Los Angeles is burning and the East Coast and Midwest have been walloped by cold and snow. [emphasis, links added]
Naturally, the global warming alarmists screech and honk about human reliance on fossil fuels. It is a gross and irresponsible assumption.
It never takes long for the foolish to break out and Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders didn’t disappoint on Wednesday when he tweeted:
“80,000 people told to evacuate. Blazes 0% contained. Eight months since the area has seen rain. The scale of damage and loss is unimaginable. Climate change is real, not a ‘hoax.’ Donald Trump must treat this like the existential crisis it is.”
Bernie Sanders takes heat for blaming California wildfires on climate change: ‘Global warming ate my homework’ https://t.co/BvjFzZ1CVR
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 10, 2025
Unfortunately, he speaks for the many who are uninformed and naive, as well as those who want to use the man-made global warming narrative as a means to fundamentally change this country – and the West – into a political society run by leftists who, to borrow an applicable phrase, have difficulty resisting their authoritarian impulses.
Overshadowed by the tragic Los Angeles fires is the Arctic blast that dropped temperatures and snow in much of the country. This too, is man’s fault. But then when it doesn’t snow, well, man is to blame for that, as well.
As we have been doing regarding global warming for about three decades, allow us to offer some facts that don’t scream as loudly but are facts nonetheless:
- While “there’s a growing tendency to tie every fire, flood, or storm to climate change,” says meteorologist and climate researcher Anthony Watts, “a closer look at history, meteorology, and land management reveals that these claims are often oversimplified by low-information journalists, and fail to address more immediate, actionable causes.” Watts goes on to cover California wildfire history, explains why weather rather than climate is a factor and discusses the impacts of policy mistakes, so read the entire piece.
- Tony Heller helpfully points out that “Pacific Palisades was largely destroyed by fires in 1938 and 1961.” Yet we’re supposed to believe that our oil and gas needs set California on fire this time.
- Today’s Los Angeles wildfires are, of course, “an avoidable tragedy.” “The most common causes of recent wildfires in the Golden State have been human activities (including arson) and poorly maintained power lines,” says Jonathan Lesser. We would add that the latter is a function of misapplied resources – rather than use funds to harden their equipment against fires, they are instead diverted to green energy projects.
- Claims that wildfires have increased are false. While there are year-to-year variations nationally, the numbers are virtually the same as they were 40 years ago. It could be argued that acres burned have increased, but again, the totals change every year and there are numerous weather and firefighting variables that determine how much is destroyed, none of them caused by fossil fuel consumption.
- In California, wildfires have fallen sharply since the late 1980s, from nearly 14,000 a year to about 7,000. That is, the number of fires and acreage burnt have declined over the last 100 years, a time, we’re told, that the temperature has steadily risen. So there is no cause and effect. If you believe wildfires are a function of global warming, you’re mistaken.
- How about the latest explanation, climate change-driven “weather whiplash?” As a recent piece in Grist explains, “Exceptionally wet winters drove a boom of grasses and shrubs that a record hot summer dried into the fuel now powering California’s wildfires.” But that “pattern” is not new. It’s been going on for thousands of years. The real reasons for California’s devastating fires aren’t “weather whiplash” or any other new theory. It’s human error, repeated mistakes made by California’s clueless progressive political class.
If we have any real climate issue, it’s the political climate.
Watching Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass go stone silent after returning from a poorly-timed “official” trip to Ghana after being warned of an impending wind disaster, and then hearing California Gov. Gavin Newsom pretend he has nothing to do with this disaster and its aftermath, was instructive.
GAVIN NEWSOM REFUSES TO ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY.
1) Anderson Cooper is afraid to ask the question.
2) Newsom blames local Los Angeles democrats.pic.twitter.com/8KtMzUNHZc
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 9, 2025
California’s ultra-left progressives have made it difficult (bordering on impossible) to do even the most responsible, common-sense things like build reservoirs (so firefighters and households won’t run out of water, as they did this week in L.A.), manage overgrown fire-prone forests (by controlled burns and by cutting back tinder-dry overgrown brush), and by ending the regulatory war against insurers in California (Newsom’s insane regulations on the insurance industry has sent fire coverage premiums soaring, if homeowners can get insurance at all).
Top photo by Jessica Christian on Unsplash
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