wildfires
A Continent on Fire Ignores Climate Change
Conditions in Australia keep getting worse. The government offers platitudes.
Australia is remarkably exposed to climate change and remarkably unwilling to do much about it. Conditions keep getting worse. Yet climate policy in Australia has been treading water or backpedalling for years, as I discussed in an earlier post. Let’s start with the temperature. The Guardian reports that in the year up to July 2019, …
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CONTINUE READINGFrom the Wildfire Files
Wildfires are getting worse and worse. Here’s what we know about the situation.
I don’t normally do this, but given the terrible wildfires now hitting the state, I thought it was worth doing a reprise of some posts on the subject from earlier this summer. Of course, there’s more information in the original posts, if you want to click over to them. Spreading Like Wildfire In 2017, wildfires …
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CONTINUE READINGWildfires: Managing the Risks
How can we limit the spread of wildfires and save people and property?
Wildfires are already a serious problem, and climate change will only make the problem worse, as I’ve discussed in my two prior posts. Reducing carbon emissions can help keep the problem from growing, but we need to deal with the risks we’re already facing. That is going to require a portfolio of risk management strategies. We …
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CONTINUE READINGBurning in the Heat
Wildfires were bad enough already. Climate change is making them worse.
Fires have been unusually severe lately. According to one scientist, “’[I]n the late 20th and early 21st century, with these hot droughts, fires are ripping now with a severity and ferocity that’s unprecedented,’ says Tom Swetnam. . . . A fire in the Jemez Mountains Swetnam studies burned 40,000 acres in 12 hours, a ‘horizontal …
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CONTINUE READINGSpreading Like Wildfire
They don’t get as much attention as floods or earthquakes, but wildfires are deadly serious.
This is the first of a three-part series about wildfires. Massive wildfires are a growing problem, posing risks to people and the environment. Considering that my house is located only a few miles from the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, which killed 25 people, destroyed 2800 homes, and caused $1.8 billion in damage, this is an …
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CONTINUE READINGOnly You
Happy birthday to the federal government’s most recognizable environmental advocate
The U.S. Forest Service is a key actor in a lot of environmental and land use policy decisions. It oversees the national forests and handles various research and conservation efforts. The Service is a common defendant in environmental suits, often as a result of its substantial permitting duties. But what USFS is best known for …
CONTINUE READINGWildfires Continue
The California wildfires are still going strong, with serious environmental consequences. As the L.A. Times reports, the effects on wildlife are devastating: Federal wildlife authorities said biologists and environmental rehabilitation specialists were expected to begin inspecting the damage and developing recovery strategies in the near future. Nearly every firefighter had a heartbreaking story to tell …
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