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Sunday night, September 6: The sun barely sets over the sea. The last rays of the sun continue to brush against my balcony as I finish a long week with friends. It is the first weekend after the closure of a month for coronavirus in San Diego. A glance at the weather forecast for the next seven days makes us happy: only sun. My application does not show a single cloud. Monday to Monday. Temperatures: 27 to 34 degrees. I take a screenshot and send the photo to my family chat with a teasing emoji (😛).
A week later: it’s Sunday night again, we’re on the balcony again. Only the sunset is missing. The view is completely obscured by smoke from the Valley Fire, which has been burning about 25 miles east of downtown San Diego for days. A blue sky, which my otherwise reliable weather app had advertised, was searched to no avail all week. With smoke we get up, with smoke we go to bed.
19,000 square meters charred: half of Switzerland!
California’s wildfire season has just begun. But this year’s fires are already considered the worst on record. More than 30,000 firefighters and helpers are on duty to control the flames. According to the authorities, around 19,000 square kilometers of land have already been charred – that’s almost half the area of Switzerland as a whole!
Fires threaten not only the infrastructure of entire cities, but also human health. California has reported 24 victims since the first fire broke out in mid-August. Dozens of people are missing. Tens of thousands are fleeing.
The entire west coast of America is on fire
Photographs from San Francisco show how dire the situation is this year. What normally only the latest filter can do, people in Northern California can now experience with their own eyes – everything appears in a red-orange light. A witness described the phenomenon to the “San Francisco Chronicle” last week as “an apocalypse.”
San Francisco without sun! “It feels like the apocalypse”(00:56)
California is not alone in its destiny this year. Along the west coast, states fight the flames. In Oregon, about 4,000 square kilometers of forest area burned, twice the number in an average year. The small town of Detroit is almost completely destroyed, as CNN reported yesterday. There are only about two dozen buildings left there. Several local firefighters have lost their own homes and are now fighting to protect the remaining homes. Local resident Elizabeth Smith told the broadcaster that her home had been completely destroyed. “Looks like a bomb has exploded.”
Air quality in San Diego is twice as bad as in Beijing
It is still not as dramatic in the major metropolitan regions of California. Besides the stunning images and the lack of blue sky, however, air quality is the main issue here. San Diego’s Air Quality Index reached the “extreme” level last Friday with a value of 220. With such high levels of air pollution, even young and healthy people should not participate in sports activities. For comparison: the Chinese city of Beijing, known for its smog, had an air quality of 111 on the same day.
Some parts of the state of Oregon are currently worse than San Diego. There, on Sunday, the health official from Clackamas County, southeast of the city of Portland, sounded the alarm: “Our region currently has the worst air quality in the world. Not only is it unhealthy, it’s dangerous. “
Climate change: “California is America in a fast race”
According to experts, we are going through a time on the west coast of the United States that will flourish for the entire country in a few years. Gavin Newsom (52), Governor of California, spoke of a vision of the year 2030. “California is America in a fast race,” he said last weekend, emphasizing that climate change is “real” and will happen “now. “.
Climate expert Zeke Hausfather of the Breakthrough Institute think tank put it in the Los Angeles Times: “People who have lived in California for 30 or 40 years say it is unprecedented, it has never been this hot, it has never been this way. . smoky in all the years I’ve lived here. “What you see now in California are events where you can clearly say that climate change has gotten worse.
Wildfires in the United States: Governor on climate change deniers: “Look at this”(00:50)
Trump denies climate change when visiting
Donald Trump (74) wanted to have his own image of the situation on Monday. The President of the United States visited us in California and we were generally disappointed. The Republican did not want to know anything about climate change, which he himself denies, but criticized what he considered poor forest management.
“It’s going to start to get cold, just watch,” Trump told California Minister Wade Crowfoot. Crowfoot replied, “I wish science would agree with you.” Trump replied, “Well, I don’t think science really knows.”
A false statement: Scientists believe that the climate crisis has been shown to exacerbate extreme weather events such as drought and heat, which can contribute to more violent wildfires. If you still don’t believe it, come to California now. The President of the United States can see it for himself on my balcony. You just have to look far away, where the sun has apparently not set for days behind the thick waves of smoke. Welcome to the year 2030, Mr. President.
“It will get cooler again”: Donald Trump doesn’t believe in climate change(00:48)
