Bloomberg (March 6)
“However California’s next monumental blaze begins, the toll will be vast. People will be injured, some will die. Thousands of homes will be destroyed. When the smoke clears, the most populous US state, home to Hollywood, Silicon Valley and a real estate market worth more than $9 trillion, will be ground zero for a sweeping financial crisis.”
Tags: $9 trillion, Blaze, California, Destroyed, Die, Ground zero, Hollywood, Homes, Injured, Monumental, Real estate market, Silicon Valley, Smoke, Toll, U.S., Vast
New York Times (June 29)
The twin threats of “dangerous heat baking…the Southeast” and “the wildfire smoke filling the skies” in the Midwest “aren’t connected directly. But a common factor is adding to their capacity to cause misery. Human-caused climate change is turning high temperatures that would once have been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is intensifying the heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic wildfires, allowing them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke.”
Tags: Catastrophic, Climate change, Dangerous, Dryness, Heat, Human-caused, Improbable, Intensifying, Misery, Smoke, Temperatures, Wildfire, Wildfires
Chicago Tribune (June 29)
“As Canadian wildfire smoke blanketed Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Windy City earned the unwelcome distinction of having the ‘worst air quality of any major city in the world.’” North American wildfires are proliferating and “today consume twice as much land… than they did in the 1990s.” This is clearly “a climate issue. But if we fail to take action on forest management, the impacts of climate change—drier, hotter, longer fire seasons—will only further contribute to the flammability of our overly dense forests.”
Tags: Air quality, Canada, Chicago, Climate change, Drier, Fire seasons, Flammability, Forest management, Hotter, Impacts, Smoke, Wildfires
Moscow Times (August 9)
“Smoke from wildfires burning across Russia’s largest and coldest region has reached the North Pole for what is believed to be the first time in known history.” The forest fires have been “fueled by hot weather and a 150-year record drought” and “already emitted a record 505 megatons of carbon dioxide.”
Tags: Burning, CO2, Drought, First time, Forest fires, Fueled, History, Hot, North Pole, Record, Russia, Smoke, Weather, Wildfires
Financial Times (August 25)
“Things are bad. Silicon Valley is choking on wildfire smoke. Louisiana is expected to be hit by two hurricanes this week. Britain had its wettest February on record and faces it lowest wheat harvest since the 1980s…. We either hammer carbon emissions or they will hammer us every year harder and harder.”
Tags: Carbon emissions, Hurricanes, Louisiana, Silicon Valley, Smoke, UK, Wettest, Wheat harvest, Wildfire
CNN (August 22)
“Fires are raging at a record rate in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and scientists warn that it could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change.” If the Amazon is “the planet’s lungs,” then they are turning black. Brazil’s space agency estimated “more than 1½ soccer fields of Amazon rainforest are being destroyed every minute of every day” and 1,700 miles away Sao Paulo was engulfed in mid-afternoon darkness with “the sky pitch-black…the sun blanketed by smoke and ash.”
Tags: Amazon, Brazil, Climate change, Devastating, Fires, Raging, Rainforest, Sao Paulo, Scientists, Smoke
San Francisco Chronicle (October 9)
“California’s fire season took an apocalyptic turn for too many Sunday as fierce winds and hot, dry air fanned more than a dozen Wine Country fires…. At least 1,500 structures and 10 lives were lost, scores were injured and tens of thousands evacuated, and smoke settled thickly over the Bay Area and beyond.” While containment remains the most urgent matter, “the latest catastrophic wildfires are also a policy problem that should motivate redoubled prevention and mitigation measures.”
Tags: Apocalyptic, California, Catastrophic, Evacuated, Fire, Mitigation, Prevention, Smoke, Wildfires, Winds, Wine Country
