{"id":274141,"date":"2023-08-17T15:34:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T13:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274141"},"modified":"2023-08-17T15:34:22","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T13:34:22","slug":"after-a-false-start-mainstream-media-largely-reports-accurately-on-maui-wildfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274141","title":{"rendered":"After a False Start, Mainstream Media Largely Reports Accurately on Maui Wildfire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As has become a far too common knee jerk reaction as natural disasters occur, mainstream media outlets, like\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, for example, were quick to blame climate change for the Maui wildfire and its horrific consequences. They were wrong, and for once, perhaps because of the sobering death toll, the mainstream media has begun to backtrack and acknowledge the myriad other factors are actually responsible for the scope of the Maui fires and the loss of life, homes, and businesses it has caused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A confluence of weather events and human error resulted in the tragedy that is the Maui fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a scientist told ABC News in climate change toned-down story, \u201cWhy climate change can\u2019t be blamed entirely for the Maui wildfires<\/a>,\u201d \u201cWe should not look to the Maui wildfires as a poster child of the link to climate change,\u201d Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday in a YouTube stream.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hawaiian Islands have wet and dry seasons, and it is currently the dry season on Maui, and Lahaina, the city suffering the brunt of the wildfire\u2019s wrath, sits on the naturally drier side of the island due to the prevailing trade winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe dry season begins in May, if not earlier. Rain virtually stops in June and July and temperatures rise, making it the most popular time for visitors,\u201d wrote DW in its responsible story, \u201cWhat caused Hawaii\u2019s devastating wildfires?<\/a>\u201d \u201cAugust and September can be particularly hot, \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the factors that allowed Maui\u2019s wildfire to grow so quickly was an abundance of fuel. This dry season followed a wet spring, which resulted in verdant growth of an invasive grass on the mountain slopes and valleys abutting Lahaina. Almost every story covering the wildfires mentions that after years of agricultural use, the land on the slopes was taken over by Guinea grass, a fast growing invasive grass, see, for example,\u00a0Watts Up With That<\/a>,\u00a0Smithsonian Magazine<\/a>, and the\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the wet season\u00a0Guinea grass can grow up to 10 cm<\/a>\u00a0per day and reach 2 meters in height. Rather than keeping the Guinea grass in check by regular mowing, or better still removing and replacing with fire resistant native grasses and plants,\u00a0Maui\u2019s government allowed Guinea grass<\/a>\u00a0to take over. Abby Frazier, a climatologist at Clark University told ABC News that \u201c[t]he main factor driving the fires involved the invasive grasses that cover huge parts of Hawaii, which are extremely flammable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was\u00a0Hurricane Dora<\/a>, a category four storm that had recently passed Hawaii, delivering strong winds of up to 62 miles per hour that drove the fires, once started, down the slopes with amazing speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot dry conditions, check. A large load of dry fuel, check. High winds, check. Now you just need an ignition source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve determined what sparked the fire, whether arson, carelessness on someone\u2019s part or whether it was natural, say a lightning strike, but something sparked it. That accounts for the formation of the fire and its ferocity, but not the human tragedy, the death toll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is also all on Maui\u2019s government.\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0both detailed the fact that fire officials and the island\u2019s electric utility had warned for more than a decade that the island was at extreme risk of wildfires due to fuel build up, the naturally arid environment during the dry season, and high winds\u2014the very confluence of conditions responsible for the still ongoing wildfires on Maui. As the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0reported:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Nearly a decade before a wildfire destroyed the coastal Maui town of Lahaina this week, killing at least 89 people, a report by Hawaiian fire researchers warned that the area was at extremely high risk of burning.<\/p>\nAnother report, in 2020, tied fires to winds from a passing hurricane\u2014similar to the ones that fanned the Lahaina blaze.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

Even with all this, the Hawaiian government had established an extensive network of sirens across the island to warn people in case of an emergency, but the local government didn\u2019t sound the alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet local authorities said in the aftermath of this week\u2019s devastation that though they knew wildfires were becoming more frequent in Hawaii, they weren\u2019t prepared for one to roar through Lahaina.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The question is why weren\u2019t they prepared? In addition, one might reasonably ask, why didn\u2019t they trigger the warning sirens?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some reporters and\u00a0science pundits<\/a>\u2019 claims to the contrary, climate change was not a significant factor in Maui\u2019s tragedy. The modest background warming did not cause the present dryness \u2014 Maui is in its historic dry season, nor did it cause poor land management, nor did it spark the fire, nor did it cause the winds from a hurricane, nor, perhaps most importantly, did it cause the government to fail to anticipate and prepare to fight such fires or decide not to set off the island-wide alarm system of horns to warn people once the fires started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people blaming climate change for Maui\u2019s tragic fire and large loss of life are despicable. Climate alarmists linking climate change to Maui\u2019s deadly wildfire are the worst kind of opportunists, grotesquely dancing on the smoldering bodies of those whose lives were lost to score political points. It is sick. No restriction on fossil fuel emissions would have prevented this terrible event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short,\u00a0ecologist Jim Steele was right<\/a>\u00a0when he wrote, \u201cThe Maui fire would have devastated Lahaina in a colder or warmer climate. It would have devastated Lahaina in high or low CO2 concentrations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many lives might have been saved if the government had cleared or removed the grasses and replaced them with native plants or had the government followed the recommendations of its own fire authorities and treated wildfires as a major risk, certainly a more immediate one than climate change, and had it sounded the extensive alarm network it had established allowing people time to escape. No one knows, but it is certainly a greater number than the zero lives it would have saved had it banned using fossil fuels for transportation and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to