Bad government, not climate change, is to blame for California’s devastating wildfires

[ad_1]

this fire season again in California and again, returning like the sunrise, politicians blame the scale of the fires on climate change. A representative example is from Senator Bernie Sanders’ X account, where he posted:

“…There has been no rain in the area for eight months.

The scale of damage and loss is unimaginable.

Climate change is real, not a “hoax”.

Donald Trump should treat this as an existential crisis.”

Of course, the good senator from Vermont lives in a place with hot, humid summers and cold winters, with peak rainfall in June and July.

SECOND FIRE IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA FIREFIGHTERS BATTLE THE PALISADE HELL

Southern California The climate is very different from that of Vermont – which is why, until the last years of left-wing mismanagement, Americans moved to California in droves. The climate of Los Angeles is described as “Mediterranean”, meaning it has low humidity and little rainfall, with around 80% of the rainfall usually falling within four to five months of winter.

When Senator Sanders says that the region has had no rain in eight months, my response, as a former resident of Southern California for 31 years before moving to Texas, is that right? That’s what people live for – endless sunny days.

Does Sanders and the host of other politicians who decry “climate change” have a valid point? Just not.

In 1834, 19-year-old Richard Henry Dana Jr. boarded a ship in Boston and set sail for California. Dana Point in Southern California is its namesake. Upon his return, he turned his diary into the book “Two years before the bridge”. In it he describes the area now burning:

“The only thing that detracts from its beauty is that there are no big trees on the hills, they were all burnt down by a big fire that took them down about a dozen years ago and they haven’t grown back yet. was described to me by an inhabitant as a very terrible and wonderful sight. The air in the entire valley was so heated that people were forced to leave the city and occupy their own homes. a few days at the beach.”

Was it “creepy and gorgeous” fire what happened around 1823 due to “climate change” or something?

I retired from the California National Guard in 2007. The Guard jokes that California’s four seasons are “flood, fire, earthquake and riot.”

The coastal hills of Southern California are naturally covered in chaparral. These plants have adapted to fire, but due to human activity – fires, breakdowns of power lines, burning of cars, etc. – fires happen more and more often. Pines cover a large part of the foothills at high altitudes. They also become vulnerable to fire before the onset of the rainy season.

In both cases, property owners are encouraged – often ordered – to clear a 100-foot protected perimeter around their homes and businesses. Not enough to do. Energy companies, under enormous financial pressure to produce more wind and solar power, are also neglecting costly maintenance of transmission lines.

And environmental lawsuits and tightening air pollution regulations too often prevent or delay the prescribed burns needed to keep people safe.

In the north, where the forests are dense, the problem is different. There, since the 1990s, federal and state regulations have devastated the forest industry. But every year, harvest or not, the pine trees grow. Without active management, especially on federal lands that make up large swathes of the state, trees grow too close together — often 30 times the density needed for a healthy forest. This makes the trees much more susceptible to the long dry spells typical of California.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

It should be noted that prior to the California Gold Rush of 1849, local people routinely lit fires to encourage the growth of grasslands, which produced more food than the forest. George E. Gruel, a veteran wildlife biologist, came up with a comparison of a large photograph taken at the beginning of the mass migration to California after the discovery of gold, and found that California looks much different than it does today. Photo after photo revealed mounds of grass, a few solitary live oaks, and isolated stands of pine, often following creek beds. More than 100 years later, after harvesting and forest management shifted to fire suppression and no-harvest, the same landscapes were covered in trees.

But, of course, all this “climate change” is the magic spell that absolve politicians of the blame for their policies while providing a convenient excuse for the introduction of centralized government control over energy, and therefore life itself.

However, there is a deeper irony in this, and it is this: even if climate change was to blame California fires the solution is the same: reduce the available fuel that fuels wildfires, clear brush around homes and maintain power lines or, if possible in urban areas, bury them.

[ad_2]

Source link