The Situation
A few weeks ago, my parents called me and asked which possessions I would like to save. A new wildfire was less than a mile from my house and they were being told to evacuate. I didn’t know what to say, so I told them to save the cat and go. I felt worried because this was the first time a fire was so close to our house that we had to evacuate.
That fire has gone on to threaten over 16,000 structures, and it is one of dozens of fires currently burning across the west coast affecting millions of Americans. These fires have torn across the region, burning a record 3.4 million acres in California alone, which shatters the previous record of 1.9 million acres burned in California in 2018. These fires have also smothered the west with unprecedented levels of smoke. The air quality is so bad that parts of Oregon have seen visibility reduced to 50 feet, and the EPA has asked millions to stay indoors to avoid the hazardous levels of pollution. The smoke has even stretched all the way to us, creating a hazy sky with discolored sunrises and sunsets. Fires of this size have never been seen before, which raises the obvious questions: why are these fires so large, and what can be done to prevent them?
The Problem
One response to the increase in intensity has been to blame it on forest management. Historically, low-intensity fires would move through forests every few decades, burning up debris and creating space for new plants to prosper. However, as people have settled forested areas, any and all fires have been extinguished in their infancy to prevent them from growing and destroying property. This has resulted in forests that are unnaturally dense and primed to be the perfect kindling for extremely intense fires. Government agencies have tried to conduct prescribed burns to decrease the density, but it has proven difficult to achieve at scale. It has also been harder to achieve as warmer and dryer conditions create more dead brush and decrease the portion of the year during which controlled burns can be conducted safely. Although increased forest maintenance is integral to fire mitigation, greater warming and drying of the planet due to climate change has greatly increased fire-season duration and fuel aridity, creating situations where fires burn with record-breaking force and volatility.
Fire activity is greatly increasing, but climate change has remained a buzzword in the political world. Some argue that it is not anthropogenic–that it’s a natural phenomenon that humans aren’t the cause of. There are people who believe it is a hoax to give the government greater power, or that there is no scientific consensus.
However, framing this issue as a debate is a mistake, as well over 200 worldwide scientific organizations agree on climate change, and for decades political leaders opposed to climate change have known that framing this conversation as a debate would serve their interests. The website skepticalscience.com is an excellent resource that analyzes the various arguments countering climate change (i.e. climate’s changed before, it’s the sun, it’s not bad, there’s no consensus) and presents a multitude of facts and resources in response. I highly recommend everyone explore the website. It explains how in short, as humans have put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, more heat has been trapped, and the world has warmed. Warmer temperatures increase the probability that fires will burn with greater intensity. They also melt snow earlier in the year, leading to drier plants later on that can act as kindling. More droughts, unpredictable rain patterns, and insect outbreaks that fill forests with dead trees are also connected to climate change—and they all increase the likelihood and intensity of wildfires. Climate change is a problem that will only get worse and result in more extreme conditions unless we act now.
The Solution
So what can we do to combat climate change and prevent future fires of this scale? The easiest course of action is to vote this fall. President Trump has repeatedly disputed the facts presented by climate scientists, and he has rolled back more than 150 different environmental measures. His failure to act and his consistent refusal of science will not only cost America billions of dollars, it will also cost us hundreds of thousands of lives. These failures have prompted certain groups to join the political debate. This month the Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in America, for the first time in its 175 year history endorsed a presidential candidate because of Trump’s refusal to accept both evidence and science regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. The facts have all been laid in front of us, and now we must decide what kind of world we want to leave for ours and future generations.
Thankfully, my family is fine thanks to the braveness of the firefighters and the grace of God. The fire is no longer threatening my home, but it is threatening Camp Cedar Falls (the local SDA camp). However, not all families will be fine if we refuse to vote for those who will not stop our country from literally burning. I believe it is our duty to stop “debating” climate change. We must instead vote those who deny climate change out of office, or the situation will only worsen.
Works Cited
2018 Incident Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/#:~:text=The%202018%20wildfire%20season%20was,recorded%20in%20a%20fire%20season.
California Statewide Fire Summary. (2020, September 21). Retrieved from: https://www.fire.ca.gov/daily-wildfire-report/
El Dorado Fire. (2020, September 20). Retrieved from: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/7148/56445/
Feldman, S., Lavelle, M., & Loeb, V. (2020, September 1). President Donald Trump’s Climate Record Has Been a Boon for Oil Companies, and a Threat to the Planet. Inside Climate News. Retrieved from: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31082020/candidate-profile-donald-trump-climate-change-election-2020
Infographic: Wildfires and Climate Change. (2020, September 8). Retrieved from: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/infographic-wildfires-and-climate-change
Interviews: Frank Luntz. (2007, April 24) Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/luntz.html
Jolly, W. M., Cochrane, M. A., Freeborn, P. H., Holden, Z. A., Brown, T. J., Williamson, G. J., & Bowman, D. M. J. S. (2015). Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013. Nature Communications, 6(1), 7537. doi:10.1038/ncomms8537
List of Worldwide Scientific Organizations. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html
McMillan, R. (2020, September 15). El Dorado Fire burns more than 16K acres, forces evacuations for Angelus Oaks residents. ABC7 News. Retrieved from: https://abc7.com/california-fires-el-dorado-fire-updates-angelus-oaks-gender-reveal/6423327/
Peñaloza, M. (2020, September 14). 'It's A Bit Surreal': Oregon's Air Quality Suffers As Fires Complicate COVID-19 Fight. NPR. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/14/912701172/its-a-bit-surreal-oregon-fights-smoke-from-record-wildfires-during-a-pandemic
The Economic Case for Climate Action in the United States. (2017, September). Retrieved from: https://feu-us.org/case-for-climate-action-us/
The Editors. (2020, September 15). Scientific American Endorses Donald Trump. Scientific American, 323(4), 12-13.
The Impact of Global Warming on Human Fatality Rates. (2009, June 17). Retrieved from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-and-health/
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.