A strange and dangerous paradise, L.A., and we stubborn fools insist on staying put despite earthquakes, drought, forest fires, the dwindling shoreline.
Even before this year's drought, forest officials were reporting a longer fire season, and more catastrophic mega-fires, in California and other western states.
Meanwhile, because of population growth, the numbers of people at risk from flood, wind, earthquake, volcanic eruption, tsunami, drought, forest fire and landslide continues to swell.
I just experienced an intense summer of drought, forest closures and daily smoke from fires in New Mexico and other parts of the West.
MAMMOTH LAKES — The people of this small High Sierra ski town have survived drought, forest fires and earthquakes.
Such a rise would probably increase desertification, droughts, forest fires and the widespread death of animals, such as dolphins, from disease, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Standing, healthy forests, the Earth's "sweat glands", pump moisture into the atmosphere, providing the globe with its greatest defense against droughts, forest fires and other weather-related disasters.
Erratic rainfall, melting glaciers, flash floods and landslides, droughts, forest fires and dried-up springs are leading to reduced crop production, loss of land, increased pests and disease and food scarcity.
Rising global temperatures, largely due to man-made greenhouse gases, are the source of widely discussed, observable changes to the Earth, like melting glaciers, rising sea levels, warming oceans, and more extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, and floods.
You don't need to be an expert to know that droughts, forest fires, hurricanes, flash floods, growing economic disparities and checking devices 80 times per day can't be good for anyone.
However, they are also very vulnerable to changes in temperature, precipitation and extreme weather events which can have destructive impacts (e.g. tree breakage, droughts, forest fires) resulting in a reduction of the C sequestration potential of the forest [2, p. 135].
