Teen View: California Wildfires Are Fueling Climate Change, But It Doesn’t Have to be This Way

By SAMANTHA SONNETT | Intern

Once an occasional natural disaster in our community, wildfires have become incredibly common and a regular by-product of climate change. Brush fires plague much of Los Angeles, often near the California Incline, the Palisades Highlands, by the 405 freeway and in our neighboring mountains.

I remember evacuating our home here in the Palisades on more than one occasion in elementary and middle school, having to decide on the most important things in my life that I could pack into a little suitcase.

Besides the risk of property damage and severe injury, if the current wildfire crisis is left uncontained, the resulting greenhouse gas emissions would reverse much of the progress being made by a recent rush of state, federal and international greenhouse gas reduction initiatives.

The federal government announced plans in February to use $179 million to help contain the situation, according to a report by California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force. However, this won’t solve the problem. As citizens, it is our duty to continue calling on our government to take action to reduce environmental pollution and climate change.

In addition to an influx in carbon emissions, forest fires cause methane emissions. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and effectively warms our atmosphere 86 times more than carbon emissions, as reported by Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

As discussed in an article I authored for the Palisadian-Post last month, California recently convinced several states and countries to join in its goal of reducing methane levels by 40% by the year 2030. But, according to a study published last year in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, the amount of emissions from California fires in a recent year equaled nearly 14% of the state’s total emissions, compared to an average of 1% in years past.

Further, a UCLA study concluded that the wildfires in 2020 released approximately 127 million megatons of greenhouse gases, which is twice the amount of total emissions that California had managed to cut from 2003 to 2019. This statistic is sobering, and facts like these should incite a need to encourage more awareness and action by our community members.

Climate change is a top issue for voters, not just because they necessarily care about the environment, but because they feel the effects of climate change daily. Twenty-five million acres—which make up a quarter of the state—are considered very high or extreme fire threat regions, according to California Air Resources Board, and more than 25% of California’s residents live in those areas.

Six of the largest wildfires in California have occurred in the last four years, as reported by Reuters. The Dixie fire is the most recent one, and the largest single-source fire in our state’s history. PG&E claims the fire may have started from its equipment, which quickly spread due to drought-causing brush and burned for almost an entire month in 2021.

What can we do to address the wildfire crisis? First, the environment must continue to be a focus in government policy making, as there are more wildfires due to climate change.

Second, priority should be given to proper forest management, as we’ve seen with the recent $179 million funding from our U.S. Forest Service. The money will be used to further California’s action plan to—among other things—create more beneficial fires, increase monitoring of electric utility equipment that could cause fires, encourage private landowners to properly maintain their trees and brush, and create fuel breaks, which are corridors of land that have been cleared of smaller trees, brush and twigs to stop fires from spreading.

It is worth noting that almost 70% of Gen Z voters (currently 18 to 27 years old) rank climate change as a top issue to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations, according to Pew Research Center. More and more of these young voters are running for office in the future, according to a 2022 study by Tufts University.

I hope the voices of our future elected officials will be heard and echoed by voters across the country so that later generations of children can enjoy our beautiful community.

Samantha Sonnett is a student at Palisades Charter High School and passionate about saving the environment. She is an activist with the American Conservation Coalition. She can often be found at the beach or strumming on her guitar. Sonnett hopes that the world can continue to fight for a more sustainable future, in order to preserve the planet and avoid further climate change.