Blame 'environmental terrorist groups' for severity of California wildfires, Interior secretary says

Last edited Thu Aug 16, 2018, 02:06 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/08/15/ryan-zinke-blames-california-wildfires-environmental-terrorist-groups/

Ryan Zinke blames ‘environmental terrorist groups’ for severity of California wildfires
by Erin B. Logan August 15 at 6:31 PM

Wildfires strike California every year. But they’re getting worse, causing deaths and uprooting communities. But who is to blame for these increasingly destructive wildfires?

According to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, it’s “environmental terrorist groups.”

During a radio interview with Breitbart News, Zinke said that “environmental terrorist groups” are preventing the government from managing forests and are largely responsible for the severity of the fires. But fire scientists and forestry experts have said climate change is the main factor behind the problem.

Research shows that human-caused climate change is a primary factor behind the recent increase in fire severity. A 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the heat and drought brought about by climate change was responsible for doubling the amount of land burned in the western United States between 1984 and 2015.

“There is a broad effort to deny the science of climate change and its links to the horrible wildfires in California, and it’s just not accurate,” Leah C. Stokes, professor of environmental and political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara, told The Post. “I don’t think the scale of reducing fuel load is a realistic policy proposal that would magically stop all fires in the western United States. Forests burn, and it is going to get a lot worse unless we do something about climate change.”

Environmental groups also took issue with the labeling of “terrorist."

“Zinke’s inability to understand basic fire science is leading him to turn to dangerous and inflammatory quips,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Lands Protection Program at the Sierra Club. “We do think we need to do sensible forest management. But this should be driven by science and practicality. This does not seem be a priority for the secretary.”

....