Dear HCN,
I read the issue on fire
with great interest (HCN, 7/8/02: The anatomy of fire). As have so
many in the West, I have mourned all that we have lost and all that
we are likely to lose in the coming months and
years.
But I have not seen in
HCN, or elsewhere, a discussion of what is
happening on the planet that is creating the conditions for these
fires. Yes, they have been started by bizarre sets of
circumstances, yet they would not have grown to their massive sizes
if the West wasn’t exceedingly dry and the weather “exceptionally”
(or so it seems) hot. Yet, these are just two of the consequences
that the climate-change scientists have been trying to warn us
about for many years now.
Most recently, the
Climate Change 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (the international group of scientists that has
worked to assemble and report on the probable effects of climate
change) warned that likely effects of climate change include
“increased summer drying over most mid-latitude continental
interiors and associated risk of drought,” and “increased risk of
forest fire.”
As Americans, we are the
number-one gross emitter of climate-change gases. We have been in
deep denial about our role in the climate-change process; the
longer we choose to stay in denial, the more serious the
consequences will become in the coming century. For all of us who
have seen what the fires of 2002 have done, this should be a
sobering thought.
Those of us in the West who
have glimpsed the future and seen how disastrous it can and will be
must heed this wake-up call and talk to friends and neighbors,
newspaper editors and car makers, community planners and political
representatives about what is happening and the imperative to
change our ways – now!!
Leslie
Glustrom
Boulder,
Colorado
P.S. The people of Durango might begin
by asking Dodge to quit making the vehicle named after their town.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Don’t ignore climate change.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
