3 ms·

I'm from Europe and I'm confused about the cause of these recent big fires. Some news articles say it's because climate change, some other say it's due to bad f

I'm from Europe and I'm confused about the cause of these recent big fires. Some news articles say it's because climate change, some other say it's due to bad forest maintenance. Why are there so many of these fires lately?

dillondoyle 6y ago
Both. Interestingly today Trump / Gov. Newsom had this (not really an) argument at presser today. So there are now a lot of good articles https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Are-climate-change-or-poor-forest-management-15564031.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Are...
briga 6y ago
Both are true. Fires are a natural part of the environment. When you constantly put out fires around urban areas a lot of the excess brush just builds up, inevitably causing the mega-fires we see today. Huge fires are not as common in Europe mainly because Europe doesn't have as many forests as the west coast of the US. But there's also a ton of evidence that we've had some of the warmest years on record in the past decade. The fires around the Bay area were started by a record-breaking heatwave. And temperatures in the interior of California regularly get above 40 C during the summer, so that combined with no rainfall means a lot of fires every year
tjansen 6y ago
Thanks for asking, I wanted to ask exactly the same question. On the one hand, German public news stations basically imply that Trump is an idiot who denies climate change and climate change is the main reason for the fires. On the other hand, I read a lot of reports that this year's fires were much smaller than those 100 years ago and fires are mostly a natural thing that is just more or less controlled by humans, and climate change is just a small factor. It looks like even here it is impossible to get unbiased information on the US.

3 ms·

I'm from Europe and I'm confused about the cause of these recent big fires. Some news articles say it's because climate change, some other say it's due to bad f

by misja111 6y ago

dillondoyle 6y ago
Both. Interestingly today Trump / Gov. Newsom had this (not really an) argument at presser today. So there are now a lot of good articles https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Are-climate-change-or-poor-forest-management-15564031.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Are...
briga 6y ago
Both are true. Fires are a natural part of the environment. When you constantly put out fires around urban areas a lot of the excess brush just builds up, inevitably causing the mega-fires we see today. Huge fires are not as common in Europe mainly because Europe doesn't have as many forests as the west coast of the US. But there's also a ton of evidence that we've had some of the warmest years on record in the past decade. The fires around the Bay area were started by a record-breaking heatwave. And temperatures in the interior of California regularly get above 40 C during the summer, so that combined with no rainfall means a lot of fires every year
tjansen 6y ago
Thanks for asking, I wanted to ask exactly the same question. On the one hand, German public news stations basically imply that Trump is an idiot who denies climate change and climate change is the main reason for the fires. On the other hand, I read a lot of reports that this year's fires were much smaller than those 100 years ago and fires are mostly a natural thing that is just more or less controlled by humans, and climate change is just a small factor. It looks like even here it is impossible to get unbiased information on the US.