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The climate crisis intensified the fires and everything could get worse

2020-09-14T22:29:12.631Z


It's a historic and devastating wildfire season in the American West, and scientists say the climate crisis is to blame.


Death and destruction from fires in the USA 3:35

(CNN) -

It's a historic and devastating fire season in the western United States, and scientists and local officials say the climate crisis is to blame.

In California, three of the five largest wildfires in state history are burning at the moment, authorities say.

The governor of Oregon said that in a typical year, fires consume about 202,000 acres in the state, but "this week alone, more than 404,000 hectares of beautiful Oregon burned," he said.

LOOK: People dead and thousands of hectares devastated by fires in California, Oregon and the state of Washington

And last week in Washington, more acres were burned in the state in a single day than in the past 12 fire seasons, Gov. Jay Inslee said.

A look at what we know about unprecedented climate change and wildfires:

West Coast leaders blame climate change:

Both Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti have attributed the intensity of this season's fires to climate change.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said climate change and mismanagement of the country's forests are the two culprits.

What Trump says:

Meanwhile, President Trump at a rally weekend repeatedly said that fires are 'forest management', a characterization that has repeatedly offered such fires has previously been criticized as inaccurate.

Scientists' caveats:

Scientists have warned for years that fire seasons like this could happen, and that the more we humans warm the planet, the more we increase the odds in favor of the hot and dry conditions that lead to fires.

Although the scale of destruction is difficult to understand, climate scientists say it should come as no surprise.

"It's shocking to see the impacts, but not scientifically surprising," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told CNN last week.

"This is in line with virtually all predictions of what could happen this year and the trends that we have been seeing for years and decades."

It could get worse: How

bad it gets depends on what humans do to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases, said Michael Mann, director of the Center for Earth System Science at Penn State University.

"To some extent, it is clear that 'dangerous climate change' has already arrived," Mann said in response to questions sent by email from CNN.

"It's a question of how bad we are willing to let it get."

A dangerous journey in the middle of a fire in California 1:06

Fires

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-09-14

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