Links tagged “wildfires”

A quick examination of the map for nearly every major forest fire to make national headlines will reveal the deadly blazes either start or grow on federally mismanaged land. “I don’t think you can call it a coincidence,” said Jonathan Wood, the vice president of policy and law at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), adding that two-thirds of fires start on federal property. “If it were one, maybe it would be a coincidence, but when you’ve got a series, you’ve got a trend.” Wood told The Federalist the outbreak of current forest fires was entirely predictable, raising alarm in a report published in April that the U.S. Forest Service confronted a backlog of 63 million acres with a “high risk or very high risk of wildfire” and another 80 million acres in need of restoration.

ABC News: For Meg Keene, climate change is something that not only needs to be addressed but is also very difficult to cope with personally. "As someone with anxiety, I kind of try not to think too much about the future with regards to climate change, because it's so terrifying," Keene, 41, said. ... Keene says she has been struggling with anxiety since she was a kid and for her, talking about the uncertain and changing weather patterns is triggering. "I find it crippling with my anxiety and depression, but mostly with my anxiety," Keene told ABC News.

Some experts say that the mere discussion of climate change can contribute to that anxiety. "Climate change can affect mental health by just increasing people's stress and worry about the issue, the more they hear about it," said Dr. Susan Clayton, a professor in psychology and environmental studies in The College of Wooster, in Ohio. "It's been described as an existential threat, something that really challenges the way we think about the world. And I think it has the potential to really erode our sense of security," Clayton added.

Experts analysed soot levels in 14 ice cores from Antarctica dating back to 1750

They found that pre-industrial soot levels were four times higher than expected

Soot has an atmospheric cooling effect, in opposition to greenhouse gases

Climate models must account for both to understand past temperature changes 

That soot levels were higher that thought means that modelling is likely off

While the planet is still warming, it is likely not doing so slower than we thought

Meteorologist Anthony Watts: The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been the keeper of U.S. wildfire data for decades, tracking both the number of wildfires and acreage burned all the way back to 1926. However, after making that entire dataset public for decades, now, in a blatant act of cherry picking, NIFC “disappeared” a portion of it, and only show data from 1983. ...Why would they do this you ask? The answer is simple; data prior to 1983 shows that U.S. wildfires were far worse both in frequency and total acreage burned. By disappearing all data prior to 1983, which just happens to be the lowest point in the dataset, now all of the sudden we get a positive slope of worsening wildfire aligning with increased global temperature, which is perfect for claiming “climate change is making wildfire worse”. See figure 1 below for a before and after comparison of what the data looks like when you plot it. ...Clearly, wildfires were far worse in the past, and clearly, now the data tells an entirely different story when showing only data post-1983. The new story told by the sanitized data is in alignment with the irrational screeching of climate alarmists that “wildfires are driven by climate change”.

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Also see: Biden Administration Erasing Climate History & Biden Ministry of Truth

Dr. Steven Koonin was the undersecretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy in the Obama administration.

Koonin: "Both research literature and government reports state clearly that heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years. When I tell people this, most are incredulous. Some gasp. And some get downright hostile." ... 

"Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century.

Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago.

The global area burned by wildfires has declined more than 25 percent since 2003 and 2020 was one of the lowest years on record."