Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized
Global Warming and Colorado's Great Fire

Global Warming and Colorado’s Great Fire

Juan Cole 06/27/2012

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Weather is specific events, climate is the long-term pattern. Catastrophes like the forest fire in Colorado that has expelled 32,000 people from their homes are the results of weather. But long-term climate change can increase the likelihood of such events. That is, we may have a big, wet snow in Colorado some winter in the near future. But you have to average it with all the winters like the past one, relatively warm and dry, and the latter will have the edge over time if we go on with our high-carbon ways.

Over the coming decades, the American Southwest will become drier and warmer as a result of all the carbon dioxide and soot that the US, China and other industrial societies are dumping into the atmosphere.

Therefore there will be more forest fires like the one in Colorado. And, as Deborah Zabarenko writes for Reuters, the scientific evidence on this dim future is building up.

As I said, some 32,000 Coloradans have been forced from their homes so far:

Zabarenko follows up on a recent article in the journal Ecosphere, which lays out the case, and I was delighted to find is available in full text on the Web.

Professor Max A. Moritz at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley and his colleagues find the long-term probability of increase of forest fires in the American southwest is high.

Texas and Arizona are among those states at risk — further evidence that the Red States that engage in active climate change denial are committing suicide. I suspect most Coloradans know exactly what is happening to them and why, and my heart goes out to them.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Israel: Will Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Opposition to Conscription Bring down Netanyahu's Gov't
  • Women's Cancer Rates are Rising in the Oil Gulf: is Global Heating causing it?
  • Threat to Rule of Law: Sen. Padilla thrown to Ground, Cuffed at Noem DHS Press Conference

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved