We have all heard it.  The California Wildfires, which have been burning for the better part of the last month, are the fault of global warming Climate Change.  Both California Governor Gavin Newsom and Oregon Governor Kate Brown have blamed a rise in global temperatures and drier conditions for the fires that have ravaged both states. Smoke from those fires has created air quality problems and apocalyptic skies across the country from San Francisco to Washington D.C.

Quartz reported that California’s fire season has added an additional 83 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

“In California, cumulative CO2 emissions from wildfires for the year as of Sept. 13 reached about 83 million metric tons, according to data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. That’s the highest level since the beginning of the Centre’s records in 2003.”

California’s fire emissions have exceeded the amount of carbon emissions the state has annually from power generation.  In order to account for the additional carbon, the State would have to shut down all carbon-producing power generation for more than a year. As a result of the fires from just this year, California has eliminated ALL carbon reductions they have made for more than a decade.

Additionally, Oregon has added more than 25 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

“In Oregon, a similar story is unfolding—except there, wildfire emissions have managed to surpass annual transportation emissions as well.”

Did you catch that?  A few weeks of fires in Oregon have surpassed the entire state’s annual power sector and transportation emissions.  That means that to account for the carbon released from the fires, Oregon would have to shut down all carbon-producing vehicles in the state, for over a year.  They too have eliminated ALL carbon reductions they have made for more than a decade, with carbon output from this year’s fires alone.

As noted in an earlier piece published, Democrats treat global warming Climate Change as the only cause of the fires and that combating global warming Climate Change is the only way to combat the fires.  Ignored is the potential to both combat Climate Change AND enact policies to combat the severity of fire season.  A fundamental change to forest policy is a good first step.  Allowing for forest-renewal logging activities would assist in both providing jobs in the state and reducing the risk associated with fires.  Secondarily, increasing fire fighting abilities, either through aerial capabilities or through ground crews is essential.  Lastly, elected officials from the states should be completely invested in securing as much federal funding to bankroll the expensive fire suppression and prevention efforts.

In fact, the evidence above would suggest that alternative approaches would help combat Climate Change more than all their other efforts combined.  The elimination of all the smoke all the fires of one season would do more in one year than all the efforts either state has made towards combatting Climate Change for an entire decade. Remember, we have had three horrible fire seasons in CA.  If those previous fire years were just half as bad as this year, It would still take two decades of current Climate Change policy to make up for all the emissions from the fires that have already happened.  That does not account for bad fire years in the future, which according to leftists, will only get worse from here on out.

If we really want to combat Climate Change, we will first stop the fires.