California’s eco-activist governor blaming climate change for this historic wildfires hitting the state’s wine country is as predictable as night following day:
California Gov. Jerry Brown warns that catastrophic wildfires will keep ripping through the state as the climate warms.Brown told reporters Wednesday that more people are living in communities close to forests and brush that easily ignite because of dry weather. Blazes burning in Northern California have become some of the deadliest in state history.He said a warming climate has contributed to catastrophic wildfires. “That’s the way it is with a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture.” said Brown. “These kind of catastrophes have happened and they’ll continue to happen, and we have to be prepared to do everything we can to mitigate.”
I would assert that the only climate that has changed in a way that has led to the wildfires is the political climate. The state’s decades-long pursuit of eco-activist policies and lack of attention on water resource infrastructure have created the conditions that led to the disaster we see today.
Dawn Wildman, Director of the Coalition for Policy Reform, has been advocating more a human-friendly focus on the state’s political projects for quite some time. She has been talking to fellow citizen activists in the impacted areas of California:
I have been speaking with some folks from the Forestry Service and they say that California has neglected to keep plants and trees in check for years by cutting back, back burning, and through other landscape maintenance activities. The lack of “weeding” native and non-native has offered more kindling when fires happen.People have been complaining about this for years. Many homeowners can’t even get fire insurance in some of the rural areas up north because they are considered too much of a risk, but Sacramento still won’t do its job.
Further more, California had many wet years before the drought stuck. However, the last huge reservoir built in California was New Melones, on the Stanislaus River in 1979, California has grown by 15 million people, the equivalent of adding everyone now living in Washington, Oregon and Nevada.
And while the sites for new dams may be limited, it is clear after the Oroville disaster our current dams are not being maintained properly. Furthermore, an investigation into the dam’s spillway failures indicate inspections on this structure was less than adequate.
In 2014, an inspection “actually dismissed the plausibility” of failures arising from erosion at the emergency spillway “or a failure of the concrete chute” in the main spillway, said Mark Andersen, an acting DWR deputy director.“So clearly … we need to look institutionally at how we are doing these inspections and what we’re learning from them,” Andersen said.
Clearly.
Then, there was the millions of gallons of water directed away from farms to the delta to protect bait fish. This lack of water forced farmers to move to traditional crops (e.g., almonds, advocados, oranges) to new crops that were likely more conducive to spreading fire (e.g. marijuana) or letting the land dry-out.
Additionally, there are flaming regulatory hoops to jump if landowners want to clear brush. There are permits to obtain, and a 5 acre limit on what can be cleared…even if you land has substantially more acreage. Wildman notes that California also regulates post-fire response as well.
After the Trinity and Butte fires, which occurred prior to the ones in wine country, residents were kept away from their property for 10-14 days, and the government forced them to sign one-sided contracts and use government workers to do the clean-up. If they failed to comply, the were fined.
It makes sense if your real priority is paying government employees who support your eco-activism.
Finally, if the fires did start because of downed power lines, then Brown himself contributed to this particular situation far more than fossil fuels by vetoing a bill that offered protective measures against such an occurrence.
But preaching climate change at swank, foreign venues with the wine-and-brie progressives is a lot more fun!
Truly, the Golden State’s fires are the result of #BrownMadeClimateChange.
Today’s reports on the devastation are especially grim. The fires have led to the evacuation of nearly 100,000 people from their homes and destroyed at least 5,700 homes and businesses. The death toll rose to 35, officially making this the deadliest and most destructive series of wildfires in California history.
The Santa Rosa home of Charles Schulz, the creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip, was lost in the wildfires.
“The things that they lost in there are irreplaceable,” said Monte Schulz. “It’s not just the memorabilia. It’s that life that my stepmother had with him. It’s completely gone.”Charles and Jean Schulz moved into their hillside home in Santa Rosa in the late 1970’s, his son said. The cartoonist died in his home in 2000.Charles Schulz remains a beloved figure in the Santa Rosa community.The Sonoma County Airport is named after him and carries a logo of Snoopy flying while sitting on top of his dog house.
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