There are about 1500 wild fires raging in Southern California — an annual occurrence as nature clears out old, dry scrub so that new sprouts can take hold.
The danger, of course, is that a hundred years ago, there weren’t million dollar homes in the path of these fires, so residents rightly are anxious and fire fighters exhaust themselves trying to bring the blazes under control.
Also a hundred years ago, there was no theory that global warming was causing the wild fires. But that isn’t stopping Governor Jerry Brown from lecturing Republicans about the dangers of climate change.
Brown spoke with Sunday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos about the fires, most of which are in San Diego County and which appear to be more contained than earlier this week.
The governor almost immediately made mention of global warming, claiming the state’s climate “appears to be changing.”
“You say that climate change definitely is at the heart of — at least, a big part of this,” Stephanopoulos noted. “You know there’s a lot of skepticism, particularly among Republicans in Washington, about that. How do you build a consensus to adapt.”
“That’s a challenge,” Brown replied. “It is true that there is virtually no Republican who accepts the science that virtually is unanimous. I mean, there is no scientific question, there is just political denial for various reasons best known to those people who are in denial.”
“We live in a world that is not just business, it’s natural,” the governor lectured. “The natural systems. And as we send billions and billions of tons of heat-trapping gases, we get heat and we get fires and we get what we’re seeing.
“So we’ve gotta gear up,” Brown continued. “We’re going to deal with nature as we can, but humanity is on a collision course with nature, and we’ve gotta adapt to it the best way we can.”
“No scientific question”? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would beg to differ. The UN body admits it doesn’t know why there has been a 17 year pause in the rise in temps. Isn’t that a question, Jerry? They also admit that they don’t know why there’s more arctic ice this year than last, nor can they explain why the ocean level isn’t rising as fast as their models predict.
“We live in a world that is not just business, it’s natural…” That may be the most awkward, cringe inducing political attack I’ve ever read. What’s he trying to say? Republicans only care about business? Sheesh.
Perhaps the most jaw dropping statement he made is the idea that heat from global warming causes fires. If that were true, we’d all be crispy critters. The theory is that rainfall patterns will be disrupted by climate change and areas that were previously wet would suffer droughts and places that were dry would experience flooding.
Well, as mentioned at the outset, these wild fires are pretty much of an annual occurrence, although for reasons unrelated to climate, they are getting worse. That’s because the wildfires are indeed, a man made phenomenon — but not due to man made global warming.
Those hillsides and ravines that are burning have been made tinder dry by soil erosion due to over building. Just 7 years ago, scientists dismissed global warming as a cause of the fires:
In a study published last year in the journal Science, researchers looking at Western federal forests found nearly seven times more land burned from 1987 to 2003 than in the previous 17 years.
The analysis mainly attributed this to a 1.5-degree rise in average spring and summer temperatures. With spring arriving earlier and snow melting faster, the forests dried out sooner, extending the average fire season by more than two months.
The study, however, found Southern California was different from the rest of the West, with no increase in the frequency of fire as temperatures rose.
“In Southern California, it’s hot and dry much of the year,” said Anthony Westerling, a climate scientist at UC Merced and the study’s lead author. In other words, Southern California was already perfect for fire.
“That is a fire-prone environment regardless of whether we are in a climate-change scenario,” said Tom Wordell, a wildfire analyst at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. “I don’t want to be callous, because many people are homeless and suffering, but if you live in a snake pit, you’re going to get bit.”
A far cry from Governor Moonbeam’s dire warnings of catastrophe.
It appears that a concerted effort is underway by global warming hysterics to push a climate change legislative and regulatory agenda. The White House releasing a big climate change study designed to scare the pants off Americans. The EPA ready to publish new CO2 regs next month. Every tornado, every cyclone, every excess raindrop, every unusual temperature change — warmer or cooler, it doesn’t matter which — brings out the long faces and dire predictions from the cultists.
Does anyone take them seriously anymore?
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