Blame Bush first; then warming

Believe it or not, some environmental groups, celebrities and politicians are blaming climate change for the severe wildfires that are ravaging Southern California.

That's right: If only the human race could manage the atmosphere's chemistry by reducing carbon emissions, we would also reduce the likelihood of fierce fires in the future.

Does that make sense? Or does that seem like an extremely roundabout way of addressing wildfires.

Economists have been doing yeomen's work in calculating the costs and benefits of the most prominent proposals for reducing emissions through regulations such as carbon caps and carbon taxes. Yes, there are indeed costs for such regulations, and they have steep economic impacts.

A Yale economist, William Nordhaus, developed a model finding that one proposal for rapid, deep cuts in carbon emissions would reduce future damage from global warming by $13 trillion, but at a cost of $27 trillion.

That's a lot of trillions that could be directly applied to alleviate poverty, disease, pollution, concentrated environmental damage and other woes on this Earth. It could be used to develop new energy technologies that just might reduce carbon emissions.

Why, that kind of economic force could even go a long way in managing fire fuels and advancing fire protection.

But some folks don't think that far ahead. They want climate change policies and they want them now!

We thought it was a spoof when the Inter Lake received a broadcast e-mail from an outfit called Friends of the Earth titled, "Bush Burns California."

How can that be possible, we thought. It seemed that the whole blame-Bush-for-all-problems thing had kind of burned out. But we were wrong: turns out that the EPA has been denying a waiver that would allow the state of California to regulate vehicle emissions.

And that, of course, has allowed climate change to continue and the fires to rage on.

"No one fire can be blamed on global warming," Friends of the Earth generously allowed, "but there is no doubt that changes in our climate are causing more fires that are more severe. The tragic events unfolding in California are yet another stark reminder that action is needed to combat global warming now, and the EPA should not stand in the way of California's lead."

Really?

While it is true that drought and heat waves create conditions for wildfires, it is also true that decades of aggressive fire suppression and more recent policies that have severely curbed logging and land management have done the same. It's also true that 1936 - that's 71 years ago - still ranks as the most severe wildfire season in California history, with more than 1,200 square miles burned that year. Not as many houses were lost, of course, because it is also true that thousands of homes have since been built in areas that are prone to burn.

And those areas are particularly susceptible to burning when fires are started by nut job arsonists, as may have been the case with at least two of the fires in Southern California.

But to so-called Friends of the Earth, "there is no doubt that changes in our climate are causing more fires that are more severe."

One gets the sense that climate change alarmists really believe that if the U.S. would just get with the program and sign on to some Kyoto-type carbon reduction plan, the atmosphere's chemistry would be adequately adjusted to put an end to all of this environmental catastrophe in, who knows, maybe 10 or 20 years.

Exploiting catastrophes to advance political agendas is something that should end now.