Fires, bonfires and arson

Plastic contamination in the sea
(Source: Science News)

In the BBVA magazine of January 2020 there is an article entitled Top Ten, which lists 10 measures we can all apply to curb climate change, the first of which is this:

Committed waste treatment: ...in the next 30 years, 12 million tons of plastic waste will accumulate in the environment. When you go shopping, take a folded cloth bag...

It is true that, with our excessive use of plastics, we are turning the world into a dump, even the oceans. It is true that we must do something to avoid this. But since when contamination with plastics is a cause of climate change? We should learn to make distinctions, and correctly apply names to those phenomena we must face.

Map of the regions more affected by forest fires

A similar situation takes place in a relation to fires, which unfortunately appear frequently in the news. It is common to hear that the (supposed) greater number of fires currently happening, or their worst consequences, compared to historical fires, are due to climate change. Is this true?

Let’s see what may cause a fire:

1. Natural causes (for instance, lightning bolts).
2. Accidental causes (for instance, unprovoked explosions).
3. Negligence (for instance, throwing a lit cigarette through the car window, or lighting a bonfire in a pine grove).
4. Arson or intentional fire (this seems to be increasingly frequent).

Of the four causes, only those in the first group (the least frequent) could be affected by climate change.

A possible answer is that the main problem is not the cause of the fire, but the ease of its propagation, and the difficulty of its extinction, which are also growing. Let’s look at the causes of this phenomenon:

1. Weather conditions (for instance, extreme dryness or higher temperatures).
2. Land topography (which hardly depends on human action or climate change).
3. State of the forests (whether they are clear of brush, whether firewalls have been opened, etc.).

Of these three causes, only the first could have to do with climate change. The other two are independent. In fact, the most damaging is usually the third.

In an earlier post in this blog, I mentioned that ecologists insist that Nature must be left to act without human interference. One of the consequences of this is that many forests are no longer cleared, and firewalls are no longer built. It is not strange, therefore, that fires spread ever more, and are more difficult to control and put out.

We should pose ourselves the question whether the main cause of our growing difficulties with fires is climate change or the ecologists.

Recall Mark Twain’s quote: There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is Providence. (Notebook, 1898). Today, when many media have become atheists, climate change has become one of the most popular scapegoats.

The same post in Spanish
Thematic Thread on Politics and Economy: Previous Next

Manuel Alfonseca