from climaterealism
Author: Linny Luken
An Associated Press (AP) article states that wildfires are becoming more severe due to climate change, leading to increased exposure of farm workers to wildfire smoke and potential harm to their health. This is wrong. Wildfires are not getting more severe, so farmers and workers cannot be more exposed to smoke or particulate matter.
In the AP article, “Climate change is causing growing wildfires, their smoke threatens farm workers, study says,” the deception is clear and direct. The study mentioned in the title is a health survey on air quality monitoring in areas with mandatory wildfire evacuations, and the summary paragraph claims that wildfires are becoming more severe due to climate change, but provides no evidence of this. The only explanation for this statement is that the intensity and frequency of wildfires “are expected to increase with global warming.” The study also claimed that the 2020 California wildfire season was “unprecedented” — which is false because climate realism It was explained then, here . Their baseless claims gave the Associated Press cover, writing the following:
As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world, a new study shows farm workers are paying a heavy price through exposure to high levels of air pollution. In Sonoma County, the focus of this work, researchers found that a program designed to determine when it is safe to work during wildfires did not adequately protect farmworkers.
This is the first and final The timing of climate change is mentioned throughout the article. Although climate change is mentioned at the beginning, it actually has little to do with it, and the rest of the article focuses on how farm workers are forced to work in unsafe conditions and what occupational safety protocols should be followed to reduce climate change.
The studies themselves also appear to only use climate change as a hook, and much of the study is actually about monitoring air quality during a wildfire outbreak in Sonoma County and then providing hazard pay and post-exposure medical cost coverage for employers of farmworkers.
In a classic case of researchers failing to use readily available evidence to refute their favored theories, they conveniently ignored the historically quiet wildfire seasons that have occurred since the 2020 outlier, although the reversal occurred in the study Before the July 2024 release date. one climate realism A post reporting on years of mild wildfire seasons quoted a scientist who acknowledged that California has some of the most extreme interannual variations in temperature and precipitation, and “goes from record wet years to record wet years, or A near-record wet year is normal” a record-dry year, that’s what it is. “
The area burned by wildfires in the United States declined rapidly after peaking in the 1930s, and it was not until the 1980s that the overall trend began to show a moderate increase again. (see picture below)
But interestingly, the incidence of drought, a major variable affecting wildfire spread, did not increase during this period. The amount of available fuel has increased due to mismanagement of forests due to well-intentioned but ultimately foolish ideas about environmental protection, as well as more and more people living in naturally fire-prone areas.
Globally, wildfires and carbon dioxide emissions are very poorly correlated, according to the best available satellite data from NASA. (see picture below)
Data from both NASA and the European Space Agency show significant reductions in wildfire numbers during the recent period of mild warming, as discussed in Climate Overview: Wildfires Around the World. Additionally, as discussed in multiple discussions climate realism For example, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found no evidence of an increase in wildfire weather in recent decades and does not predict such a scenario in the future.
If climate change isn’t worsening wildfire seasons, then it’s not increasing the threat of wildfire smoke to farm workers—it’s that simple.
Despite mandatory evacuation orders during wildfires, farmworkers were not evacuated, causing them to inhale dangerous amounts of smoke while working, which is not a climate issue. The AP and the study authors tried to force the connection, to the detriment of their careers. Maybe they thought linking it to climate change would garner some extra funding for their projects, and they might be right. However, in doing so, it promotes misinformation about wildfires and climate change, compromising the pursuit of truth, public presentation, and discussion.
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