Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday pushed California to adopt President Trump’s forestry management recommendations by noting new data illustrating the carbon dioxide pollution California emitted this year as a result of massive wildfires.
The data released Friday showed that the California fires produced the equivalent in carbon emissions to one year of power plant electricity production. The emissions were the equivalent to nearly 68 million tons of carbon dioxide, the Interior Department said. The data was compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey that Zinke oversees as secretary.
“Proper management of our forests, to include small prescribed burns, mechanical thinning, and other techniques, will improve forest health and reduce the risk of wildfires, while also helping curb the carbon emissions,” Zinke said in a statement.
While visiting California two weeks ago, Trump said he had not changed his mind on the effects of global warming being a top cause of the wildfires. He instead said the root of the problem was lack of proper forest management and talked about raking and cleaning the forest floors.
Zinke explained Friday that there is “too much dead and dying timber in the forest, which fuels these catastrophic fires.” He said the intensity and range of the wildfires shows that the nation can no longer ignore proper forest management.
“We can and must do a better job of protecting both the forests and the communities on the urban-wildland interface,” he added. “Leaving forests unmanaged is no longer a safe option.”
Zinke’s release of the climate data comes a week after a federal climate change report was released, showing major devastation and significant economic losses from increased global warming.
The use of better forest and agriculture management techniques to reduce the effects of climate change are expected to come up next week when nations assemble for the COP24 United Nations climate summit in Poland, say environmentalists and conservation activists.
They point out that improving farming methods, along with forest management, are often overlooked when considering the effects of global warming. Groups will be pushing for the inclusion of these techniques at the U.N. climate meeting, which is meant to decide on next steps in implementing the 2015 Paris climate accord.
