CA 2018 Wildfires Equal To 1 Year Of Power Generation Emissions For The Entire State

[hatrack]

EDIT

Just a few months ago, climate activists in California were celebrating an impressive victory: New data showed that the state had brought greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels, four years earlier than planned. The win, a cut of emissions to 429.4 million metric tons (the equivalent of taking 12 million cars off the road) was the result of steady decreases in emissions most years.

“California set the toughest emissions targets in the nation, tracked progress and delivered results,” Gov. Jerry Brown tweeted. The next step was to cut emissions another 40 percent by 2030—”a heroic and very ambitious goal.”

But by November, skies across the state were gray. Wildfires were raging, including a blaze which would prove to be the deadliest and most destructive in state history. The conflagrations have set California back: The recent Camp and Woolsey fires, officials say, have produced emissions equivalent to roughly 5.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, more than three times the total decrease in emissions in 2015. Recently, the Department of the Interior announced that new data shows the 2018 California wildfire season is estimated to have released emissions equal to about one year of power use.

Of course, wildfires are not new to the West Coast. But the kind of vast, devastating conflagrations seen in California in recent years—this fall’s Camp Fire decimated 153,000 acres in the Butte County area and destroyed almost 14,000 homes—are becoming more common. According to the state’s most recent climate assessment,California could see a 77 percent increase in the average area burned in wildfires by 2100.

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https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/12/californias-battle-against-climate-change-is-going-up-in-smoke/

[delisen]

1. Cascade effect of climate change

[JayhawkSD]

2. Drought fires go back to at least 1988

Climate change is real. It absolutely is. And it probably is happening faster than we know. But this article is idiotic.

The Camp, Woolsey and Hill fires of this year, which were the ones on the news and which did all the damage, had a total area of 259,716 acres and burned for about three weeks.

In 1988 (30 years ago) a single fire in Yellowstone consumed 793,880 acres and burned for several months, until the onset of winter put it out, and there is evidence of fires in prehistory that dwarf even that fire.

You cannot point to one climate-related event and state that it is proof, or even evidence of global, permanent change. One event is one event.

Nor can you say that California's effort has "gone up in smoke." Everyone must do what they can do. If no one is doing anything, no one can use that as an excuse to do nothing. Someone has to start the change. No one follows if no one leads.