For the last two weeks we’ve been inhaling woke, California, Oregon, and Washington, wildfire smoke. Fire season, yeah it’s a season, is an annual “thing” in the Pacific Northwest. Every summer and fall fires break out and ruin air quality for weeks on end. As “nearly 85 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans” I was hoping that the Wuhan Coronavirus lockdowns would reduce the number of fires this year. Fewer morons in the woods mean fewer fires. Summer started off fire-free but when the lockdowns ended they returned with a vengeance. Naked apes are proven accidental arsonists and sometimes intentional arsonists. Just like Batman’s Joker a lot of dumb shits just want to watch things burn.
Speaking of dumb shits, the governors of Wokeland West, California, Oregon, and Washington assure us that Climate Change is the real wildfire villain. It has nothing to do with fire starting idiots, insane building codes that do not require firebreaks, the lack of public fire safety education, incompetent electric utilities, forest management policies that needlessly restrict controlled burns, or a refusal to punish arsonists. It’s Climate Change all the way down!
Like most woke word salads this is questionable nonsense. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), a dull government agency located right here in Southern Idaho, has been collecting wildfire burn statistics since the 1920s. Here’s a table of wildfire counts and acres burned since 1926.1 When you plot this data you get.
Oddly, more fires were burning more acres in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s than today. Even with NIFC’s caveat that data collected before 1983 “were not derived from the current situation reporting process” and “should not be compared to later data” you’re left wondering if Climate Change is being framed while the real killer is still at large.
Dodging responsibility by blaming something completely out of your control is a standard political gimmick.
“Hey man, this shit isn’t on me!”, said every whining weasel ever.
For the sake of argument, assume we can instantly fix Climate Change. Let’s wave our magic woke-wand and make all the bad emissions go away. Here’s a little question.
If greenhouse gas emissions are suddenly reduced to zero, how long will it take to lower west coast wildfire frequency?
Want a clue? It may take decades to notice changes! If wildfires have to wait for west coast wokerati to fix Climate Change we’re going to be inhaling smoke for the rest of my life. I better order those extra indoor air filters before the hoarders catch on.
I’ve downloaded and archived this table. I’ve observed that data has a tendency to disappear from public view when it’s caught contradicting “the narrative.”↩︎
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 
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