This summer I went on a road trip with my dad and brother to California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. It was very hot, kinda smoky and we saw a surprising number of red moons. Coming back from Washington to Ashland, Oregon, we got a text that said that a lot of fires were just east of Ashland. Luckily, the winds were blowing east so it did not affect our trip; however, it was kind of scary because they were huge fires that couldn’t really be controlled. In my life the days have gotten hotter and I have heard more news about fires. Once, because of the Camp Fire, my school was canceled for the whole week. My dad got an air purifier and we had to stay inside; when we tried to get masks, the store was sold out. Climate change is fueling fires that burn the pacific coast region and the rest of the world; these fires burn homes, kill and injure people, and hold people prisoner in their houses.

Climate change is heating up the arctic and creating unpredictable and dangerous weather patterns. According to the New Yorker, a warmer Arctic can, “slow or split the jet stream, making it loopier, bringing persistent periods of extreme dry heat to some areas and heavy rainfall to others.” The loopy jetstream, the main air flow in the U.S, is creating hot, dry weather in some places and cold, wet weather in others. It is responsible for killing people all over the U.S., drowning them in the east and burning them in the west. Extreme weather has been going on all over the world. That same New Yorker article described the situation in Scandinavia this past summer, saying that, “in Sodankylä, Finland, more than fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle, the thermometer read a previously unseen ninety degrees; in Sweden, wildfires swept across Lapland; in Norway, there have been three times more wildfires this summer than normal.” I have been to Sweden many times in my life, almost once a year. It has been warm but not too warm, and it has always been green and rained a lot. If someone told me that there were wildfires in Sweden, I would think the fires would be in the southernmost part of the country, but, if you told me that they were in Lapland, the northernmost part of Sweden, I would think you were crazy. Climate change has made the unthinkable happen.

Although the fires we encountered on our trip were bad, the Camp Fire, which began in November of 2018, was much worse. In response to the worst fires in California history, our political leaders have had mixed opinions of what to do about the fires, but none of them appear able to fix it. Governor Jerry Brown pushed back against Donald Duck no, but close, Donald Trump’s ridiculous tweets about the poor forest management and California’s environmental laws. As the Camp Fire was killing people and burning entire towns to the ground, Trump tweeted, “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” He posted that Tweet in 2018 while the fires were still killing people. I think that when he doesn’t know what to do, he just blames everyone else. Additionally, Trump never once mentioned climate change. A president should be sending federal aid and making sure people are okay. He should be talking about climate change. But, he doesn’t want to understand climate change and climate science because it would be a lot harder to lie about it. Governor Jerry Brown says that the path to escaping the fires is not going to be easy and it will cost a lot of money. “The management of our lands, that has to intensify. And that's going to cost, you know, if not hundreds of millions, probably billions.” But, he hasn’t said enough. Again, where are the statements of climate change and trying to get PG&E to fix the faulty power lines?

If climate change and fires have affected me this much, I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in Paradise and watch your home get burned up by these massive fires. As a young person, I will have to live with these fires as long as I live in California. I want leaders who tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I want people who will solve problems, not just say what we are doing wrong.