Just back from several days in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Smoke from wildfires in Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana made for tough breathing at high elevations and hazy views each day unless a thunderstorm temporarily cleared the air. The Forest Service says the Western fire season is more than two months longer than in the 1970’s. Winter snow season likewise shorter, compounding the chances of very bad fires. My nephew is a former BLM fire captain and has told me he saw this unfolding some years ago. There are 2200 firefighters working 24/7 to control fires that have incinerated 3 million acres and counting. America the Beautiful is burning. My wife and I hiked three miles at 10,400 feet to a sacred Native American Medicine Wheel in Wyoming. Breathing hard like we were in gym cardio training as a result of a smoky atmosphere. Both of us had visited this site in the early 90’s and noticed how much warmer it was now at the Medicine Wheel. Members of Congress should be required to visit there and maybe they would get up off their collective dead asses and act to address climate change sooner rather than later. Rant over.
