Increased wildfires linked to global warming, environmental decay

Recent scientific research blames global warming for a dramatic increase in large wildfires in the western United States. Global warming is a by-product of capitalism’s quest for profits without regard for environmental sustainability. As of July 17, wildfires sweeping San Bernadino County, Calif., have caused at least one death. Four thousand firefighters have been deployed to battle the flames in the valley about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. A 110-square-mile area has been affected, and 58 homes have been destroyed.

Wildfires are generally a seasonal occurrence, happening when summer weather creates dry fuel that can be sparked

either by lightning strikes or human behavior. While the immediate cause of wildfires hasn’t changed, U.S. forest fires have increased since the 1980s.

What has caused this increase in deadly fires?

In the most systematic analysis to date of recent changes in forest fire activity, scientists from Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the University of Arizona compiled a database of recent large western wildfires since 1970, and compared it with climate and land-surface data from the region. The results show that large wildfire activity increased “suddenly and dramatically” in the 1980s with longer wildfire seasons, more wildfires, and more potent wildfires. Almost seven times more forested federal land burned during the 1987-2003 period than during the prior 17 years. In addition, large fires occurred about four times more often during the later period.

Research showed that the changes in wildfire frequency seem to be strongly linked to annual spring and summer temperatures and to the timing of spring snowmelt.

“At higher elevations what really drives the fire season is the temperature. When you have a warm spring and early summer, you get rapid snowmelt,” said former Scripps’ scientist Anthony Westerling, who headed the research team. “With the snowmelt coming out a month earlier, areas get drier overall. There is a longer season in which a fire can be started and more opportunity for ignition.”

The current study links global warming to more frequent and severe wildfires, but does not offer any explanation about the real economic causes of global warming and how to stop it. Global warming and climate change stem from the massive combustion of fossil fuels, the deforestation and the destruction of carbon dioxide-absorbing tropical forests, and the weakening by greenhouse emissions of the ozone layer that protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Global warming has also been tied by scientists to the increase in frequency and severity of hurricanes.

Capitalists primarily at fault for global warming

If current trends continue, the United States will have increased its carbon emissions by about 300 million tons by 2010. Researchers say that to allow the climate to halt the pace of global warming, world emissions must be cut by 70 percent.

The U.S. capitalist class, however, will not agree to cut emissions by even the smallest amount. It has refused to sign the extremely weak protocols of the Kyoto treaty on global warming, designed to reduce emissions by only 5.2 percent by 2012.

The environmental movement has forced the capitalist system to impose some limits on the destruction of the environment. But the protections can be reversed for any reason or none at all.

The movement to protect the environment through reform must be supported now. However, reforms alone cannot stop capitalism’s destructive drive. Environmental degradation will continue as long billionaires’ profits take precedence over a safe and clean environment.