Any discussion about climate change should be required to start with a quote from Peter Goldmark, Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands.
“Our fire season started a month ahead, our crops matured weeks ahead and the dry weather we usually get in August, we’ve had since May,” Goldmark told the New York Times earlier this month. “By heavens, if this isn’t a sign of climate change, then what is climate change going to bring?”
What, indeed? While many naysayers dispute the scientific consensus that the earth’s climate is changing and that human activity is partly to blame, Goldmark’s statement presents a challenge for those skeptics: How to explain obvious climate extremes? And what would real climate change look like?
Whether a result of human actions or not, the past month has brought about a glimpse of a changing dynamic as forests turned to kindling by drought conditions have been torched by wildfires. The Okanogan Complex of fires in north-central Washington has been deemed the largest in state history, covering more than 250,000 acres; some 16 large wildfires were burning as of Monday; and for the first time, state officials issued a plea for volunteers to help battle wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency last week declared an emergency in several Washington counties, including Skamania.