To see the devastating and deadly impact of climate change, “just look around: it’s already starting,” Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.
AOC’s Monday tweet linked to another with an image of the Carquinez Bridge in Vallejo, California engulfed in a massive plume of smoke.
This is what climate change looks like.
The GOP like to mock scientific warnings about climate change as exaggeration. But just look around: it’s already starting.
We have 10 years to cut carbon emissions in half. If we don’t, scenes like this can get much worse. #GreenNewDeal https://t.co/GNvk7DYFJT
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 28, 2019
In reality, emissions, science, leadership and other factors AOC cites to support climate change and the Green New Deal have nothing to do with how many of the recent fires in California got started. Data shows the vast majority started with human intervention.
According to the Insurance Information Institute: As many as 90 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by people, according to the U.S. Department of Interior. Some human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, downed power lines, negligently discarded cigarettes and intentional acts of arson. The remaining 10 percent are started by lightning or lava.
According to Verisk’s 2017 Wildfire Risk Analysis 4.5 million U.S. homes were identified at high or extreme risk of wildfire, with more than 2 million in California alone. – READ MORE