- One of the reasons I enjoy the Capital Weather Gang (CWG) is that in addition to solid regional weather coverage, they provide insight into national and worldwide weather events and climate. This story, about current California wildfires, showed up on my Twitter feed this week. Given the blur that was the second half of last year, it would have been easy to think, “Gee, well, it’s September, and there are fires. Next.” But, no, time has in fact passed, and it’s January… and there are fires. Not just in California, either.
If you want to take a closer look at fires throughout the country, InciWeb provides information about current U.S. wildfires and is a good resource even for those with no formal background in fire events. I started checking the site semi-regularly after visiting Washington State during 2015, in what would turn out to be the state’s largest wildfire season. It seems an odd resource to be posting about in January, but here we are.
- The CWG article above connects the fires to climate change, as it should, but as is certainly not always the case in other (non-CWG!) articles discussing extreme weather events. Although the U.S. formally exited the Paris Climate Agreement on Nov. 4, 2020, the country will rejoin it under President Biden.
- Need a refresher on the Paris Climate Agreement? The Natural Resource Defense Council provides a good explainer, including detailed background as well as the shifting role the U.S. has played.
- Of course, rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement is good, but not enough. It’s a voluntary, non-binding agreement between nations, one that can seem more like lip service than anything else at times. A number of recent headlines speak of that, such as this one from Wired: Biden Returns the US to the Paris Climate Accord. Will It Matter?
- So, fires, attempts to do something, which often feels like nothing, all in the midst of social unrest and a pandemic. I’ll end for now with these words, from Erika Swyler’s Light from Other Stars:
“Be scared,” Betheen said. “But don’t let being scared keep you from doing something. Important things are always frightening. We can be scared, and we can work scared.”