California’s apocalyptic fires are a side effect of modern life

The ‘new normal’ of a year-round wildfire season is a problem of our own making.Violent wildfires like the ones we’re witnessing today are of our own making. They’re the accidental yet catastrophic side effects of the way we live our lives; witness Redding, California, where the rim of a flat tire scraped the asphalt on a highway, causing the sparks that started the Carr Fire. They’re the result of people moving into fire-prone areas, along with forestry practices that suppress natural fires and human-caused global warming. Speaking to the media, Gov. Jerry Brown warned that we’d better get used to this, the “new normal.”“We’ve got to re-examine the way we manage our forests, the way we build our houses, where we build them, how we build them and how much we invest in our fire protection services,” Brown said. “I don’t like to scare people, but … we’ve got tough times ahead.”The ever-rising temperatures, persistent drought and permissive development policies have been with us for over a decade, making our current reality anything but new. But this summer of firenados, megafires and cross-country smoke should give us pause. If the environmental conditions that are fanning these wildfires keep growing at the current rate, many parts of California could simply become uninhabitable in a matter of decades. Are we ready for our climate future — now?