When smoke clouded Philadelphia earlier this summer, the effects of the wildfires in seemingly distant Canada felt up close and personal. On Aug. 8 wildfires began to spread across Lahaina, a town on the island of Maui in Hawaii. While we are not experiencing the physical effects of the fires on the East Coast, their impact is still felt as we witness the devastation occurring on the other side of the United States.
A particularly dry year in Hawaii plus the centuries-old build-up of dried grass from former sugar plantations and unusual wind patterns that fully sucked any remaining moisture out of the area set the conditions for an incendiary landscape. Rising temperatures only increased the chance of fire. Once it began, the flames moved quickly as they proceeded to burn the dried shrubbery and then spread to other areas. According to Reuters, the fires left at least 115 people dead, 850 people missing, at least 11,000 people displaced and at least 2,200 buildings destroyed.
Dr. Gregory Jenkins, professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, geography, and African studies at Penn State appeared on Evening WURDs with Michael Coard to provide more information about the fires.
“I think we’re priming the system for more wildfires. We don’t know where they’re gonna break out, but with increasing warming, we’re seeing these dry spring seasons, and it gets ready for summer season wildfires,” said Jenkins.
The last time there was a wildfire with over 100 casualties was in 1918 in Minnesota due to sparks from a passing train hitting a dry forest. While that fire was deadly, it emerged from identifiable man-made actions. The actions that have led to the Lahaina fire were still man-made as the quest for capitalism that began on those sugar plantations all those years ago clashed with the climate crisis of today. These fires remind us that our country was built on a plantation-based economy which affected both Black and Polynesian people and that this economy was environmentally catastrophic then and still has devastating effects to this day.
This past July was the hottest month on Earth since U.S. temperature records began. While Philadelphia is a ways off from seeing wildfires in our own streets, it does not mean that the planet’s warming will not affect our communities.
“If we look at the observations globally and regionally, and even in Pennsylvania, temperatures are going up. […] It’s very anomalous. I’ve never seen anything like it. So the oceans are warm, you got massive heat waves down in the south, heat waves in Europe. This is a function of climate change and we surpassed what we call this 1.5 degrees Celsius mark globally in the month of July. That’s why we’ve been trying to limit the global mean temperatures; because we know if you go beyond 1.5 and 2 degrees, the system goes crazy and we cannot anticipate what that will be,” said Jenkins.
We’ve already seen heatwaves and smoke from fires in other places, but there could soon be a sea level rise that makes its way to the city along with other environmental disasters.
The fires in Lahaina illustrate that this country does not have the infrastructure in place for climate resilience. There are still hopes and innovations to be made in slowing climate change, however, there must be a paradigm shift focused on how to react and respond to climate change. In embracing this shared responsibility, we can address the web of challenges spun by history and the urgent demands of our current climate crisis.
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Listen to the conversation between Dr. Jenkins and Michael Coard:
