UCLA Study, Worsening Western Wildfires Man-Made

 

Western North America's rapidly worsening wildfire problem is anthropogenic, i.e. man-made.

A study out of UCLA confirms that VPD, or "vapor pressure deficit," is to blame.

Climate change — and not natural climate variability — is now the primary driver of wildfire risk and will likely continue to plague California and other western states in the future.

“This change,” the authors conclude, “requires urgent and effective societal adaption and mitigation responses.”

The researchers focused their study on “vapor pressure deficit,” the leading meterological variable that controls wildfires. In layman’s terms, vapor pressure deficit “basically describes how thirsty the atmosphere is,” Rong Fu, one of the study’s authors, told the Los Angeles Times. Fu, a UCLA climate researcher, studied the variation in atmospheric circulation from 1979 to 2020.

The mechanism is fairly simple. A hotter atmosphere draws more moisture out of soils and forests. These dessicated forests are 66.7 to 80 per cent more susceptible to fire.

As if we needed another reason to stop extracting and exporting high-carbon fossil fuels such as bitumen and coal, the filthiest and most deadly fossil fuels, but it seems our prime minister will not succumb to prudence or reason.

Here's an idea, a wildfire levy. British Columbia should work out the real cost of these worsening fires - the cost of forest firefighting, the value of the lost forests and the health costs from those inhaling the high PM 2.5 smoke, and then levy those costs on every barrel of bitumen and ton of coal that we export. These are real costs that are offloaded on the public by the fossil energy producers and their political stooges. It is right that they be held accountable for the damage they cause.

While we're at it, send a memo to all those farmers and ranchers on the prairies reeling from drought. Why should they not demand compensation?