concern for the environment that was absent
when I was young.  I salute the environmental activists, they have done a
great job and are still doing a great job in changing the moral values of
society to be against hurting the environment.

Personally I am both enthusiastically for human progress and totally
against hurting the environment.

I have open questions:
1. Admitting that progress hurt the environment in the past, is there
reason to believe that it's impossible to have future progress without
hurting the environment?
2. Provided it's possible without hurting the environment, is there
anything wrong with human progress?

On Wed, 26 May 2021 at 03:45, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> As Stephen already knows well, *these* were in all of the lookout towers
> before modern tech finally meant humans didn't need to man them 24/7 during
> fire season.   A precision, calibrated "lazy susan" with a map and a
> "protractor" for measuring altitude angle to a fire.  The Simtable work
> Stephen describes is a highly efficient and accurate replacement for this
> art/skill (and beyond), even before the citizen-mobile cameras are
> integrated.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Fire_Finder
>
>    I knew quite a few permanent and short term (usually college summer
> students) fire lookouts in my time.   The permanent folks got to know their
> territory like the back of their hands, as well as the other lookouts and
> the local fire crews.   My dad had a fire-radio in our dining room that ran
> 24/7 during fire season as well.   It would have been fascinating if it
> hadn't been so "normal" at the time.
>
> I very much appreciate Stephen's Schtick about fires (and other natural
> threats/disasters) being much more frightening/threatening when you don't
> know where they are and what they are doing, and that good (collective)
> awareness is the first step toward "managing" not only the wildfires
> themselves, but the people and property they threaten.
>
> The same thing goes for "managing" nature in a broader sense.  The more we
> know what is actually happening in the short and long term, the better
> chance we have of doing something clever, or ... wait for it...  maybe even
> "wise"?   What Merle and I are vying for is an appreciation that this
> ~10,000 year old experiment of humans manipulating the biosphere with
> significant (and exponentially growing?) leverage has not gone well (for
> the biosphere).  While First World peoples, especially in the 1% (or even
> 50%) wealth category, it all might seem plenty peachy, but if you ask the
> myriad folks (and non-human folks) that are enduring the unintended
> (usually) consequences of our arrogant mucking about, they might not be so
> proud of what we have done.
>
> When the chickens (refugees) come home to roost (Europe dealing with those
> displaced by climate change and war throughout north Africa and the Middle
> east, the US dealing with Central American refugees, etc ad nauseum) some
> of us struggle to figure out how to accommodate them without giving up "too
> much" while others simply identify them as a dangerous, foreign, plague to
> be repelled or exterminated.   Whether the former OR the latter is even
> possible is up in the air, but in the meantime, we continue to either stick
> with "business as usual" or "rush forward to the next grande technological
> (and highly profitable for *someone*) fix without honestly considering the
> meta-problem of whether we really *learn* anything from our mistakes
> (experiments) except how to be more efficient at executing the narrow goals
> we set for ourselves.   Optimization run amok?
>
> I shouldn't be so negative... I know *many* people are honestly trying to
> expand their awareness to include that which they were not previously aware
> of, not just double down on being more effective at whatever they set out
> to be effective at earlier in life (as individuals or as cultures).
>
> I accept (reluctantly) the truism that "the only way out is through".
> There is huge momentum in the human project, or more to the point, the Homo
> Faber project.  Man the Maker.   *Sapiens* means knowledgeable or wise,
> I do believe we've done a fair job of  living up to the former, I think the
> latter is very much a work in progress.
>
> Meanwhile, pedal-to-the-medal, drill-baby-drill, burn baby burn, gangway,
> don't look down (or back)!
> On 5/25/21 12:22 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
>
>  I don't think drones aren't an efficient choice for detection. Stationary
> PTZ cameras on ridgetops and citizen phone camera reporting along with 911
> calls are soon enough. Where drones are valuable preliminary mapping to
> fill in gaps of existing camera viewsheds to get an early sizeup.
