Winter is Coming, California Keeps Burning. What Can Be Done?

Did you know that California has a “fire season?” It’s true: despite today’s constant coverage, the CA landscape has endured the wrath of wildfires for many, many years. In 2009, 9,159 fires occurred, burning over 400,000 acres of land. But as the planet continues to warm, the state’s fire season gets longer; it has extended 75 more days across the Sierras. Through 2017 and 2018, drought, excess vegetation, and extreme winds conceived the largest fires the state had ever seen, resulting in infrastructure damages, lost lives, and compromised air quality. The 2017 Sonoma Complex fires, for example, burned 110,000 acres and destroyed 5,300 homes. After evacuating 100,000 citizens, the fire took 23 days to fully extinguish. While Californians expect wildfires to a degree, climate change has introduced a new species of fire, one that is no longer a necessity in the circle of life, but a destructive and dangerous force of nature. These wildfires have caused me to reflect upon the U.S.’s other natural disasters—earthquakes, hurricanes, and a bomb cyclone—and question our ability to adjust. Scientific discoveries, a globalized economy, technological innovations, and a democratic government have all contributed to the complex society we live in today. But when I think about society’s relationship to our planet, it seems our greed, hatred, and ignorance has blinded us from cultivating a comprehensive, collective purpose: to protect the Earth, maintain and distribute our resources, and respect and support our neighbors.

Fire: The Science

Fire needs three ingredients to ignite: fuel, heat, and air. Since we breathe oxygen, air is everywhere and readily available (for now). Fuel for a fire can be almost anything—dry leaves, brush, your house, grass, trash, and trees. That leaves heat, and this is where things can get complicated. Scientifically, when heat hits fuel, that fuel must be dry enough to burn. Because we are humans with complex and curious brains, we’ve made machines that need fuel to function: cars, tractors, buses, boats, etc…So when you live in California, where the sun is hot and the air is dry, even a car can start a wildfire (a spark from a car tire in 2018 caused the CA Carr Fire in 2018, the 7th most destructive fire in the state’s history). Thus, as the world’s greenhouse gas emissions steadily increase, our fuel sources will cause more sun exposure (due to a disintegrating O-zone) and higher temperatures. That means wildfires will burn hotter and faster than ever before, making fires more difficult for humans to contain and extinguish in a timely manner.

Clean Air: The Politics

Now let’s go back to 1970, when the U.S.’s first rendition of the Clean Air Act was published. This federal legislation was put in place to reduce pollution from U.S. enterprise; California, though, was a special case. Prior to the Act, the state already had its own laws in place to maintain air quality. The Clean Air Act thusly allowed California’s government to apply even stricter policies to aggressively decrease levels of smog, emissions, and pollutants produced by factories and automobiles. However, in mid-September of this year, the Trump administration modified the Clean Air Act to revoke California’s state regulations on auto emissions. Now, By 2025, Trump plans to have citizens driving vehicles with a fuel economy of only 37 miles per gallon. During the Obama administration, this number was 54 miles per gallon, which would have prevented up to six billion tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. With Trump’s policy, nearly three billion tons of carbon dioxide will be produced. Talk about adding fuel to the fire…

It’s clear that greenhouse gasses, global warming, and a mess of legislation are a definitive cause of the California wildfires. But if we look for the common denominator, we’ll find human intervention and institutional structures of government, economics, and infrastructure as the match that set these fires ablaze. Let’s take this one step further to reveal how the mayhem will only continue to grow if the American people don’t get their act together.

If we reexamine the dilemma of fuel efficiency standards, it’s impossible to ignore the reactions from the auto industry. When Obama first proposed his changes, auto producers argued that it would take too much effort and capital to build more eco-friendly cars affordable for the general population. Then, when Trump essentially proposed the opposite, manufacturers expressed that years of legal challenges and inconsistent, state-by-state fuel economy regulations would complicate business. At the end of it all, no one is happy because money and politics rarely make a perfect baby. Industry resents government because its policies are supposedly too oppressive for a free market, and governments resent industry because their selfish financial interests blind them from the reality of a dire situation. Don’t believe me yet? Let’s look at what happened to PG&E.

Pacific Gas & Electric provides natural gas and electric service “…to approximately 16 million people throughout a 70,000-square mile service area in northern and central California.” Gas and electric? fuel! California sun and landscape? heat and air! Put it together, and you’ve got a fire. Maybe that’s why PG&E has since filed for bankruptcy due to $30 billion in fire liabilities. Recently, the company tried to mitigate the CA fires raging toward populated areas through deliberate blackouts: schools, homes, shopping and service centers went dark in hopes that dead power lines wouldn’t spark and further contribute to the blaze. However, it’s hard to avoid thinking about the frustration from those without gas generators, solar power, or battery backup systems in place.

Photo from the LA Times

What’s more, California has only about 250 official air monitoring stations, about one every 647 square miles. Citizens depend on these systems for everyday life, whether its taking the dog for a walk or driving from one neighborhood to another. When Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to the metro area—where most of the monitoring systems are located—inaccurate and confusing information dispersed to California residents. The worst part: none of these monitoring stations could operate on backup power. The tale is similar to the conflict of the Clean Air Act. As money, industry, and efficiency intersect, human health, dignity, and even logic is lost. Unfortunately, our planet and its people are left to suffer while private enterprise and public officials (with private interests) angrily bicker for control.

Are We Screwed?

For me, the years of California wildfires continue to make clear that humankind has greatly underestimated the consequences of its actions. As a result, our planet is attempting to heal itself at the expense of human livelihoods. While cities expand, technologies develop, and populations grow, our planet dies in the hands of ignorant policy makers and greedy corporations. I argue that the country’s representatives and wielders of power are blinded by wars, capitalist agendas, social media, and consumerist tendencies. The race of supply and demand and the state of foreign affairs prevents most of corporate and political America from enacting the reforms necessary to make the world a healthier and more sustainable place. We grow increasingly uncomfortable when media tells us that climate change is out of our control, yet we are the things that induced this looming global disaster. Humans’ continual emphasis on speed, consumption, and efficiency does nothing to quell the anxiety and frustration toward our collective feeling of failure as a species. Deep down, I think we all feel compelled to be better stewards of the land, but we need a plan to do so. On November 4th, The Trump administration began the official process of pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement. However, as the 2020 election approaches, there is an opportunity to elect a candidate that will keep the United States in conversation with the rest of the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect populations most susceptible to the effects of climate change. I hope we can try to liberate ourselves from racial and social divides, and the unjust hatred thrust upon America by a tyrannical president. If the U.S. can go into 2020 and remain a member of the Climate Agreement, there might be some hope.