The recent Marshall fire in Boulder, Colorado, and neighboring communities was the most destructive in Colorado history, moving quickly and relentlessly, destroying more than 1,000 homes, leaving an apocalyptic level of destruction in its wake. Nature can be vicious, oblivious to human activities or desires.
A confluence of weather events including high winds and lack of recent precipitation combined to fan the flames of this inferno.
The fire was quickly and predictably blamed on global warming, now called climate change, although a changing climate, including moisture and drought, is nothing new to Colorado and has been occurring long before gas-guzzling SUVs and air conditioners were a staple of American life.
Don’t tell the corporate media, however. This is how they reported on the Boulder wildfires.
From NBC, “How climate change primed Colorado for a rare December wildfire.” The Washington Post agreed, “How extreme climate conditions fueled unprecedented Colorado fire.”
An echo from Colorado Public Radio, “Why a fire scientist sees climate fingerprints on the suburban Boulder County fires.” And from Axios, “Climate changes linked to Colorado’s fire disaster.”
Colorado was once underwater. Not recently, but during both the Paleozoic and Cretaceous periods of the Earth’s history. Colorado was home to rainforests and 70-foot-long sea creatures called plesiosaurs.
Somehow, long before human activity, the climate changed, and Colorado went from warm beachfront to the high desert and cold winter temperatures.
Chicago was once covered by a mile-thick ice sheet. The Laurentide Ice sheet covered most of Canada and a large chunk of the northern United States.
This was between 20,000 and 95,000 years ago, and then the climate changed, with enough global warming to melt the ice sheet.
This all occurred long before there was any significant human activity. Something else changed the climate, making it colder, then warmer.
A changing climate is a staple of Planet Earth, with both long and short temperature cycles, influenced by solar activity, ocean currents, and other factors poorly understood and impossible for man to control.
Don’t take my word for it. The IPCC confirms, “The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” But celebrity climatologists think they know better.
Thoughtful discussion regarding climate change would be facilitated by Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, or Prince Charles explaining what happened to the mile-thick sheet ice over Chicago and Canada.
Once sitting over current Michigan Avenue and Oak Street Beach, this ice somehow melted. How did that happen? What caused the climate change that melted millions of cubic miles of ice and raised the sea levels?
There was no human activity [then], other than a few small fires warming the caves of early man. Yet the climate changed and those who push man-made climate change fail to offer any explanation or reconciliation of this “inconvenient truth.”
Another question would be what is considered “normal temperature”? Take Chicago, for example. Is the temperature considered “normal” today, a year ago today, or 50,000 years ago today when the Windy City had no wind, instead a mile of ice covering Lakeshore Drive?
Without defining “normal,” how can we know if the temperature is too warm or too cold? Normal blood pressure is defined, making it easy to know if it is too high or too low. Can we say the same about temperature?
Climate change is a staple of Earth and will continue to occur, as it always has and always will. To pretend otherwise is foolish and a mockery of science.
Are wildfires in Boulder a new phenomenon or an unfortunate but natural part of history? The Boulder County website provides an answer.
Wildfires have always been a natural occurrence in Boulder County, but various land management practices, including fire suppression, over the last 100 years have resulted in forests with vegetation densities 10 to 100 times their natural state.
Combine this with factors such as steep terrain, drought, high summertime temperatures, seasonal high winds, and an increased human presence in the form of development and recreational use, and the result is an environment prone to extreme wildfire behavior.
Note that wildfires are not new, perhaps only worse recently in their severity. What were wildfires like 500 or 5,000 years ago? Was anyone around to take photos and report on them?
While the climate has changed, many times in fact, what has also changed is vegetation and population density. Some years are wetter, others drier. Can the Boulder City Council control that? Will more rules and regulations change the weather?
There is little discussion over environmental activism, leading to a reluctance to cut and remove trees, and builders placing more homes closer together, creating a setup not only for fires but for far more damage when they do occur.
When Boulder was sparsely or not populated years and centuries ago, fires still occurred but no one was around to record them.
They burnt themselves out and the fires helped manage forests by giving them a necessary haircut of sorts, removing dead trees, branches, and underbrush that now acts as kindling and turns a small brush fire into a raging inferno.
Florida has also experienced an analogous phenomenon. Once nothing but swampland, ferocious hurricanes battered the Florida peninsula routinely, bringing needed rain to the interior of the state, rejuvenating the swamps and wildlife. Destruction was not an issue when Florida was one large swamp.
The same can be said for much of the Gulf coast. Far more ferocious hurricanes hit New Orleans long before Bourbon Street and the French Quarter existed, with nothing to damage other than trees and wildlife in the storm’s path.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution notes regarding another hurricane-prone locale:
Intense hurricanes, possibly more powerful than any storms New England has experienced in recorded history, frequently pounded the region during the first millennium, from the peak of the Roman Empire into the height of the Middle Ages, according to a new study.
It wasn’t until coastal America was populated with homes, condos, and high-rise apartments, that hurricanes caused human and property damage measured first in the millions, now in the billions of dollars of damage.
Similarly, mountain homes in Colorado and Northern California, surrounded by dead trees and debris, are sitting in a tinder box ready to ignite, independent of whatever the climate happens to be doing at the time.
It’s not Texans driving big pick-up trucks or Georgia barbeques causing mismanaged Colorado forests to burn like an inferno once ignited.
This is not to dismiss or mitigate the damage of the recent Boulder wildfires, which is beyond tragic for the thousand homeowners suddenly displaced, losing their possessions and memories, but to add another perspective.
Simply blaming the ever-changing climate, something which we cannot control, ignores measures that we can take, including forest management and housing density.
Governments will waste taxpayer dollars on so-called solutions that accomplish nothing but virtue-signaling.
Blaming climate change incessantly in a predictable and hackneyed fashion becomes the boy who cried wolf.
Those who ask questions are labeled as “deniers,” to be thrown in jail, according to one of the self-anointed environmental smart set, “science guy,” now prison warden, Bill Nye.
This response is similar to governmental COVID policy, ill-thought-out solutions that are anything but, many creating their own problems. How about a bit more science, and less hot air and media gaslighting?
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