Why is everything blamed on global warming these days? There is still so little we understand about the environment yet global warming has become a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. The bigger problem is that we have stopped the little fires that pop up here and there which destroy the dead underbrush. When that accumulates and grows too large all it requires is a simple spark and what would have once been a small fire that is completely natural and expected becomes a giant conflagration. And despite what the media would tell you man made global warming is far from certain. I will agree that global warming is occurring but there are two important questions that need answering first. 1) Is it truly the fault of man and is CO2 the real epidemic? 2) Is global warming necessarily a really bad thing? Environmentalists unfortunately want to keep the globe static without realizing it is actually a dynamic existence.

My car needs about 1500.00 worth of work. I saw an article somewhere in Madd Magazine linking car repairs to global warming!!

John, you are absolutely correct. It's silly to think that global warming could be a culprit when overdevelopment and poor agricultural maintenance are more likely culprits.

It's not silly, it is the standard blame-every-bad-natural-event-on-global-warming-caused-by-humans bit every news outlet does all the time.

AHHH - it's good to see there are still some morans out there - remember don't mess with mother nature

Global warming is not necessarily THE reason for the fires in California, but it may be a cause indirectly: California, as well as Georgia, and even the MidWest are in a drought (or a significant change in the weather). New England was in the 70's and 80's in late October....

Another cause for the bigger fires is that there is simply more material to burn: decades of 'extinguish everything' policy from the Forest Service allows debris to build up. Then when fire does come by, it does it much bigger than it normally would. Fires are so intense now that they actually sterilize the top layers of soil. Fires are part of the ecology, and they should be allowed to burn periodically to prevent such buildups.

I do not know what the fire policy is in So. Cal., but I imagine that it is equivalent to what I have posted above.

Please excuse what may seem to be a holier-than-thou comment; I think this needs to be said. If you disagree, sorry.

It's definitely, like the article says, a combination of factors which is doing this.

Sure, we shouldn't blame everything on global warming, but we should also listen to the scientific consensus.
The facts remain: CO2 does increase the greenhouse effect and temperature, and one degree more of heat in the environment means drier materials, plus one degree less of heat needed to keep the fire going.

You seem to be supporting the emmission of CO2. If you want to keep driving your hummers, pretending there's nothing wrong with
- pumping millions of tons of poison into the atmosphere and oceans without regard for its undesired effects
- relying on foreign sources of oil, for which we may or may not be waging war (ok, I admit, I too idealistically believed the 'aluminum tubes are WMDs' bullshit)
- ignoring the destruction of habitats and the murder of species, and rationalizing it by calling it 'dynamic'...
... go ahead. But first, _PLEASE_ consider the possibility that you're hurting the world.

And David, I'm on your side, but it still bothers me when people misspell 'moron'.

I don't think its unreasonable to hypothesize that warming is at least part of the culprit. Now, is that human generated warming? The science is still out on that. But then it makes sense to posit that over development, bad fire control policies (that contribute to undergrowth) and a general seasonal climate that is favorable to starting fires, all had something to do with what is happening in SoCal.

Props to the Guvenator for not letting this become a Katrina.

Well Marc you seem to be informed. I do have a few questions. CO2 is a poison? I thought we needed that stuff. Temperature follows an increase concentration of CO2? I have read in several scientific publications that CO2 follows temperature. Should we listen to a 'scientific consensus"? I had rather listen to a "scientic debate" and make up my own mind. Foreign oil causes wild fires? Interesting! Define global warming? Is it the average high, average low. Who takes the temperature of the globe? According to our records the hottest year in the US was 1935. Go figure. As to the dynamics of the planet, that is a fact of our existence. We would "murder" fewer people if we built more nuclear plants and used less fossil fuels. That is the truth. Oh by the way I drive a hybred.

Mmm, the science is very clear- stupid fire policies cause worse fires, and global warming caused by humans does not help matters. What kills me is that I was taught these both things in highschool way back in 1989.