California’s Burning. What’s the Link to Climate Change?

Answering your denialist friends

Dark orange skies above San Francisco, at 10am on Sept. 9 2020
Dark orange skies above San Francisco, at 10am on Sept. 9 2020. Image by Maya Kuttan.

It’s a hard day to work in California, what with all the burning.  Those closest to the fires and smoke are evacuating (or being rescued), or are among the brave men and women fighting in inferno-like conditions to increase fire containment.  But even those of us far away and physically safe from the fires are distracted and scared.  The skies won’t let us forget what’s happening all around.  We’re posting photos, checking air quality monitors, texting friends, and looking out our windows.  Just today, I’ve heard comparisons to the landscape of Venus; to the skies of Tatooine; to 9/11.  (I’m relatively lucky in LA, compared to my Bay Area and NorCal colleagues; but even from my house, the nighttime moon has looked deeply orange and the daytime skies are a ghostly pink caramel.)

We’re posting to social media, too, in part to document for ourselves and posterity the extraordinary things we’re seeing, and in part to get the rest of country to understand, just a little, what it’s like here right now.   Inevitably, we’re being questioned about the link between California fire risks and climate change.  That link is well established: Climate change is making California fires worse, and it will continue to do so.   It’s not the only factor relevant to fire risk today (fire management practices and housing patterns also contribute, among others), but it’s an important one that we ignore–or deny–at our literal peril.

What’s some of the best recent evidence of this link?  I was glad to hear from a colleague at UCLA, the climate scientist Daniel Swain, about what he considers to be some of the best recent research and writing on this question.  (If you’re not following Daniel on Twitter, at @Weather_West, you should be.  His photos and analyses are extraordinary.)  I’m sharing some of the resources  he pointed me to, in case these are helpful to you as well.

Be safe out there, everyone.

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About Cara

Cara Horowitz is the co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law. The Emmett Institute was founded as the f…

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About Cara

Cara Horowitz is the co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law. The Emmett Institute was founded as the f…

READ more

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