CBSLA.com reports:
Senator Barbara Boxer said Thursday that wildfires like the fast-moving Silver Fire should be a wake-up call to the reality of climate change.
The Silver Fire near Banning grew to 14,000 acres Thursday and prompted additional mandatory evacuations. It was 20 percent contained as of Thursday evening.
A second wildfire near Wrightwood erupted Thursday around 1p.m., prompting mandatory evacuation of roughly 75 homes.
“Warmer temperatures combined with long dry seasons have resulted in more severe wildfires, and it’s only going to get worse,” said Boxer, who toured the fire site with officials Thursday. “They will tell you, the wildfire season is starting earlier, it’s ending later.”
Boxer charges that climate change is contributing to what could become one of the worst California fire seasons in a century, with hotter, dryer and longer summers fueling the fires throughout the west.
Speaking to Republicans in Congress who doubt the existence or extent of climate change, Boxer said “open your eyes, breathe the air, see what’s going on. And get out of the fringe lane.”
Among those doubters is Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
“I challenge Barbara Boxer to a debate on climate change, on global warming,” the congressman said. “I challenge her to defend her positions, and not just call a bunch of names, not just try to scare the public into accepting her expansion of government power over our lives.”
IIRC, some of the increase of fires is due to the regulations put into place to prevent forest management, in another greenie eco dream world that nature should be left untouched and fallen trees should not be cleared and fire breaks verboden because trees should not be cut.
CORRECTION: second to last sentence
Your last sentence contains a wonderful first line to a limerick, ie
“The infamous check bouncer, Boxer”
I’m working on it.
Having been born and raised in California — and lived there for 60+ years until I managed to escape last year — I can observe that California goes through “wet” years and “dry” years… and sometimes dry years come in a clump to 2 or 3 or even 4 or 5 — and (surprise!) in the third or fourth year of a series of “dry” years, California gets some enormous wildfires.
The Oakland Hills Fire of 1991 (which occurred in October) followed a somewhat wetter winter and a somewhat warm summer. The October weather leading up to the fire and been a typical “Indian summer” with rather warm temperatures for the SF Bay Area. The wetter winter ensured a lush growth of grass and weeds in the undeveloped areas — fuel for wild fires.
This past year, California had a somewhat dry winter — but with heavy rains in November and December — timed to contribute to better than average grass and weed growth in undeveloped land. So a “bad” fire season is no surprise (or shouldn’t be).
Of course the infamous check bouncer, Boxer, will attempt to tie her political agenda to anything she can grab onto. That’s no surprise either.
Babs is dumb as a brick, so she has to ignore Rohrabacher. Hope Dana hounds her till she is gone from the scene.
Outside of supposition and guessing, there isn’t a shred of evidence to back up Boxers claim. Facinating that 16 years of virtually no warming isn’t a trend but a single season of wildfires is conclusive proof.