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As Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke toured California’s largest wildfire on record, he proclaimed that fires have “nothing to do with climate change.” A few days later, Zinke walked the statement backward. When asked if he thought climate change was contributing to the fires, he responded, “of course.”

But that same day, Zinke flipped again, this time going so far as to doubt that human activities are affecting the climate. “There’s no dispute that the climate is changing…” he said. “Whether man is the direct result, how much that result is, that’s still being disputed.”

I can appreciate that climate change has become a contentious topic, and clearly, Mr. Zinke is attempting to balance scientific reality with party ideology. But let’s be clear: there is no legitimate dispute that humans are affecting the climate. The only place that idea remains “in dispute” is in political circles. Scientists have been in agreement on this subject for decades.

As the symptoms of climate change come home to roost, it has become ever more dangerous to ignore. Wildfires offer a clear example of how dismissing the effects of climate change put us all at risk.