>
> We are working with www.alertwildfire.org to calibrate their 1000 cameras
> on the ridgetops in the 5 western states of CA, OR, WA, ID and NV. Our bit
> is solving for camera pose based on observations of stars to solve for the
> 9 degrees of freedom of a camera (x, y, z, yaw, pitch, roll, horiz field of
> view, vert field of view and lens distortion)
>
> You can see a map of the cameras that we have robotic control of hear with
> historical imagery:
>
> http://www.alertwildfire.org/tahoe/index.html?camera=Axis-SodaRidge1&v=7a7f1c3
>
> Once a camera is calibrated each pixel maps to a lat/long if it intersects
> the terrain or triangulating 3D points with multiple cameras for sky-based
> features.
>
> You can see how we detect locations of fire starts after lightning strikes
> on the LNU Complex last summer in Sonama here:
>     https://youtu.be/oVAwvs4k1n0
>
> All compute and modeling/sim is in the browser with the camera projections
> using WebGL and rendering to 3D terrain.
>
> And how we track perimeters on this example Adams Fire here:
>     https://youtu.be/lP7-UhZQ4IY
>
> And here is some live AI looking for smoke in Sonoma that we then map:
>    https://fire.aiir.ai/sonoma
>
> We can also calibrate ad hoc imagery coming from citizens based on common
> features in already calibrated images or by geopoints or the stars. Here's
> an example on the Maria Fire where we took imagery from Twitter from a
> private pilot and a second imager from citizen near the freeway.
>    https://youtu.be/aJpgDzFhXng
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Stephen.Guerin at Simtable.com <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
> CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com
> 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
> office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
> twitter: @simtable
> z <http://zoom.com/j/5055775828>oom.simtable.com
>
>
> On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 11:54 AM Pieter Steenekamp <
> pieters at randcontrols.co.za> wrote:
>
>> from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology
>>
>> *Synthetic biology* (*SynBio*) is a multidisciplinary area of research
>> that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to
>> redesign systems that are already found in nature.
>>
>> It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad range of methodologies
>> from various disciplines, such as biotechnology
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotechnology>, genetic engineering
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering>, molecular biology
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_biology>, molecular engineering
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_engineering>, systems biology
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology>, membrane science
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_lipid_bilayer>, biophysics
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophysics>, chemical and biological
>> engineering <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_engineering>, electrical
>> and computer engineering
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering>, control
>> engineering <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_engineering> and evolutionary
>> biology <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology>.
>>
>> Due to more powerful genetic engineering
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering> capabilities and
>> decreased DNA synthesis and sequencing costs
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing>, the field of synthetic
>> biology is rapidly growing. In 2016, more than 350 companies across 40
>> countries were actively engaged in synthetic biology applications; all
>> these companies had an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion in the global
>> market.[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology#cite_note-1>
>>
>> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 19:49, Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Marcus, I don't understand your term "synthetic biology."
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 10:24 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So we move from chemical engineering to synthetic biology.   There will
>>>> always be mistakes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Merle Lefkoff
>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 25, 2021 10:05 AM
>>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>>> friam at redfish.com>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Marcus, we've been "experimenting" with our terrestrial biome for at
>>>> least 10-12,000 years (when the first spade hit the ground).  The time for
>>>> more experiments is over....unless they are experiments that help us
>>>> understand even more deeply how to restore the Mycelium networks so that
>>>> the fungi can solve our climate change challenge.  This is perhaps the most
>>>> important task that will save us from extinction.  See Merlin Sheldrake's
>>>> book, "Entangled Life" for explanation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 8:41 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> We won’t realize anything unless the experiments happen.   We may not
>>>> learn from experiments, but that is a different issue than the need for the
>>>> experiments.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 25, 2021 7:46 AM
>>>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My father dedicated his life to "forest management" as a professional
>>>> forester, trained in biology and range/timber management.   He retired
>>>> "early" after 30 years somewhat in disgust over the changing of aesthetics
>>>> and perspectives of the United States Forest Service.   He was dedicated
>>>> and loyal to the spirit of Aldo Leopold and other early conservationists.
