Natural disasters and wildfires

Jan 16, 2025 Editorial, News

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Editorial…

Kaieteur News-  The current wildfires sweeping through Los Angeles and California in the United States is a stark reminder of the existential threat posed by climate change to citizens’ existence and survival.

In recent years, we have witnessed not just earthquakes and hurricanes but floods occurring with greater frequency, devastating lives and countries. Up to yesterday authorities estimated that more than six million people in southern California remained in danger of life-threatening wildfires as weather officials in Los Angeles issued fresh warnings about more extreme winds set to blast the parched region and four blazes still burned fiercely.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that as wildfires increase around the globe in frequency, severity and duration, there is heightened need to understand the health effects of wildfire exposure. The risk of wildfires grows in extremely dry conditions, such as drought, heat waves and during high winds.  According to the WHO, wildfire smoke is a mixture of hazardous air pollutants, such PM_2.5, NO₂, ozone, aromatic hydrocarbons, or lead.

In addition to contaminating the air with toxic pollutants, wildfires also simultaneously impact the climate by releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  With climate change leading to warmer temperatures and drier conditions and the increasing urbanization of rural areas, the fire season is starting earlier and ending later, the WHO said.  The health body said wildfire events are getting more extreme in terms of acres burned, duration and intensity, and they can disrupt transportation, communications, water supply, and power and gas services.

Right here at home, we are not strangers to wildfires. Just last year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that a total of 91,128 fires were recorded from January to May. With May having the lowest count and March having the highest count of wildfires, the EPA said a total of 5045.45 square miles of land were burned over the five months.

But the wildfire phenomenon alone is not our only concern as we seek to fight climate change- our ramping up of fossil fuel production with little safeguards and the ever-present threat of floods are also major bugbears for us. In the last decade we have repeatedly talked about global warming and climate change particularly after this country suffered the worst flood in its history back in 2005.  For the first time then, Guyanese recognised how fragile this narrow strip of coastland is that accommodates some 70 per cent of the population. Indeed, the floods were concentrated in Regions Three and Four, and to some extent, Region Five.

The effects were harshest in Region Four, and losses were widespread; people, crops and livestock died.  The international community was forced to rush to our aid. One group duly informed us that had the flood continued, we could have faced a situation where the pressure of water from the land would have caused the sea defence to collapse. Needless to say, with the coastal plain being some six feet below sea level, the disaster would have been catastrophic. The capital and the coast would have been lost forever. Salt water would have put paid to the agricultural lands and to the very existence of this country.  People were forced to vacate their homes, which were often under as much as four or five feet of water for three weeks.  The panic is still there, even as we recall the authorities wisely contemplating evacuating large sections of the population to the higher reaches of the country. Over the past few decades, we have had to shift our sea defence inland, in cases by as much as 200 metres because of the relentless attack from the Atlantic; but, even then, we did not contemplate the danger, choosing instead to fool ourselves into believing that the attack by the Atlantic was seasonal. Over the past few years, we have been spending millions of dollars on sea defence, because there is constant collapse.

Today we have to think about oil production and the effects on the climate. On one hand, Guyana at one time had positioned itself as an advocate for the environment, dedicating vast acreages of its forests to conservation, biodiversity research and sustainable forestry development. One of its Presidents was even named as a ‘Champion of the Earth’. Today, its actions tell a different story– one of embracing and accelerating fossil fuel production and calling for a just transition to renewables – a position seen as defending increased fossil fuel exploration and production in the short-to-medium- term. This perplexing duality raises questions about the sincerity of Guyana’s commitment to environmental stewardship. However, one thing is sure, ExxonMobil’s purpose is clear: make money for its shareholders and making money and climate change challenges are like two scorpions in a bottle, meaning that something must give and it is not going to be profit maximization.

(Natural disasters and wildfires)

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• devastating lives, frequency, natural disasters, United States, Wildfires, World Health organisation

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