We Now Know Who Is Responsible For A Third Of US Wildfires: Should We Hold Them Accountable?
Hint: Yes, but how?
Sometimes, it can feel like climate change is a problem for the future. Something we should prepare for and avert from happening. We forget that we have been systematically polluting and decimating this beautiful Earth for over 150 years, and climate change’s terrible teeth have already had plenty of time to sink in. The thing is, we now have the data and technology to figure out both the extent of climate change and who is responsible. Take a recent study that found that 88 of the world’s largest carbon emitting companies are responsible for a third of US wildfires since 1980! But what should we do with this knowledge? Should we hold these companies accountable? And if so, how?
The scale of wildfire damage to the US and Canada is utterly astonishing. In 2020, 16,000 square miles were burnt by wildfires, which is about the same land area as Denmark. These wildfires decimate ecosystems, threaten human life (directly or through respiratory problems), and unleash an astonishing amount of carbon dioxide, which furthers the climate problem. Just the Californian wildfires alone killed 33 people, caused an economic loss of $19 billion, costs to keep the blaze under “control” were around $2.1 billion, and the fires released 140 million tonnes of CO2 into the environment or about the same weight as 384 Empire State buildings.
Now, wildfires are an important part of many American ecosystems. They act to refreshen the ecosystem and recycle nutrients, allowing new life to flourish. But these ecosystems evolved around far less frequent and far less widespread fires. But, thanks to climate change causing longer, dryer seasons, both the frequency and size of wildfires have dramatically increased to the point at which they are now detrimental to these ecosystems.
So, when a recent study was published that concluded 88 companies are responsible for more than a third of the wildfires in the US and Canada, it was a huge shock. This study used climate models to figure out how much our carbon emissions have decreased the water vapour content of the air around wildfire areas in the US and Canada and, therefore, what portion of wildfires in the past forty years have been caused by…
