OtrasPalabras.org<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\nRight now, much of the West is affected by wildfires.<\/p>\n
An unlucky minority will have to evacuate their homes, and some will lose their homes altogether \u2014 or even their lives. But for millions more across the West, \u201csmoke season\u201d is a real thing.<\/p>\n
Vast swaths of the West can be covered in smoke for extended periods, and inhaling the fine particles in the smoke is deleterious to one\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
This year, fires resulted in the closing of Yosemite National Park and part of Glacier National Park. The Ferguson Fire in Yosemite is just one of many recent fires within the park, including the enormous Rim Fire in 2013, the fifth largest fire in California history.<\/p>\n
As a Californian, fires are a regular part of life.<\/p>\n
The Cedar Fire of 2003 in San Diego was so massive that the smoke interfered with air traffic. I canceled a backpacking trip in 2015 due to the Rough Fire in King\u2019s Canyon National Park.<\/p>\n
I went on a road trip that summer and the sky was hazy with smoke in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado. I was told the smoke came from fires in Washington.<\/p>\n
In 2016, I spent a few weeks staying with a friend in rural San Diego County. I loved the area, and thought I might like to live there. Then, I thought, \u201cThis place looks like it could go up in smoke.\u201d Within the month, it did. The aptly named Border Fire broke out in Campo, and my friend had to evacuate.<\/p>\n
All of that is nothing compared to what a friend went through last summer in Montana. She and her family (including a toddler) were cooped up in their home for ages, trying to avoid inhaling the smoke. She had to install air filters in an attempt to keep at least the indoor air clean.<\/p>\n
The increase in wildfires is linked to the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
The equation is simple. When it\u2019s hotter outside, water evaporates faster, so the \u201cfuel\u201d (trees, vegetation) is drier and more flammable. The many trees killed by drought and bark beetles also contribute to the dryness of the fuel.<\/p>\n
As the effects of climate change get worse, they\u2019re also going to get more costly \u2014 in dollars, lives, and in quality of life. It would be far cheaper to prevent and mitigate the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
Cheaper and better.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re going to end up spending money either way: whether we pay to develop non-polluting energy sources, restore forests, and take other steps to prevent catastrophic climate change, or we don\u2019t, and then we have to pay for the consequences.<\/p>\n
The costs of inaction? More wildfires and more hurricanes destroy more homes and take more human lives. Inhaled smoke from wildfires leads to increased respiratory illnesses. Sea levels rise and some parts of the world end up under water.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, simply leaving it all up to individuals and to the market isn\u2019t enough to prevent this outcome. We need to act collectively \u2014 as a nation and as a world. We\u2019ve already pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, which was inadequate but at least it was something.<\/p>\n
Climate change is real \u2014 ask anyone living through smoke season. With midterm elections coming up, candidates should be pressed to clarify just what they\u2019re going to do about it.<\/p>\n
\u2014OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in San Diego. Distributed by OtrasPalabras.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jill Richardson | Guest Editorial Addressing climate change costs money, but wildfires gobbling up our country \u2014 and seas swallowing up our shores \u2014 costs more. [Editor\u2019s note: This op-ed courtesy of OtherWords.org.] Right now, much of the West is affected by wildfires.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":899,"featured_media":225456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"Guest Editorial: Here out West, \u2018smoke season\u2019 keeps getting worse","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11548,11552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-la-mesa-courier","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/899"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}