Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings
The deniers will continue to deny, not just at their own peril but at the peril of us all, but global warming, and climate change more broadly, continues to wreak havoc with our daily lives. Researchers have already connected global warming to stronger hurricanes like Katrina and Rita and to extensive heat waves in the U.S. and Europe, and now, according to CNN, researchers are linking it to devastating wildfires:
Global warming could stoke ferocious wildfires that will be more difficult and costly to fight and might drastically alter the environment in parts of the world, some scientists warn.
Approximately 1,000 scientists and forestry officials who gathered in San Diego for an international wildfire meeting that began Monday urged policymakers to consider the effects of global warming when managing wildfires.
The wildfire season that just ended in the U.S. was the most severe — and expensive — on record with more than 89,000 fires scorching 9.5 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The U.S. Forest Service spent $1.5 billion fighting those fires — about $100 million over budget.
Wildfire season typically peaks in late summer and early fall. Climate change is being blamed for a longer fire season and some even predict the possibility of a year-round fire season.
However much the deniers try to write it off as bad science, or as pernicious theory with no basis in reality, global warming can no longer be considered some distant abstraction. It is very real. And if incremental temperature increases and the slow melting of the polar ice caps don’t arouse much public concern, certainly not enough to arouse the attention of politicians, perhaps the onslaught of ever more destructive hurricanes and wildfires will do the trick.
Sad to say, but the prime motivator in people’s lives is often nothing other than narrow and immediate self-interest. Such is human nature. Planetary disequilibrium is simply too remote for most people, for people with the incapacity to think and feel beyond themselves. They would rather have their taxes cut and satisfy their basest material desires than make the necessary sacrifices to save the planet and safeguard the well-being of future generations.
But what if their houses are being flooded, as in New Orleans? What if fire is overrunning their houses, as in California? Will these manifestations of global warming not arouse their self-interest? Will they not finally compel our leaders to act?
Global warming is for real. Now or later, we’ll have to deal with it far more seriously than we’re dealing with it now, when most people can go on living in blissful ignorance. But it will only get worse. And, as it does, so will its manifestations. Think about that when you turn on CNN for news of yet another weather-related disaster.