Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are sure to lecture us again this session about the need to step up our efforts to combat climate change. Here's a fun fact you can use to counter them, courtesy of University of Chicago research: 2020's wildfires emitted "close to double (the state's) emissions reductions achieved over 16 years."
That's right, one wildfire year obliterated decades of costly, painstaking efforts to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. And 2020's fires were far less severe than the horrific ones we've recently witnessed in the Los Angeles area. We get wildfires nearly every year, which are constantly incinerating our climate goals. So there's no need to argue over climate science, something—if we're honest with ourselves—few of us know much about.
But any midwit can realize the state's $54 billion climate action budgets, $100-billion-plus effort to build a bullet train, and policies to outlaw internal combustion engines are for naught if it doesn't get serious about wildfire prevention. California emits an almost imperceptible amount of the Earth's emissions (thank you, India and China!), but whatever cutbacks we make are literally going up in smoke.
