California Gov. on Drought, Wildfires: ‘Humanity Is on a Collision Course with Nature’

California Governor Jerry Brown linked his state’s severe drought and wildfires to climate change on Sunday, saying California was “on the front lines” of the warming problem.

Brown said on ABC’s This Week that though California’s wildfires are relatively under control right now, the state is “in a very serious fire season” — one that’s seen about twice as many fires this year as the average — and future control of the fires depends largely on the weather.  He said that as the climate changes in California, the state will need thousands more firefighters and California residents will have to be more careful about where and how they build:

As we send billions and billions of tons of heat-trapping gases, we get heat and we get fires and we get what we’re seeing.  So, we’ve got to gear up. We’re going to deal with nature as best we can, but humanity is on a collision course with nature and we’re just going to have to adapt to it in the best way we can.

Brown also lambasted those in Congress who deny that climate change is occurring or is caused by humans, saying in California, there’s no question climate is changing:

It is true that there’s virtually no Republican who accepts the science that virtually is unanimous.  There is no scientific question — there’s just political denial for various reasons, best known to those people who are in denial.

Right now, the entire state of California is in the severest rankings of drought, conditions that, as Joe Romm points out, have created a soil moisture level reminiscent of the Dust Bowl.

California Gov. on Drought, Wildfires:  ‘Humanity Is on a Collision Course with Nature’