Fires out West

 

 

"Conflagration - Fire, especially a large and disastrous fire..."

Yesterday my wife and I went up to an event in a town just north of here. We also stopped to see my Mother who is in a care unit close to where the event was to be help. Since we had some lag time, we went over to my oldest daughter's house and let ourselves in (with permission of course). I turned on her TV, and there was Governor Moonbeam being interviewed on CNN. He was very animated and agitated (as he quite often is).

Now I can understand why he was upset. In one county alone close to San Diego, tens of thousands were given a mandatory evacuation order. Many of these people did not know if they would ever see their houses or positions again. Then Moonbeam stepped over the line. "These fires, this drought, this heat wave are all the result of us not doing anything about climate change, about global warming." Then he went on and on to scold the world for what we (collectively) are doing to his state.

Is it hot in California right now? You betcha! Anyone who has spent some time in San Diego knows how ideal the weather can be in that Navy town. Regardless of the time of year, the high temperatures always seem to be stuck in the mid 70's. This past week however, the temps have been in the 90's, often close to 100. For a change, the fine folks in San Diego are getting a shot of extreme weather that most of the country experiences every year.

For many years now, long before the climate alarmists blamed everything on human caused global whatever, we heard about El Nino and La Nina effects on the weather. Simply put, water around the equator stays pretty much the same temp all the time. However, sometimes it is warmer than normal - El Nino. Other times, it is cooler than normal - La Nina. How much precipitation, how warm and how cold in different parts of the country was dependent on this band of water around the equator.

Now I do feel for the good folks in California. What they are going through right now is hell. However, for a long time now, California has done a terrible job in "fuel management". In other words, managing the scrub brush in the hills that when dry enough, becomes very combustible. The result is once you get a prolonged dry spell, humidity levels around 10%, and some unfavorable Santa Anna winds, you have big trouble. In addition, with the tidal shoreline being over 3,000 miles in California, there is plenty of area to build desalination plants to provide additional water to the parched state.

As I have said before, the desert southwest is called "desert" because it is one. The west is by nature an arid part of the country. There is nothing California can do about an upcoming earthquake, but there is quite a bit they can do to quench the thirst of the land and manage the fuel in the hills. Blaming manmade global warming and then doing nothing will not solve the problem.