This year’s California wildfire has been devastating in terms of destroying thousands of homes and hundreds of thousands of acres, killing few firefighters and forcing hundreds of people to flee.
The fire in California has been igniting more than 400,000 acres and has ended up killing nine people so far. Many parts of the world, including Northern European countries have been dealing with scorching summer and drastic rise in the temperature. In Greenland, a huge piece of iceberg could break off and trigger a tsunami that could destroy thousands of settlements on the shore.
The “Great Barrier Reef” (home to nearly 9,000 species, 240 bird species, and thousands of marine creatures) is dying in a process called bleaching since the water becomes acidic absorbing more CO2.
More than 25% of the world species including Persian Cheetahs, Polar bears, Adelie penguin, North Atlantic cod, Pacific Northwest salmon, Australian kangaroo and pink-tailed legless lizards are at the risk of extinction by the year 2050 because of global warming.
Persian cheetahs are disappearing from the wild in Iran really fast. Last year due to Trump's efforts to sanction and isolate Iran, the UN cut funding from conservation efforts that was meant to protect cheetahs. According to the Iranian conservationist Jamshid Parchizadeh “Lack of funding means extinction for the Asiatic cheetah, I’m afraid. Iran has already suffered from the loss of the Asiatic lion and the Caspian tiger. Now we are about to see the Asiatic cheetah go extinct as well.”
There are all kinds of threats to Persian Cheetahs, but many cheetahs have died because of food scarcity due to prolonged droughts caused by climate change in different regions of Iran. They have also been haunted and killed by local herders because cheetahs may occasionally attack and eat their animals. Dozens of cheetahs have also been killed crossing highways at nights, despite the warning signs along the sides of roads. These endangered species are also pushed to the brink of extinction by new mining operations that would restrict their territories.
“Iran has also faced heavy international economic sanctions since 1980, and international agencies have been encountering a lot of problems transferring money into the country for many years,” says conservation biologist Sam Williams of the University of Venda, in South Africa. “The crucial point is that that money could have been used for the implementation of conservation strategies.” According to Williams "Iran has faced heavy international economic sanctions since 1980, and international agencies have been encountering a lot of problems transferring money into the country for many years. The crucial point is that that money could have been used for the implementation of conservation strategies.”
The temperatures in South European countries like Spain and Portugal have been soaring and few cities and towns in Finland, Sweden and Norway have broken the summer heat record – the highest in history. Super storms and seasonal rains have been triggering droughts in parts of France and in Netherlands prolonged draught is hurting Netherlands’ eco-system and wildlife.
The truth is that human activity is making climate change even worse, however the Trump administration has been denying climate change by pulling out of the Climate Accord and bailing out oil and coal companies. Former EPA’s Scott Pruitt has been deregulating almost every environmental protection laws in favor of the world’s largest environmental polluters.
There is more CO2 in the air than the last 800,000 years and the drastic changes in the climate all over the world could result in displacement of millions of people and create millions of climate refugees. Over a million species will go extinct by 2050, if human activities in term of carbon emissions remain the same.
Prolonged daughters, wild fires and superstorms have become the new norm and millions of species and human beings will suffer if we don’t cut our addiction to fossil fuels and invest in renewable sources of energy like wind, solar and fusion.
Trump has so far been ignoring fires in California, but a series of tweets this week he blamed California Gov. Jerry Brown and environmental laws in California. The irony is that the human activity is making global warming worse and environmental deregulation under the trump administration (during EPA’s former Scott Pruitt) widely increases the emissions of CO2.
Trump thinks environmental regulations and forest trees are the reasons behind wildfires in California and he continues to deny climate change and undermines the already-in-place environmental regulations and laws. He continues to call climate change a “Chinese hoax", while 99% of all climate scientists agree that climate change is real and happening.
Instead of denying climate change and global warming, the Trump administration needs to undo the dangerous efforts by former EPA’s Scott Pruitt to deregulate environmental protection and has to invest on renewable sources of energy and stop bailing out the so called “Clean Coal”.
The Trump administration is bailing out coal and nuclear plants since they can’t compete economically with renewable sources of energy from solar, wind or natural gas. Trump wants the American tax payers to pay for expensive electricity from dangerous and dirty sources like coal, while cheaper, cleaner and safer options like Renewables are available. Only, for the purpose of winning his votes to getting re-elected. Nothing else matters.
If we human beings intend to sustain our civilization, we need to speed up to adoption of Renewables and vote for government officials who have a deep understanding of the climate science. Otherwise, all of us as citizens of the Earth will suffer the consequences of the climate crisis that’s threatening our planet.
Resources:
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655626/trump-wildfire-twitter-mendocino-complex-carr-california
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-mendocino-fire-20180805-story.html
