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Jim: jdipeso@rep.org
(253) 740-2066 / 2009
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Higher Temperatures, Higher Costs
August
28, 2009
Much
of the rhetoric coming from opponents of climate legislation asserts
that limiting greenhouse gas emissions inevitably would result in
higher costs.
Some of this faction’s more zealous ideologues argue that more
atmospheric CO2 would be a blessing: in their dreamy world, global
heating will deliver lush gardens, long summers, and shirtsleeve
vacations by the Bering Sea.
Snap back to reality in the Intermountain West. Fighting wildland fires
costs money. Fighting big fires that threaten homes in remote, brushy
canyons costs more money. Fighting big fires that come more frequently
with higher temperatures costs still more money.
The combination of higher temperatures and increasing residential
development in the backcountry will significantly increase the costs
and dangers of wildland firefighting, according to a new study by
Headwaters Economics, a non-profit research outfit that focuses on
Western resource management issues.
The combustible mixture of rising temperatures and increasing
backcountry development could quadruple wildland firefighting costs by
2025, Headwaters estimated. Using Montana’s fire history as a
statistical foundation, the study found that the annual average cost of
protecting homes from wildland fires was $28 million between 2003 and
2007.
Bring projected 2025 residential development in the wildland-urban
interface forward to 2007 and costs would soar to nearly $40 million.
Raise average spring and summer temperatures by 1 degree, and wildland
firefighting costs zoom to between $61 million and $113 million.
Who pays? Mostly, the taxpayers. Between 2002 and 2006, federal
agencies spent $6.2 billion putting out fires on Western public lands.
Nearly 100 wildland firefighters paid the ultimate price. Despite
firefighters’ best efforts, however, fire destroyed more than 10,000
homes during that period. In rugged, fire-prone terrain, some homes
cannot be saved.
Greater responsibility for repairing this expensive state of affairs
needs to be taken all the way around. Landowners should think twice
about building in remote areas where protecting their homes from fire
is unusually costly, difficult, and dangerous.
Local governments in the backcountry ought to put aside knee-jerk
ideological notions about zoning and curb development that imposes
costs and risks on others.
As for dealing with climate change, that responsibility falls on all of
us at all levels, from household purchasing decisions to global treaty
commitments.
Costs
are a critical issue in the debate about climate change. Missing from
much of the debate, however, is recognition of the costs of doing
nothing. Long, hot summers on the fire lines bring those costs home.
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