It was déjà vu Monday.
In talks with California leaders devastated by four weeks of wildfires, President Donald Trump assured them, “It’ll start getting cooler. Just you watch.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of fires continue to burn up and down the coast taking scores of lives with them.
Mr. Trump was equally cavalier in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic:
Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person, coming in from China.”
Feb. 28: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
March 6. “You have to be calm. It’ll go away.”
To which we want to shout, “Own up! This coronavirus, these wildfires, are catastrophes that require a serious response.”
Instead, the president’s preference is to a) in the case of the virus, let nature take its course, “It is what it is;” and, b) deny that mankind has any responsibility in addressing global warming and its effects.
Scientists say fires out West have increased in lockstep with the change in climate. From year to year, the area burned up correlates almost directly to temperature variations.
Looking across a 30-to-50-year period, the numbers and the amount of fires and the acreage burned correlates exactly with a 2.5-degree increase in the temperature of the climate overall.
The warmer the atmosphere, the more moisture it holds, pulling it up from the forest ecosystems, making them dryer and more susceptible to fires.
Today, the wildfires have charred more than 5 million acres across California, Oregon and Washington and the largest fires remain uncontained.
MR. TRUMP says such science talk is a bunch of hooey as well as a drag on the economy.
The problem, he said, is poor management, taking a jab at federal employees. Of California’s forests, only 3% are under state control while 57% are federal forest land.
