The latest wildfire situation report indicates that about 7.3 million acres have burned to date this year. That’s about 1.2 million acres less than this same date last year, but about 1.5 million acres more than the ten-year average and a lot more than the average in the 1950s and 1960s, which was about 3.9 million acres a year.
Some people use the data behind this chart to argue against anthropogenic climate change. The problem is that the data before about 1955 are a lie. Click image to go to the source data.
While some blame the increase in acres burned on human-caused climate change, skeptics of anthropogenic warming have pointed out that, according to the official records, far more acres burned in the 1930s — close to 40 million acres a year — than in any recent decade. The 1930s were indeed a decade of unusually bad droughts that can’t be blamed on anthropogenic climate change. Continue reading
