Blaming everything but climate change for wildfires

To listen to Trump and others, the disasters’ fault lies with a smelt, DEI and government space lasers.

By Lara Williams / Bloomberg Opinion

In what’s becoming a somewhat commonplace event, we’ve been inundated with apocalyptic images this week, currently emanating from Los Angeles. Wildfires are tearing through neighborhoods across the region, more than 200,000 people have been ordered to evacuate and at least 10 have died.

Once upon a time, activists and scientists alike thought that once people saw the impacts of climate change firsthand, they’d be moved to believe in the urgency of the crisis and, crucially, to act. But as with hurricanes and other extreme weather events that have come before, the California wildfires are proof that isn’t the case. Rather than baring the truth for all to see, misinformation and new flavors of climate denial are thriving in the chaos.

These blazes have been so hard to control because a rapid switch from a very wet 2023 winter to very dry conditions over the last nine months or so created the perfect fire fuel in southern California; first by encouraging grass and brush to grow, then stripping the vegetation of moisture. With strong Santa Ana winds further dehydrating the land and enabling the fires that catch to spread rapidly, the conditions were perfect for an inferno.

With extreme weather events being the culmination of a range of threats and vulnerabilities, an attribution study is needed to properly assess how much climate change played a role in these conflagrations. But there are things we already know about the link between a heating planet and wildfires.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-blaming-everything-but-climate-change-for-wildfires/