{"id":24541,"date":"2017-09-07T00:32:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T00:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=24541"},"modified":"2017-09-07T00:32:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T00:32:32","slug":"climate-change-is-real-nw-fires-notwithstanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=24541","title":{"rendered":"Climate change is real, NW fires notwithstanding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I’m seeing a bit of social media chatter that needs to be put in perspective.<\/p>\n

Some of it is conflating a couple of key issues: climate change and those horrific fires that have scarred many thousands of forestland in Oregon and Washington.<\/p>\n

Critics of climate change deniers are pointing to the Oregon and Washington fires as evidence that climate change is real.<\/p>\n

I agree with the notion that Earth’s climate is changing, that its temperatures are warming. The fires that began along Eagle Creek just east of Portland, though, were the result of a dumbass who allegedly was playing with fireworks in tinder-dry woodlands above the Columbia River.<\/p>\n

Oregon State Police have a suspect. He’s a teenager. He is a minor, so we won’t know his name, which I guess gives me license to refer to him as a dumbass.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back to the issue of climate change\/global warming. It’s playing out far from the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

The Texas Gulf Coast just got hit with a Category 3 hurricane\/tropical storm. It dumped 50-plus inches of rain on Houston and the Golden Triangle; it brought killer winds to the Coastal Bend. It has created unspeakable grief, agony and misery along the coast.<\/p>\n

But wait!<\/em> Now there’s a Category 5<\/em> storm blasting its way toward South Florida. It has winds of 185 mph; gusts are reaching 225 mph.<\/p>\n

Meteorologists and other scientists are speaking in unison — more or less — on this subject: We’re going to see more catastrophic storms in quick succession in the future because of climate change.<\/p>\n

The debate, though, centers on the cause of this change. The scientific consensus appears to suggest that human activity has exacerbated the change, through carbon emissions and immense deforestation.<\/p>\n

The fire will be extinguished. I remain supremely confident that the forest will be restored over a lengthy period of time. Humankind can repair the damage done by a single thoughtless idiot.<\/p>\n

The frequency of those storms? The rising sea levels? The intensity of the savagery that boils up out of the ocean?<\/p>\n

That problem requires our immediate attention, if only we’d stop bickering over whether the climate is changing. It is. Let’s get busy finding solutions to this worldwide crisis.<\/p>\n\n

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I’m seeing a bit of social media chatter that needs to be put in perspective. Some of it is conflating a couple of key issues: climate change and those horrific fires that have scarred many thousands of forestland in Oregon and Washington. Critics of climate change deniers are pointing to the Oregon and Washington fires … Continue reading Climate change is real, NW fires notwithstanding<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1027,7298,1927,1936,7268,7296,3671,4632],"class_list":["post-24541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-news","tag-climate-change","tag-columbia-river-gorge","tag-global-warming","tag-golden-triangle","tag-hurricane-harvey","tag-hurricane-irma","tag-portland-or","tag-texas-gulf-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24544,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24541\/revisions\/24544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}