Journalists and some researchers worry firefighters are not taking climate change seriously enough, especially as emergency crews attempt to contain raging wildfires in California and elsewhere.
Climate change is a key factor to a rash of wildfires in the U.S., E&E News noted in a report Monday before asking why firefighters refuse to take global warming into account when budgeting resources. Firefighters dismiss such concerns.
“We are not climate scientists,” Randy Eardley, chief of external affairs at the National Interagency Fire Center, told E&E News. “We talk about the effects we are seeing.” Other fire chiefs shared similar sentiments.
Talk about global warming is too riddled with political haggling between Democrats and Republicans, according to Rick Swan, director of wildland firefighting safety and response at the International Association of Fire Fighters.
“I don’t think we would get into the cause of it, because from our perspective, the long season is relevant,” Swan told reporters, noting that firefighters don’t worry about cause agents, because “The cause is irrelevant. The damage is done.”
Meanwhile, more than 1,500 firefighters have been battling a wildfire in Northern California — the so-called Carr Fire is currently burning through tens of thousands of acres across the California-Oregon border and has already destroyed thousands of structures.
Wildfires have been an ongoing problem in Northern California over the years. The Thomas Fire barreled through 273,400 acres of land in December 2017, charring forests and buildings along its path. It became 154 acres larger than the deadly Cedar Fire in San Diego in 2003.
Politicians and members of the media have tried to tie wildfires ripping across the Greek Peloponnesus in July to man-made global warming. Yet wildfires in Greece and Mediterranean Europe have declined since 1980, despite a surprisingly warm summer.
Environmental policy expert Bjorn Lomborg argued in a July 26 tweet that the area burnt by fires in Southern Europe has nearly halved in the last 26 years. Lomborg also noted that the amount of forested area in Europe has also dramatically increased in recent decades, as did development and population.
Read more at Daily Caller
All plant life converts CO2 into oxygen. Wildfires do the opposite. Where’s the protesters? You’d think they’d enlist en masse.
Proving to the facts that these Eco- Wackos tie Global-Warming to just about everything from ISIS to Burnt Toast You might want to check out BIg Green Radicals has a litle ads with some wackos opposing fracking and their the dumbists people around it also shows a bunch Enviromentalists protesting and wearing GReen PLAstic HElmets
Wouldn’t it be nice if more non-scientists (such as actors) would keep their mouths shut about something they don’t know. I applaud the firefighters for sticking to what they know and what they do.
The fires in California are showing the peculiar pattern of burning houses and toasted cars surrounded by untouched green trees and shrubs. That is not at all natural.
Skies all smokey and its not healthy it happened in my area in Siskiyou County here in Northern California last year from mid August to Mid September and it was a Lightning Caused Fire they put of Health Alerts because of the smoke in the air it came within 5 miles of Etna CA west in the Marble Mountain Wilderness it connected up with a small Wild Fire/Forests Fire and these fires are not good for Humans or Wildlife