Wildfires and Climate Change Part 2
- ywacc.ngo
- Sep 23, 2020
- 2 min read
Hi everyone! We hope you all are doing well, and I’m glad to be back posting after our short hiatus. I wasn’t exactly sure what to write about in this week’s post because it constantly feels like there is something new going on in the world, but I decided to focus on the wildfires raging the West Coast of the United States. I already published a post dedicated to this topic a couple of weeks ago, when the fires first started, but since there’s not much sign of stopping yet, I decided that we must still spread awareness on this cause.
True or False? There are less wildfires now than during the earlier parts of the century. The answer? Well, that’s where it gets tricky. Technically the answer is true; there are less fires now than there were in the 1900s. And that’s the response that many individuals who dismiss the threat of climate change claim. The real answer is much more complex and nuanced. YEs, there are less fires now than before BUT, the wildfires in present society burn larger areas and are harder to extinguish. The culprit behind this? You guessed it- climate change.
It’s also important to note that our technology is much better than it was in the 1980s, 1990s, and even the early 2000s. What this means is that environmental scientists didn’t always have the necessary tools to produce the most precise and accurate measurements. Randy Earldley, a spokesperson of the National Interagency Fire Center explains, “I wouldn’t put any stock in those numbers. To try and compare any of the more modern data to that earlier data is not accurate or appropriate, because we didn’t have a good way to measure [earlier data]. Back then we didn’t have a reliable reporting system; for all I know those came from a variety of different sources that often double-counted figures. When you look at some of those years that add up to 60 or 70 million acres burned a lot of those acres have to be double counted two or three times. We didn’t have a system to estimate the area burned until 1960, but it was really refined in 1983” (CarbonBrief, 2018). We get frustrated when our phones aren’t up to date with the latest iOS update, but skeptics can use technology from 100 years ago to justify climate change? Excuses, excuses. Science is real, and if everyone doesn't start believing in it soon our planet might be too late to save.
Sources and Helpful Links:
Comments