Is just a huge distraction. Michael Shellenberger, an environmentalist who Time Magazine calls a Hero of the Environment, says it’s silly to blame the fires on climate change. Climate change is real. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not our most serious environmental problem.
And it’s not the main cause of the California fires. Governor Newsom tweeted out that last year, we had one 10th of the area burned as we’re having this year and therefore it’s climate change. It’s like, well, what did climate change happen between last year and this year? None of this makes any sense.
But the media keep talking about a climate change apocalypse. Climate apocalypse If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If all you know is climate science, then every weather event you blame on climate change. If not climate change, what is to blame? Only you can prevent forest fires
Foolish policies. For years governments put out every fire they could, but if you want to protect forests, Tens of millions of acres should have naturally burned every 10 years or so in lots of fires, with smaller flames. But we put most of those out. This is the overgrowth that’s been accumulating
In these forests for the past century because people have been putting out fires instead of letting them burn the way they naturally used to So now. When there is a fire, it’s much more likely to burn out of control. [Fire truck] Climate change has made things worse.
California has warmed 3 degrees over 50 years, but You could’ve had this amount of warming and not had these fires. And the reason we know that is because the forests that were well-managed have survived the megafires. Like this forest, controlled by Southern California Edison. So far, selective cutting protected it.
And now the Forest Service is trying to educate people. Looks like a very well-managed forest, I would agree. Well let’s burn it! Alright. [music] Prescribed burning and frequent fire is a must if we’re going to maintain the biodiversity and the plant life. When Europeans came, we have these reports of California just
Being very smoky and on fire during the summers. Native Americans were burning huge amounts of land. So for the past years it’s been unnaturally un-smoky? We haven’t had enough fires for maybe 100 years. But it really sucks if you live there. The smoke is bad.
But it’s what a lot of forest ecosystems require. Recently, fire hit ancient redwoods. Everyone on the East Coast goes, “Oh my gosh, these ancient redwoods are going to burn down.” They’re trees, they’re not going to burn down? The smaller trees do of course burn down, but when you’re talking about redwood trees
And other old growth, the bark is very thick, it’s fire resistant. In fact, there’s a particular kind of ancient redwood where the inside of it has been entirely burned out. It’s still alive. You can see green growth shooting out of it. This surprised the politicians. Gavin Newsom visited the park and said
“What a miracle.” They’re still standing. It was exactly what you would expect. Not if you‘re a journalist. A few days later, all the journalists started to kind of go, “Oh wow. What a surprise! The ancient redwoods didn’t burn down. Nobody’s more alienated from the natural environment and really nobody’s more apocalyptic
Than environmental journalists. We have to get away from just sort of the tree hugging mentality. You have to look at the whole – it’s the classic not seeing the forest for the trees. [Chainsaw] This year fires finally persuaded California’s politicians to allow more people to cut trees down. [Chainsaw]
There’s actually widespread agreement on this. In fact, the governor of California and President Trump recently signed an agreement to clear much more area. Even the Sierra Club which has opposed this kind of thinning of forest has now changed its tune. It’s about time. Bad policies were the biggest cause of this year’s fires,
Not the slightly warmer climate. And while climate change is a problem, Shellenberger’s new book explains it’s not an apocalypse. Natural disasters aren’t getting worse. In fact, they’re getting better. The number of deaths from natural disasters has declined over 90% over the last hundred years. A small change in temperature is not the difference
Between normalcy and catastrophe. [Swoosh] I hope you’ll share and like this video. That helps us get the word out. And if you want to help us make more videos like this, click that button.
