Fires: Bush's Fault!

"I see this as one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States," said study coauthor Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it's not 50 to 100 years away—it's happening now in forest ecosystems through fire."

I guess the science is settled. The Director of Tree Ring Research and all says so in the Journal Science, picked up by Yahoo! News I suggest the increased population in forested areas and the devotion of academics and greens to wilderness preservation spiked in the late 1980s as well. I further suggest that the list of articles on this week's online version of the journal Science is telling:

• Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth
• Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats
• Scorched West to Sizzle All Summer, NOAA Says
• In a Twist, Forest Products Viewed as Green Energy
• Snow Melting Earlier In Eastern North America
• Drought Lands Doubled

Not a lot of "up" news this week. I'm sensing a trend. Environment Posted by jk at July 8, 2006 1:43 PM