Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Stop using climate to distract from your failure

- You *reduced* Calif. forests treated for fire by 50% (!) btwn 2019 - 2020

- You exaggerated by 690% the acres treated with fuel breaks & prescribed burns

- Bad forest mgmt not temps is *primary* cause of high-intensity fires

https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1303419860362252288

A major new investigation by @NPR of Calfornia's Gov. @GavinNewsom is damning:

"An investigation from @CapRadioNews and NPR’s California Newsroom found the governor has misrepresented his accomplishments and even disinvested in wildfire prevention."

capradio.org/articles/2021/…

"California’s response faltered under Newsom. After an initial jump during his first year in office, data obtained by CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom show Cal Fire’s fuel reduction output dropped by half in 2020, to levels below Gov. Jerry Brown’s final year in office."

Wait, it gets worse

"At the same time, Newsom slashed roughly $150 million from Cal Fire’s wildfire prevention budget. This year, data show that through Memorial Day, the annual number of acres worked remained low, despite fire season that threatens to be even more dangerous."

"The data show @GavinNewsom has done just 13% of the job he’s touted on his highest priority projects. The governor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment over the course of two weeks, including a 500 word email that laid out the investigation’s findings."

Wait wait, it's worse than that

With the happy participation of "environmental journalists" around the world, the global news media last year, under the sway of Gavin and activist scientists, falsely blamed climate change for the state's historic, high-intensity fires.

In fact, much of the news media, including progressive media, had in years prior to last year *correctly* reported that the overwhelmingly main factor behind high-intensity fires was the over-accumulation of wood fuel

motherjones.com/environment/20…

But in 2020, @GavinNewsom appealed to the partisan tribalism of "environmental journalists" and they overwhelmingly mis-described the high-intensity fires as climate-driven when in reality they were caused by poor forest management

The new report by @CapRadioNews shows that @GavinNewsom had an ulterior motive in misleading the public about California's high intensity fires: he was distracting attention from his own failure to expand fire treatments in forests.

"The head of Cal Fire, Chief Thom Porter, did grant an interview. He acknowledged the figures cited by Newsom were incorrect and took responsibility for the governor’s misstatements."

"Porter, who stood behind Newsom at a series of press conferences where the governor boasted of his accomplishments, said Cal Fire had neither 'done our job in educating the public, nor the governor’s office' about how to talk about its wildfire prevention efforts."

Got that? Gavin made Porter fall on his sword for Gavin. Classic.

"Porter confirmed the agency had fallen short of its fuel reduction goals. “It’s not something that I’m comfortable with,” he said. “It is something that I’m working to reconcile and to correct for the future.”

But is this because California doesn't have enough money? No.

"The 2019 budget allocated $355 million for wildfire prevention and resource management. The following year, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Newsom slashed that to $203 million — a decrease of more than 40%."

What California spends on forest fire prevention is trivial

For perspective, Gavin is proposing to spend $12 *billion* on homelessness

That's *59 times* more money than Gavin's 2020 wildfire prevention budget!

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-californ…

Gavin's failure to take aggressive action on forest fires is inexcusable and unconscionable

California has a $76 *billion* surplus this year

California forest fires kill people and cost the state billions

This is a consequence of ideology-driven incompetence

This scandal is also another real-world example of the consequences of apocalyptic climate ideology married to partisan tribalism

Gavin spent 2019 and 2020 using forest fires to attacking Donald Trump and other Republicans as "climate deniers"

https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1191032777463889920?s=20

We now know that the entire time he was doing that he was *reducing* both the budget for fire treatment and the forest area treated

"As Newsom boasted about the 35 projects, fire prevention funding and productivity dwindled."

SMH

capradio.org/articles/2021/…