CA, OR, WA governors push climate change — when, instead, they could do something immediate about wildfires

© 2020 Peter Free

 

14 September 2020

 

 

One can be correct and foolishly ineffectual — at the same time

 

From the BBC:

 

 

Blazes in California, Oregon and Washington state have burned almost 2m hectares (5m acres) of land and killed at least 35 people since early August.

 

Washington's [Democratic] governor [Jay Inslee] called climate change a "blowtorch over our states".

 

[Republican president] Mr Trump, a climate sceptic, blamed the crisis on poor forest management.

 

[Democratic] Oregon Governor Kate Brown said her state was facing "the perfect firestorm".

 

"This is truly the bellwether for climate change on the West Coast. And this is a wake-up call for all of us that we have got to do everything in our power to tackle climate change."

 

The comments echoed [Democratic] California Governor Gavin Newsom's statement on Friday that the fires showed the debate about climate change was "over".

 

© 2020 BBC News, US West Coast fires: Row over climate change's role as Trump visits, BBC.com (14 September 2020)

 

 

Perspective

 

Climate change (which actually means Global Warming) is something that virtually no one actually wants to sacrifice enough now to do anything about. This means that the subject is a non-starter in the short and medium-term.

 

Ergo, blathering about it — as a cause of the American West's wildfires — is ineffective, if one really wants to reduce these wildfires' negative impacts.

 

Even if Global Warming were taken seriously today, nothing beneficial regarding wildfires would happen, as a result of measures implemented, for at least 100 years.

 

In the meantime, we will still be dealing with a heightened wildfire problem.

 

 

This means that Odious Donald is correct

 

Someone has got to implement fire reduction measures on "real" ground right now:

 

 

Removing dead wood and overgrown brush. Building fire containment perimeters. Zoning people out of hazardous areas. Requiring more fire resistance in newly built structures.

 

And generally, spending a lot of money — and irritating a lot of people — that no one wants to spend and annoy.

 

 

Why initiate such unpleasantness, as a Democratic Party politician, when one can wail about climate change and disingenuously postpone necessary actions indefinitely?

 

 

Notice that

 

Democrats are (again) throwing away an opportunity to cooperate with Republicans — to do something that practically minded Republican folk might grudgingly approve of.

 

 

Two other related ironies

 

These western "help your neighbor" US states could probably recruit masses of "ordinary" citizens willing to volunteer their labor to accomplish some of the necessary fire reduction measures.

 

Isn't "community" one of the Democratic Party's pretended emphases?

 

Furthermore — and legitimately beloved by old-fashioned Democrats — a public works Wildfire Reduction Program could be initiated. This would keep people employed, doing very obviously necessary things, during the coming economic recession.

 

But not much (that I have been able to detect) from these Democratic governors about either of those possibilities.

 

 

The moral? — This is why President Trump retains a good deal of support

 

His opponents are so whinily clueless and consistently self-strangling.