Fools at the Fire

Timothy Egan has a trenchant piece in the NY Times on Thursday, Aug 7: Fools at the Fire

…it seems as if half of Washington State is on fire. Smoke, devastation, ashen orchards of charred fruit, standing dead pines. More than 250,000 acres have burned in the largest fire in the state’s history, the Carlton Complex. About 300 homes have been destroyed. A small army of firefighters, at a cost of $50 million so far, is trying to hold the beast in the perimeter, between days when the mercury tops 100 degrees.

Smart foresters had been warning for years that climate change, drought and stress would lead to bigger, longer, hotter wildfires. They offered remedies, some costly, some symbolic. We did nothing. We chose to wait until the fires were burning down our homes, and then demanded instant relief.

and, a great irony: People who hate government most are the loudest voices demanding government action to save their homes.

We all share some of the blame [for doing nothing]; procrastination is part of our character of the moment. Still, if want to put a face on this inaction, you can look no further than the member of Congress whose district in Washington State is now choked by smoke and harassed by flames — Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

She is part of the leadership of a Republican majority that is hostile to the point of negligence on the basic science of climate change.

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