Here (shown as black dots) is the total acres burned by wildfire in Washington state each year, together with a blue dashed line showing the yearly average, since 2002:



The red dashed line is the acres burned by wildfires that are burning in Washington state RIGHT NOW. That’s not the yearly total, like the black dots show. It doesn’t include the fires that have burned this year but were already extinguised. And it doesn’t include the acres yet to burn. Many people are wondering, “why is the wildfire season so horrible?”

It’s global warming, stupid.

But Matt Pearce just had to write an article for the LA Times pushing the idea that it’s not unusual. And Cliff Mass updated his blog post to say “we are finally at normal…and according to their projections, we should stay that way…”

What they don’t get is that there’s a very clear reason this kind of event has become so much more likely than it used to be. It’s not going to happen every year or even most years, but it will happen far more often than it used to. The very first year when it doesn’t, I’ll wager they go into full “I told you so” mode. Full “it’s a hoax” mode, or “there’s nothing we can do about it,” or “the science isn’t settled,” or “burn more natural gas,” or “drill baby drill,” or “economy! jobs! freedom!” mode.

When this kind of thing changes from a once-in-a-thousand-years event to a once-in-twenty-years or once-in-ten-years event, that’s what ruins the economy, destroys jobs, undermines freedom. It costs. Misery, property, income, even human life.

It’s global warming, stupid.