directing The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, Burett puts Environment & Climate News together, is the editor of Heartland’s Climate Change Weekly email, and the host of the Environment & Climate News Podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As has become a far too common knee jerk reaction as natural disasters occur, mainstream media outlets, like\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0and\u00a0the Los Angeles Times, for example, were quick to blame climate change for the Maui wildfire and its horrific consequences. They were wrong, and for once, perhaps because of the sobering death toll, the mainstream media has begun to backtrack and acknowledge the myriad other factors are actually responsible for the scope of the Maui fires and the loss of life, homes, and businesses it has caused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":274152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818721,691821901,691821790,691820111,691821883],"class_list":{"0":"post-274141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-alarmists","9":"tag-guinea-grass","10":"tag-lahaina","11":"tag-mainstream-media","12":"tag-maui-wildfire","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0maui-wildfire-c.jpg?fit=1248%2C650&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19jD","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":273206,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=273206","url_meta":{"origin":274141,"position":0},"title":"Maui fires not climate","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Exploiting these tragic fires for climate propaganda purposes is not and is 100% shameful.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate Emergency\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate Emergency","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-emergency"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0maui-fires-nasa.png?fit=1200%2C792&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0maui-fires-nasa.png?fit=1200%2C792&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0maui-fires-nasa.png?fit=1200%2C792&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0maui-fires-nasa.png?fit=1200%2C792&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0maui-fires-nasa.png?fit=1200%2C792&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":276686,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276686","url_meta":{"origin":274141,"position":1},"title":"Man-Made Disaster\u2019: Byron Donalds Blames \u2018Green New Deal Stuff\u2019 For Maui Wildfire","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/09\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Republican Rep. Byron Donalds blamed \u201cgreen new deal stuff\u201d for the devastating wildfire in Maui, saying an electric company ignored \u201cthe basic things.\u201d","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-01-133814.png?fit=1200%2C669&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-01-133814.png?fit=1200%2C669&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-01-133814.png?fit=1200%2C669&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-01-133814.png?fit=1200%2C669&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-01-133814.png?fit=1200%2C669&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":273475,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=273475","url_meta":{"origin":274141,"position":2},"title":"No, Mr. Kirby and CNN, \u201cAll the severe storms\u201d are NOT Caused by Climate Change","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"14\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"John Kirby, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, told the audience at \u201cCNN This Morning\u201d that President Joe Biden is still considering declaring a climate emergency, and that \u201call\u201d severe weather we have seen lately are \u201cdefinitely\u201d because of climate change. This is false.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0severe-weather-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0severe-weather-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0severe-weather-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0severe-weather-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0severe-weather-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":274848,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274848","url_meta":{"origin":274141,"position":3},"title":"EXCLUSIVE: President Joe Biden\u2019s \u2018Climate Emergency\u2019 Declaration Speech in Maui","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"21\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"As you may know, after a week of terrible optics after the Maui wildfire, President Biden was excoriated in news and social media for\u00a0sitting on the beach, on vacation\u00a0and\u00a0making \u201cno comment\u201d to reporters\u00a0regarding the fire.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-21-204212.png?fit=1174%2C583&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-21-204212.png?fit=1174%2C583&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-21-204212.png?fit=1174%2C583&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-21-204212.png?fit=1174%2C583&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-21-204212.png?fit=1174%2C583&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":274329,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274329","url_meta":{"origin":274141,"position":4},"title":"Biden, Montana, Maui – ‘Climate Emergency’ Madness Continues With Special Guest Dr. Judith Curry","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"18\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"It has been a crazy week in the climo-sphere. Fires in Maui were blamed on \u201cclimate change\u201d by the media, only for them to find out that this wasn\u2019t the case at all!","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Screenshot-2023-08-18-193849.png?fit=977%2C561&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Screenshot-2023-08-18-193849.png?fit=977%2C561&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Screenshot-2023-08-18-193849.png?fit=977%2C561&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Screenshot-2023-08-18-193849.png?fit=977%2C561&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":275186,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275186","url_meta":{"origin":274141,"position":5},"title":"Bloomberg\u2019s Wildfire Denial","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"23\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Bloomberg are doing what they are accusing a tiny handful of conspiracy theorists of doing, by invoking the climate bogeyman!","rel":"","context":"In \"Bloomberg\"","block_context":{"text":"Bloomberg","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bloomberg"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/OIG-2023-08-12T113605.127.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/OIG-2023-08-12T113605.127.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/OIG-2023-08-12T113605.127.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/OIG-2023-08-12T113605.127.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=274141"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274154,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274141\/revisions\/274154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/274152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=274141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=274141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=274141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}