Remember when media outlets like BBC were casting shade on President Donald Trump for placing the blame for the out-of-control West Coast wildfires on forest mismanagement?
It looks like NBC News just admitted that the president may have been right about forest mismanagement. Yet, the outlet still tried to pin some of the blame on climate change.
NBC News published a story admitting that “Decades of mismanagement led to choked forests — now it’s time to clear them out, fire experts say.”
NBC News immediately tried to throw the eco-spin on their own admission: “as climate change continues to fuel dry conditions in the American West, many experts say it’s long past time to shift the focus back to managing healthy forests that can better withstand fire and add to a more sustainable future.”
But according to Forbes Magazine September 13, “California’s leading forest scientists say that fire suppression and the accumulation of wood fuel, not climate change, are what’s made California’s fires more intense.” [Emphasis added.]
Institute for Energy Research Senior Economist David Kreutzer wrote in September, “Blaming wildfires on climate has some data problems, too. NASA satellites observed a 25 percent reduction in burned area worldwide between 2013 and 2019. Assessment of a longer U.S. record fails to support the global-warming-equals-more-fires story.”
Still, NBC News did concede that “[f]or decades, federal, state and local agencies have prioritized fire suppression over prevention.”
In California specifically, “the state’s policy to stop fires as soon as they ignite resulted in a backlog of trees in forests now choked with brush and other dry fuels.” [Emphasis added.]
NBC cited former Angeles National Forest supervisor Mike Rogers, who said: “‘We have more large trees per acre than we’ve ever had because they have continued to grow, and underneath these large trees are young shrubs that fuel fires in the crown of the trees … When a fire starts in there, it’s unstoppable.’”
But, NBC News still pushed climate change as being one of the culprits behind the backlog of trees: “Drought, climate change and bark-beetle infestations have all contributed to the backlog of trees, leaving some experts to push for creative solutions to managing California’s crowded forests.” [Emphasis added.]
Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer also wrote in November 2019 that, “When you add the increasing population, risky forest management practices, and lack of maintenance of power lines, it should be little wonder that wildfire activity there has increased.”
On the question of climate change, Spencer wrote: “I think it is a mistake to blame increased wildfire activity on ‘climate change’ when we don’t even know if there has been a change in the meteorological events most associated with major California wildfires: the intrusion of cool Canadian high-pressure areas into the U.S. Southwest.”
Pushing climate change even when the news undercuts that leftist narrative is par for the course for the liberal media.
When CNN published a story earlier this year on how the Glacier National Park had removed signs predicting its glaciers would “be gone” by 2020, it immediately tried to qualify its own reporting by touting man-made warming in a sub-section headlined: “Humans are responsible, scientist says.” [Emphasis added.]
Conservatives are under attack. Contact NBC News (212- 664-6192) and demand they stop pushing climate change propaganda when reporting on the West Coast wildfires.
Read more at NewsBusters
Most attributions of destructive events to climate change are facilitated by confirmation bias as they have for time immemorial.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/21/climate-change-and-religion/
In the specific case of California the the difference in wildfire destruction between government managed forests and privately owned forests cannot be explained ina purely climate change approach. Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/15/privately-owned-forests-in-california/
Even with the truth the Lying Peacock is still lying blaming Global Warming/Climate Change
Good for NBC for starting to divest themselves of the delusion that CO2 drives the climate. California has been naturally burning itself to the ground for thousands of years. Why? Because the predominant winds at Californian latitudes blow offshore. This sucks the already dry air from the Great Plains, squeezes the last drops of moisture as the air rises over the mountains, and dries California’s mismanaged natural tinderbox to the point where any natural or man-made spark will ignite a fire. All one has to do to discover the one hundred year trend of decreasing wildfires is to look at the records of the US Bureau of Census. Good forest management has been reducing the number of wildfires for a hundred years. More CO2 has had a far more profound effect on greening the environment than it has had on climate. Forests are up to 30% thicker due to the last few decades of a steadily increasing life essential CO2. Naturally warming temperatures have also contributed to the naturally increasing forest mass. All California can do in the face of these natural conditions is manage the forest better for fire safety. Unfortunately for the last couple of governors administrations, California has been allowing her forests to be managed very poorly with disastrous consequences. After a hundred years of improvements, the electorate has voted for fire safety failure. Prudent maintenance of power line right of ways – can’t do that – “the environment”. Prudent logging to remove a build up of overgrown undergrowth – can’t do that – “the environment”. Prudent grazing to allow cattle to return the overgrown undergrowth to the soil where it is no threat – can’t do that – “the environment”. Next time you see television dramatize wildfires as unprecedented and from “climate change”, remember how it has happened. Rather than voting for Moonbeams and Nancy Pelosi’s relatives.