Man arrested for igniting forest fire ‘caused by climate change’

A 71-year-old man was arrested Friday for allegedly starting a California forest fire last year which was widely blamed on “climate change”.

Edward Fredrick Wackerman is suspected of igniting the Oak Fire in Mariposa County, near Yosemite National Park, in July 2022. The fire destroyed over 100 homes and burned more than 18,000 acres. California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency and approximately 6,000 residents were placed under evacuation orders.

Newsom was quick to blame the fire on “climate change” and used the opportunity to criticize “Republicans and climate deniers” for holding Joe Biden’s climate agenda “hostage”.

Media operatives echoed Newsom in declaring the fire a climate disaster.

“Oak Fire Threatens Yosemite: Here Are The National Parks At Risk Of Burning As Climate Change Drives Wildfires,” wrote Forbes.

“California has experienced increasingly larger and deadlier wildfires in recent years as climate change has made the West much warmer and drier over the past 30 years. Scientists have said weather will continue to be more extreme and wildfires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable,” warned the Associated Press in a report on the fire.

An article by The Guardian cited “the climate crisis,” also referred to as “the climate emergency,” as the true cause behind the fire.

CNN quoted Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jon Heggie as saying the fire was “a direct result” of “climate change”.

“What I can tell you is this is a direct result of what is climate change,” Heggie said. “You can’t have a 10-year drought in California and expect things to be the same. And we are now paying the price for that 10-year drought and that climate change.”

But despite reporting Wackerman’s arrest for allegedly starting the fire, the Associated Press nevertheless tried to suggest it was climate-related.

“California has experienced increasingly larger and deadlier wildfires in recent years as climate change has made the West much warmer and drier over the past 30 years. Scientists have said weather will continue to be more extreme and wildfires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable,” the AP concluded the report.

But while media operatives and politicians are quick to blame wildfires on “climate change” many are questioning why arson is often overlooked.

Last week, some Canadian politicians pointed out that arson is being ignored as a possible cause for the recent wildfires in Alberta, Canada which are also blamed on “climate change”.

“Several arsonists have been arrested in the past weeks in different provinces for lighting forest fires,” People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier tweeted Wednesday. “But the lying woke media and politicians keep repeating that global warming is the cause.” 

The wild forest fires in Alberta, which started last month, have triggered air quality warnings in northeastern states such as New York, Maryland and Philadelphia, whose skies have turned an orange hue. Northern and even some midwestern states like Wyoming have also been blanketed in a smoky haze.

But experts are pointing out irreconcilable flaws with the “climate change” narrative.

The Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute Director Bjørn Lomborg wrote in 2021 that since wildfires started being recorded in 1900, the worldwide acreage burned by wildfires each year is decreasing, despite the climb in carbon emissions. Even assuming that global warming is causing more fires, they are still consuming less land than ever due to expanding populations and economic development.

According to Canada’s own Canadian National Fire Database (CNFDB), the number of wildfires has been steadily declining since 1990, the first year of record. 

Author and environmentalist Jim Steele, who previously served as San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus director, slammed the media’s “climate change” narrative.

“I do not feel the media is educating us about the science that affects fires. They're just trying to push a catastrophe narrative that's been going on way too long,” Steele told Cowboy State Daily. 

Steele says that fires were even more extensive in the 17th and 18th centuries when the world’s climate was cooler, pouring cold water on theories that Canada’s wildfires are caused by global warming.

Instead, Steele attributes the ferocious fires to Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a long-term temperature fluctuation of the Pacific Ocean over 20–30-year periods. During negative phases of this natural phenomenon, many parts of the US see drier climates than usual, which directly correlates to forest fires.

Another contributor to the wildfires, adds Steele, is, ironically, fire suppression. Forest management tactics allow dead trees, grasses and fuels to accumulate, which causes fires to burn hotter and longer.

“I don't think there's enough evidence whatsoever to say a CO2 effect has emerged from the data,” Steele said. 

University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Professor Cliff Mass also notes that forest fires in Canada are on the decline. The largest fires occurred in the 1980s, and Mass says May is primetime for forest fires.

“There is no evidence that such a pattern is the result of climate change,” wrote Mass on his blog.