‘Nothing emits more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere…than forest fires. And nothing has done more to destroy trees – which absorb carbon out of the atmosphere – than forest fires’

Nothing emits more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and puts carcinogens into the air we breathe than forest fires.

And nothing has done more to destroy trees – which absorb carbon out of the atmosphere – than forest fires. The federal government spends tens of millions of dollars on tree planting programs.

However many green groups have opposed measures to contain and prevent forest fires.

In 2007 the Sierra Club successfully sued the U.S. Forest Service to prevent them from creating a Categorical Exclusion (CE) to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for controlled burns (the technical term is “fuel reduction”). This would have allowed officials to conduct burns without having to perform a full Environmental Impact Statement (the median time for which is 3.5 years). See Sierra Club v. Bosworth.

The Trump Bureau of Land Management tried to implement a fire prevention plan but was served with a notice of intent to sue by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Biden BLM killed the plan, and the result (as they say) is both history – and hysteria.

GOP Congressman Tom McClintock reports:

“Between 2012 and 2021, we lost a quarter of California’s forestland to wildfires. A UCLA study estimated that California’s 2020 fires released twice as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as had been prevented by the previous 18 years of primarily government-enforced restrictions.”

California is getting ready to ban gas cars. It would do the planet a much bigger favor if the Golden State banned forest fires. Or at least tried to!