Nature is a cycle, a delicate balance of a multitude of facets. Every time one facet changes, everything else shifts until the balance is restored.

The human race has been influencing the natural cycle since we started banding together into groups.

As I write this, much of the Los Angeles area is on fire. Thousands of homes utterly destroyed, irreplaceable keepsakes lost, numerous deaths, at least one arrest for arson, billions and billions of dollars in damage, to say nothing of the anguish people are experiencing as they return to the pile of ashes that was once their home. A horrible, horrible situation…

And the reason most cited for the severity of this disaster is “Climate Change.” That and incompetent city/county government, but that’s a daily constant.

But those aren’t the only factors. For the last few generations, we’ve been building communities in areas already prone to wildfire; while we have always displaced natural habitat for our cities and towns, our population has increased to the point we’re building in very inhospitable areas, where water is scarce and wildfire fuel is abundant; we have to pump – or truck – water into some of these areas, sometimes from thousands of miles away (you’re aware, aren’t you, that the Colorado River – the Grand Canyon river, in Arizona – supplies a lot of water to southern California?)

And our forest/wild area “management” has been a joke for at least the last century. Nobody seemed to realize that fire is nature’s way of managing wild lands; rapid burns through the floor of a forest, or across grassland, cleared out a lot of dead grasses and wood, clearing the way for more life, and didn’t harm the living trees or burrowing animals. For decades, we have extinguished those fires before they could sweep the forest floor clear, so that when they do burn, there is so much fuel built up that it’s a conflagration that not only completely destroys the floor of the forest, but also the trees and wildlife – the entire habitat.

But “Climate Change” – the warming of the planet – is the major factor for these wildfires. (Yes, children, “Climate Change” is real, the science is in. The cause no longer matters, except as an academic exercise. Or as a distraction from the real issue.)

As a result of planetary warming, you get more and worse wildfires. You get more intense weather patterns (we’re in a La Niña pattern this winter – sorry, east coast), we get more intense storms (batten down the hatches, Florida), we get wetter springs and hotter summers which fuel more and worse wildfires…

You know why Mother Nature likes fire so much? Smoke. Lots of smoke, tiny little particles of soot and ash high up in the atmosphere, particles that keep some sunlight from reaching the surface. Cooling it. It’s not healthy for humans, of course, but Mom really doesn’t care, she has an entire planetary ecosystem to manage…

And you also must factor in human stupidity, like setting off fireworks in dry grassland, or deliberately lighting a fire to burn a residential hillside…

But that’s why LA is on fire right now. And we’re not doing much about it, except arguing about who’s to blame.