>>>> He spent multiple multi-week segments every summer leading (most Zuni and
>>>> Hopi native) fire-crews on the West Coast trying ot protec homes and
>>>> "valuable timber". We lived on the edge of the first Wilderness (Gila)
>>>> created (at the behest of Aldo Leopold) for 2/3 of my growing up years.
>>>> My father died 10 years ago (Alzheimers), was cremated, and we (illegall)
>>>> spread his cremains in the heart of the Gila with a minor amount of guilt
>>>> as he was a (nearly) strict rule follower (yet asked for this).   Within
>>>> the year, a serious wildfire complex converged at almost the exact spot we
>>>> scattered him (woooOoooooo!).
>>>>
>>>> Even my Trump-voting (2016) sister and husband are now acknowledging
>>>> that his life/profession were dedicated to a project that was fundamentally
>>>> "unwise".    They *were* (for the most part) doing the best they knew how.
>>>> Most everything they did (from stopping wildfires at the first opportunity)
>>>> to running dual bulldozers across landscapes with a chain between them to
>>>> clear the juniper trees from a landscape to allow more grass (for cattle)
>>>> to grow was "well intended", but it was *range* and *timber* management not
>>>> "grassland" and "forest" management as they called it.  The goal was to
>>>> maximize the "productivity" of the public lands under their management
>>>> (dept of Agriculture_.   The Bureau of Land Management (BLM dept of
>>>> Interior) was know to be *worse* in the sense that their rules on cattle
>>>> and mining were much less careful of protecting the landscape and biome.
>>>> The National Parks were derided by both the Forest Service and the BLM for
>>>> being "much too restrictive" (no "harvesting of resources"!!!!)
>>>>
>>>> And yet NOW we realize how "unwise" all of that was.   But in the same
>>>> breath we suggest that all of our exploitative depradations of the planet's
>>>> "resources" are necessary and possibly "a really good thing"...  and I am
>>>> sure that in another 20 or 50 years we will be lamenting *all* of the
>>>> things that today we are promoting wholeheartedly in the name of
>>>> "progress".
>>>>
>>>> This is part of how I became a neo-Luddite.
>>>>
>>>> - Steve
>>>>
>>>> On 5/25/21 2:50 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Let's hope they are a bit more wise in managing the wildfires in the
>>>> future than they were in the 20th century.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/14/california-fire-suppression-forests-tinderbox
>>>>
>>>> Before this unprecedented era of mega-blazes on the US west coast,
>>>> California’s forests had a canny, ingenious way of avoiding destructive
>>>> worst-case forest fire scenarios. By periodically removing the grasses,
>>>> shrubs and young trees – known as the forest understory – California
>>>> <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/california> avoided fires growing
>>>> to destructive intensities before the 20th century. The way this was done?
>>>> Fire.
>>>>
>>>> Every five to 15 years, groundfires would burn through the forest,
>>>> killing off the undergrowth on a regular basis, thus removing the material
>>>> that can act as tinder and kindle fires. Such groundfires were sparked by
>>>> lightning or by indigenous people who used sophisticated burning practices
>>>> to facilitate crop growing and hunting. Because the fires occurred
>>>> frequently, the understory rarely had time to build up enough combustible
>>>> material for the fires to reach the canopies of the mature trees – which is
>>>> what causes the large, devastating fires we are seeing now. As a result,
>>>> overstory trees might get wounded by the groundfires, but they would rarely
>>>> get killed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 10:22, Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Due to climate change there will be more and more wildfires in
>>>> California, Arizona and New Mexico in the coming years. Drones could help
>>>> to detect wildfires early.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/sensors/remote-sensing/drones-sensors-wildfire-detection
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -J.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>>>> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>>>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>>>
>>>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>>>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>>>
>>>> twitter: @merle110
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>>> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>>
>>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>> twitter: @merle110
>>>
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