User:Whitesphinx/Pollution in California

Wildfires
Air pollution due to the aforementioned sources serve to exacerbate the effects of climate change, which causes forest fire activity to increase as the climate along the west coast of the United States becomes hotter and drier. A 2016 study concluded that fuel aridity, which indicates how favorable forest vegetation is towards igniting and starting fires, increased significantly over the years 1979-2015, and that dry, hot, fire-weather seasons increased on average by 41% over this same time frame. The study also concluded that about 55% of the increase in both fuel aridity and the length of fire seasons on the west coast was due to human activity. (S1) As forests burn, they also release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, continuing to reinforce climate change and local warming in a positive feedback loop, as well as directly causing health problems to people living nearby that may breathe the smoke. During the summer of 2021, significant amounts of land were reported to be burned, which included a fire that spanned nearly a million acres--the largest in California's history. This was a contributor to the 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide released by wildfires from June to August 2021, according to the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service. (S3) Wildfires specifically are one of the main sources of fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 mm in diameter (PM2.5), and it is projected that by 2051 there will be 1.6 times more PM2.5 in the air over the west coast due to wildfires compared to today, with smoke levels being significantly higher in sections of Central to Northern California during fire seasons. (S2)

On an economic level, damages from wildfires can have significant socioeconomic costs, both on a direct and indirect level. A study analyzing the economic impact of the 2018 California wildfires found that almost 150 billion dollars were spent on wildfire damages (about 1.5% of its annual GDP), 59% of which consisted of indirect losses (i.e. disrupted supply chains) both in- and out-of-state. (S4) Preventative expenditures are also costly, and among all western states California has the highest wildfire suppression costs by far, totaling over $890 million between 2005 and 2015 (S5). Concern for the state's increased susceptibility to wildfires has also increasingly led to a push for legislatures regarding wildfire prevention and mitigation funding. For example, in 2021 Initiative Statue 21-0037 was proposed, which allocates funds towards training firefighters, strengthening wildfire monitoring systems, and improving infrastructure in areas that are vulnerable to fire.