In the long run,
the facts are on the side of the optimists.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., the arc of history bends toward progress. But progress doesn't just happen. People work hard to discover ways forward.
The What Works Initiative
highlights positive outcomes on difficult issues – and how people achieved them.
Yes, Europe has seen wildfires in France and Spain this summer on a historic scale, with hundreds of thousands of evacuations. Yes, the Midwest and Atlantic regions of the US have been throttled with smoke from vast fires in Canada. And yes, climate change is a factor in creating the conditions for these fires. El Nino isn’t helping either.
So it’s almost jarring to hear that there is, also, good news on the wildfire front.
In fact, globally, wildfires are at the lowest level ever recorded. In the first six months of this year, worldwide carbon emissions from wildfires were logged at the lowest level since records began 24 years ago. They are about half what they were in the early 2000s.
One reason is that while climate change is making Europe and North America mostly hotter and drier, it is moistening other regions in Asia and Africa. The Sahel, for example – that long, famine-prone belt across Africa just under the Sahara – is greening up and its groundwater rising after more than a generation of drought.
Of special note, the acreage of land burned in the Amazon last year fell to its lowest level since 1985. The Amazon is sometimes called “the lungs of the planet” (even if that’s a bit overstated) because of its importance in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and producing oxygen.
The wildfire problem is critical across massive regions, but the global context matters too.
Sources: Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service; Phys.org; Yale Environment 360