So much for electric cars, solar panels, and windmills saving the planet.
A new study by UCLA and University of Chicago environmental scientists finds that forest fires “put twice as much greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere as the state’s total reduction in such emissions from 2003 to 2019.” Dr. Michael Jarrett, a lead author of the study, told the SF Chronicle: “Wildfire emissions in 2020 essentially negate 18 years of reductions in greenhouse gas emission,” He added, “The positive impact of all that hard work over almost two decades is at risk of being swept aside by the smoke produced in a single year of record-breaking wildfires.”
The California Air Resources Board does not account for the smoke pollution from wildfires, according to the Chronicle.
Forest fires on public lands can be combated and reduced by better forest management by the US Forest Service and the state natural resources department. So at about one-tenth, the cost of the tens of billions of dollars thrown at green energy programs that make gas at the pump and electric power costs much more expensive, improved forest management would do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But California and the feds can’t do that because, without government subsidies, the green energy companies that give tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to the Democrats would all go bankrupt.
