Everything is on fire and no one cares [View all]

[niyad]

Everything is on fire and no one cares
By Mark Morford on August 24, 2015 10:19 AM



2015 is fast on track to have more firefighters, more money spent, more resources dedicated to fighting wildfires than any time in modern history











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This year, there were wildfires. Not the typical wildfires, mind you. Not the normal smattering of (relatively) easily controlled seasonal blazes that nature herself always ignites to help purge and clear; I mean all the massive, drought-amplified, state-engulfing wildfires you’ve been hearing about all season long – nearly all of them larger, earlier and more frequent than any time in modern history, ranging from a few thousand acres to the largest in the country, the Soda fire, currently engulfing upwards of 265,000 acres in southern Idaho, which joins with all the other Pacific Northwest fires burning throughout Washington, Oregon and Montana. And here you thought just California was ablaze.

Do you know about Alaska? Nearly five million acres have burned throughout that unusually hot, dry state this year, which is a record, which is something like the size of Connecticut (combined), which is more staggering than your heart can process. Go ahead, try it. And then add in Canada’s staggering wildfires, and you hit upwards of 11 million scorched acres – that’s 17,000 square miles, and still going strong. That’s terrifying.

The scariest part? Fire season, historically speaking, doesn’t even begin until September. Did you know 2015 is already officially the hottest year ever recorded on Earth? Did you know Alaska recorded its hottest month ever, in 91 years of record keeping, in May? Or that Washington’s biggest fire could keep burning until it snows? The worst – as nearly every scientist, climatologist, environmentalist in the world is all too sick of saying these days – is yet to come.


How dire do you want it? What’s it going to take? As Eric Holthaus over at Slate recently put it WRT the huge and immediate changes needed right now from the UN and various self-serving, combative, greedy world leaders to combat this downward spiral: Where is everyone? (Here’s your must-read of the month: The New Yorker profile of the amazing Christiana Figueres, head of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change – the U.N.F.C.C.C. – and just what she’s up against in trying to rally member nations to make real changes, right now).

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http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/08/24/everything-is-on-fire-and-no-one-cares/