Al Gore links severe weather to ‘unabated climate crisis,’ draws pushback

DENVER — A burst of wild September weather brought a “climate crisis” warning Tuesday from Al Gore, as Californians struggled with heat and wildfires, Atlantic storm-trackers raced through the alphabet and Coloradans traded their flip-flops for snow boots.

California firefighters fought to contain 23 active fires that charred a record 2.3 million acres as the state headed into the peak of its fire season, fueled by a heatwave that saw the Los Angeles County town of Woodland Hills set a record Sunday at 121 degrees.

“It reached a record high of 121 degrees F in LA county over the weekend,” Mr. Gore tweeted Tuesday. “Extreme heat is fueling a longer, more intense, and more destructive wildfire season in CA. This is what an unabated climate crisis looks like.”

Not so fast, says James Taylor, president of the free-market Heartland Institute, who pointed to National Interagency Fire Center data showing that the U.S. acreage burned by wildfires was four times higher in the early 1930s.

“There’s a reason why this is called wildfire season, just as there’s a reason why this is called hurricane season, because these are events that have always occurred,” Mr. Taylor said. “Before there were coal-fired plants and SUVs, we had wildfires.”

More than 14,000 firefighters were battling 23 active blazes Tuesday, including three of the four largest fires in state history, all in the greater San Francisco Bay Area: the SCU Lightning Complex, the LNU Lightning Complex and the August Complex, each of which had charred more than 350,000 acres.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that about 118,000 acres had been burned by this time in 2019, versus 2.3 million acres in 2020, and blamed it on global warming, tweeting “CLIMATE. CHANGE. IS. REAL.”

As for the skeptics, Mr. Newsom said Tuesday at a press conference that “I quite literally have no patience for climate-change deniers,” adding that that perspective was “completely inconsistent, that point of view, with the reality on the ground.”

IntelliWeather meteorologist Anthony Watts said the heat was due to “compression heating of downslope winds called Foehn winds,” also known as the Santa Ana Winds.

John Lindsey, chief meteorologist for Pacific Gas & Electric, also pointed to compression heating, adding that “I didn’t think it was possible in San Luis Obispo.”

“While this weather event has created a crisis for heat and fire hazard, it has absolutely nothing to do with climate, and Al Gore is simply scaremongering for the benefit of his climate crusade,” said Mr. Watts, who runs the skeptical Watts Up With That website.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano accused Mr. Gore of “unabated climate ambulance chasing.”

“Wildfires, even in California, are not historically high, and cherry-picking one city’s record high temperature is not scientific,” said Mr. Morano, whose “Climate Hustle 2” film is scheduled for release Sept. 24.

The 2019 California wildfire season ultimately consumed 4.2 million acres, versus 4.7 million acres so far in 2020, according to National Interagency Fire Center figures. But critics for years have attributed the state’s devastating recent wildfires on poor forest management, driven by hands-off environmental policies and lawsuits.