Fires Rage On: What is to be Done?
Image from Unsplash - Ross Stone
Another wildfire. Another acre of land is destroyed. Another habitat is decimated. And now a new water source is contaminated. Increasing global temperatures can integrate dry land and air to create the optimal conditions for the beginning sparks of fires. Wildfires in the state of California have only worsened in the past five years from what used to be a somewhat manageable issue to a situation that is only spiraling further and further away from resolution. Policy must be implemented to protect and safeguard infrastructure, vested interests, and most importantly, lives.
From the period of 2017 to 2021, a recorded 40,420 fires occurred, burning around 10,674,558 acres of land, and costing about $4.51 billion in suppression. All data collected only in the state of California during the span of five years. Damages accrued even more money, expenses that could have been utilized to prevent these wildfires from occurring in the first place rather than being used to clean up their messes. Fires can disrupt the natural processes of local wildlife by turning advanced ecosystems that have excellent levels of biodiversity to lose species and habitats. Humans also face several issues as well as particulate matter produced by these dangerous wildfires can cause eye and respiratory irritation. And now, wildfires are polluting water sources by burning heavily forested areas, where a majority of the United States receives its water supplies from. Pollutants are toxic and can cause numerous health complications, including cancer.
Wildfires have a direct connection to a much larger issue that has only increased in intensity over the past few decades. Several products of climate change such as changes in temperature, changes in precipitation, and the length of droughts have been proven to cause these disastrous fires. Current efforts to decrease the use of hazardous fuels, initiate prescribed burns, and provide education on wildfire prevention are simply not enough to stop the issue from only moving closer and closer towards chaos. Policy must be created and enforced to truly reduce the impact that human activity is having on the environment across the United States of America and the rest of the world. Policy that must begin with the root cause, increasing global temperatures, rather than policy that begins with the effects. These efforts will also be able to solve other environmental issues plaguing the interests of the U.S. and protect many more lives.
Policy must be implemented to protect and safeguard infrastructure, vested interests, and most importantly, lives. The grave impact of the wildfires in California are just a miniscule insight of a much larger issue of climate change, and in order to solve these problems, the government of the United States must implement policy to take several imperative steps towards mitigating the effects of climate change. Or else, more wildfires will continue to destroy California as well as other states across the U.S. and even the rest of the globe. Even if policies to solve climate change are limited to some countries, that does not mean the impacts are.
