As Los Angeles fires rage, states battle over effort to make oil and gas industry accountable for climate change harms.
As Los Angeles fires rage, states battle over effort to make oil and gas industry accountable for climate change harms.
By Dana Drugmand As fires rage through southern California, the costs of extreme weather events linked to climate change are forecast to keep climbing – adding fuel to growing efforts by some US states to make the oil and gas industry liable for helping foot the bill despite looming legal challenge...
As fires rage through southern California, the costs of extreme weather events linked to climate change are forecast to keep climbing – adding fuel to growing efforts by some US states to make the oil and gas industry liable for helping foot the bill despite looming legal challenges.
On a level of discussion between “the earth is flat” to “you can pollute as long as you pay for it”, we’re still very far from stopping the madness.
Putting out every little forest fire in an eco system where natural fires were commonplace is the cause of these humongous fires we can't put out.
Climate change isn't the main culprit here.
"[...] attempting to suppress all wildfires necessarily means that fires will burn with more severe and less diverse ecological impacts, with burned area increasing at faster rates than expected from fuel accumulation or climate change. Over a human lifespan, the modeled impacts of the suppression bias exceed those from fuel accumulation or climate change alone, suggesting that suppression may exert a significant and underappreciated influence on patterns of fire globally"
We figured this out from the Yellowstone National Park fires of '88.
I was in forestry class a couple of years later and the professor lectured on it. He had been there, seen the dead wood stacked 10'-15' high. Can you fucking imagine?!
We spent decades and decades putting out every little fire and went surprised Pikachu when 800,000 acres exploded in a firestorm of biblical proportion. Have we learned nothing in 40-years?!
Given the Santa Anna winds funneling fire down the LA valleys and Hurricane Helene funneling the rain down the mountains to flood North Carolina, I'll stand pat, just a bit upland in Florida.