Policy Advocacy

Incendiary Rhetoric: Climate Change,Wildfire, and Ecological Fire Management is a guide intended to help forest and climate activists talk to broad audiences about wildfire in the era of climate change, in ways that are grounded in the best available fire and climate science and progressive fire management policy.

Wildre has been an integral part of western forests for thousands of years, but in recent decades conicts between people and re have increased dramatically. Climate change is bringing hotter, drier conditions to western forests, which is increasing re activity, and scientists predict that this trend will continue as the planet heats up. This guide is intended to help climate and forest activists understand the unique dynamics between forests, wildre, and climate so we can collectively chart a new path towards community resilience to the impacts of climate change. By modernizing our wildre policies, we can protect homes and communities while restoring the important role that re plays in the forest ecosystems of the American West.

Compiled by Douglas Bevington, Forest Director, Environment Now California Program

California’s state policies on wildfire need to change direction. The current policies are failing. They have not effectively protected homes, while they place dramatically increasing pressures on state and local budgets. Moreover, these policies are often based on notions about the role of fire in California’s ecosystems that are not supported by sound science and do not reflect the changing climate. These policies try to alter vast areas of forest in problematic ways through logging, when instead they should be focusing on helping communities safely co-exist with California’s naturally fire-dependent ecosystems by prioritizing effective fire-safety actions for homes and the zone right around them. This new direction—working from the home outward—can save lives and homes, save money, and produce jobs in a strategy that is better for natural ecosystems and the climate.