Regarding that ‘climate change’ about which John Kerry-Heinz says we’re all supposed to be so worried about. Well, I’m sure many have been keeping track of all the dire predictions that we’ve heard over the years, everything from bigger and more powerful superstorms, to melting polar ice caps to a growing number of wildfires. But none of the many predictions have ever come to amount to anything. There’s more polar ice today than ever before, fewer storms, either super or otherwise, than ever before, and now comes news that we seem to be in the midst of a below-average wildfire season. And while that may be good news for those in wildfire country, it burns a rather sizeable hole in the environmentalist narrative on ‘climate change.’
Now granted, summer is far from being officially over, so I suppose that maybe we shouldn’t be celebrating just yet. And while there are fires still burning in California and Oregon, on the whole it has been a relatively mild year in terms of both the number of wildfires and the number of acres burned. And that would be according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The agency reports that 2.77 million acres have burned this year as of Sept. 5, a decline from the 3.9 million acres that had burned by the same date in 2013 and less than half the 10-year average of 6.2 million acres. The number of fires, 38,451, is also down considerably from the 10-year average of 56,278.
That reduction becomes all the more impressive when you stop to consider the fact that the Pacific Northwest was hit with an above-average wildfire season. In July Washington suffered the most destructive fire in its history, the Carlton Complex Fire, which burned 252,000 acres and destroyed 300 homes in the state’s north-central region. And even with that, so far the 2014 wildfire season is on pace to be the second-least destructive in the last decade, which, you would think, would put a damper on the campaign to connect elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to an increase in extreme weather events, including wildfires. But that’s likely to matter very little to the ‘climate change’ zealots on the left.
Zealot’s such as those found right there in the White House. Specifically Barry’s science adviser, John Holdren, who said in a recently released video on the White House website that climate change "has been making the fire season in the United States longer and, on average, more intense." In the same video he said, "The National Climate Assessment released in May tells us, consistent with earlier studies, that longer, drier summers are expected to continue to increase the frequency and the intensity of large wildfires in the United States." Adding, "In the Western United States, the average annual area burned by large wildfires has increased several fold in recent decades. The evidence is strong that climate change is responsible, at least in part, for this increase."
But Paul Knappenberger, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the free market Cato Institute, argued that this year’s wildfire season comes as further evidence that Mr. Holdren and others have drastically overstated the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on weather conditions. But then we all know that those on the left have been overstating things for decades. Mr. Knappenberger went on to say, "When these guys are making these predictions — ‘Wildfires are going to get worse’ — and then you have a wildfire season which is way below normal, it’s ripe for coming back to them and saying, ‘See? Why are you making these crazy predictions? It’s not going to happen like that all the time.’"
He went on to also note that the 2013 and 2014 hurricane seasons have also been relatively uneventful, even though those in the climate change movement have forecast that storms will intensify as wind speeds and rainfall associated with hurricanes and tropical storms increase due to global warming. He said, "It was a very inactive year last year and, frankly, the science is just not there to support making definitive statements about how hurricanes or how cold outbreaks are going to change in the future." Going on to say, "To push those things as though they’re known, proven facts is just doing an injustice to the science." But, as we also know, those on the left only care about science when it ‘supports’ their cockamamie theories such as climate change.
And as expected, Jamie Henn, spokesman for some group that calls itself 350.org, and bills itself as some sort of an advocacy group "building a global climate movement," declined to comment on this year’s unusually mild wildfire season. Instead he offered up some resources regarding what he called the connection between wildfires and global warming, including some silly ‘fact sheet’ from Climate Nexus. This ‘fact’ sheet points out, "These wildfires are yet another indication that climate change has arrived, and the fire threat is only projected to get worse in the future. Unless we cut carbon pollution, extreme weather events like this will become more frequent in the future." Like I said, they’ve been making these same claims for decades.
And then we have Coleen Decker, who is the NIFC assistant program manager for predictive services in Boise. Ms. Decker has attributed this year’s below-average wildfire activity to a combination of factors, starting with the virtual absence of wildfires in the Southeast as a result of cool temperatures and high moisture during the January-to-April fire season. Wildfires were also down in the Southwest. She also said there are too many variables involved in wildfire seasons to offer conclusions on how climate change may be contributing. Ms. Decker said, "The factors are weather, terrain and fuel, and it’s hard to filter out the noise and decide what’s been attributed to each factor."
And the fact that Washington, Oregon and Northern California have been hit pretty hard by wildfires this year would seem to suggest that there are likely other factors which can be said to be playing a much bigger role than are hotter temperatures. I say that because, as it turns out, it’s actually been getting cooler in the Pacific Northwest. At least that’s what Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said. He says that temperatures in this region of the country peaked around 2007 and then proceed to steadily fall until 2013, when they ticked up slightly, at least according to figures obtained from the National Climatic Data Center.
Mr. Ebell said, "The problem with wildfires is not climate change. For example, the number of big catastrophic fires has gone up in the Northwest, and yet the Northwest is in a cooling cycle." He also went on to say, "The problem with the Western forests is there’s just far too much fuel that’s been built up. Under pressure from the environmental movement, we have stopped logging in our national forests." So here we have what can be said to be the perfect example of something that can actually be attributed to the interference of man, just not in a way that environmentlist wackos are likely to agree with. The fact is that it’s they who are to blame for what they continue to claim is a direct result of ‘climate change’.
And exhibit A in proving just that would be the 1990 decision to list as threatened the Northern spotted owl has resulted in a huge reduction in the amount of timber being cut in the Pacific Northwest national forests. Timber production has dropped from 12 billion board feet to 2 billion since the early 1990s, according to the Forest Service. And like Mr. Ebell says, "You can’t add 17 billion board feet of fiber every year and only cut 2 billion and not end up with these catastrophic fires." This isn’t rocket science, as I doubt there is adequate ground water to support such thick growth, which results in even more dead and/or sick trees that make perfect fuel just waiting for a spark.
Personally I couldn’t care less if I’m called a ‘climate change’ denier, because, as far as I’m concerned, that actually puts me in with some pretty good company. After all, what is it that I’m actually denying? Look, fossil fuel emissions may, in fact, have some impact on the climate, but I do not accept as fact the many baseless claims that the impact is in any way detectable or is going bring about the next great apocalypse. There is simply no proof! And I take rather strong exception to the fact that the taking of any immediate, and extremely costly, action is now urgently required to address something that is nothing more than a theory. Just because those on the left claim it exists, does not mean it does.
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