David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star
“Much of the West is now a giant tinderbox, literally ready to combust. Yet thanks to fire suppression, the consequences have been postponed for decades.
“When you look at the long record, you see fire and climate moving together over decades, over centuries, over thousands of years,” said pyrogeographer Jennifer Marlon of Yale University, who earlier this year co-authored a study of long-term fire patterns in the American West.
“Then, when you look at the last century, you see the climate getting warmer and drier, but until the last couple decades the amount of fire was really low. We’ve pushed fire in the opposite direction you’d expect from climate,” Marlon said.
The fire debt is finally coming due.”
— Jennifer Marlon — Source: New York Times
Related articles
- Wildfires projected to worsen with climate change (esciencenews.com)
- Why Big, Intense Wildfires Are the New Normal (news.nationalgeographic.com)
My heart aches for the destruction humans have done to our earth.
There is much we can do to help nature help its self.
Reblogged this on Becoming is Superior to Being and commented:
This is a posting from over four years ago, and the tinderbox in the west has only gotten worse, and of course, the climate is getting hotter and drier. — kenne
I’ve heard such for many years now. California has grown wealthy, and they want to choicest land, the most beautiful seaside cliffs, pristine acreage, all with much disregard for the Land and the wildlife and botany that resides there, since forever. As the grow wealthier, they come to believe that they are in control, that all can be assuaged and remedied. We in the east read of the enormous wildfires that periodically assault them, and we watch them battle those blazes, and some of us wonder, Duh?
Great piece, and provoking.
Thanks for the comment, Jeff.