House Committee Ignores Common Sense Blames Fires On Global Warming
Here is a press release from The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (A creation of Nancy Pelosi)
Select Committee to Examine Link Between Changing Climate, Frequency and Intensity of Wildfires on Thursday
MEDIA ADVISORY FOR 10 AM THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2007
Contact: Select Committee, 202-225-4012
A Spark Neglected: Wildfires and Global Warming
Select Committee to Examine Link Between Changing Climate, Frequency and Intensity of Wildfires“A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.â€
–Robert HerrickFollowing the devastating fires in Southern California, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing examining the scientific link between a changing climate and the frequency and intensity of wildfires.
Witnesses will discuss the present effects of climate change on wildfires and contributing factors such as increased drought, changes in snowmelt patterns, changes in precipitation, and higher temperatures. In addition, mitigation and adaptation strategies will be discussed.
The frequency and intensity of wildfires have increased in recent decades throughout the Western United States. Last year, the Forest Service spent a record $2.5 billion fighting wildfires that burned a record 9.9 million acres (4 million hectares), compared to the ten-year average of 6 million acres. This year 8.7 million acres have burned thus far. The current fires burning in California are expected to cause over $1 billion in property damage alone and have already burned an area the size of Rhode Island. Mounting scientific evidence indicates that the growth in wildfires is linked to global warming and that this trend is likely to intensify in the coming decades.
This ignores a number of factors that actually contributed to the fires. Global Warming didn’t put a stop to the responsible practice removing of deadwood and brush from forests, activists and their willing accomplices in the legislatures did.
