Living in Bomb Time — Ep. 10

The World’s Forests are on Fire, Ecosystem Turnover is the Cause

Let’s All be Really Clear on What that Means.

I’m not a concise writer. I like to contextualize the issue I am discussing and provide a framework for understanding it. This tendency makes my climate articles run to the lengthy side. So, this time I’m going to be short and to the point.

I use the term “ecosystem turnover” frequently in my articles to explain why the planet is going to be plagued by fires on unbelievable scales for the rest of this century. The basic idea is that Global Warming is warming up the entire planet, so every ecosystem on the planet is going to change in response to that warming.

Not just “vulnerable” places, not just “some” places, every place is going to go through this. The ecosystem you live in right now is already dying.

You might not have noticed it yet, but the plants and animals have. When it reaches a tipping point where there is enough debris from the dying ecosystem around where you live, fires will start happening.

It’s happening right now in California. A new study forecasts that it will subside in California’s Sierra Nevada after 2030. But only,

“because the region will likely be out of trees”