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Flames of warning: Five ways the Southern California fires show the need for climate realism
- February 1, 2025: Vol. 18, Number 2

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Flames of warning: Five ways the Southern California fires show the need for climate realism

by Varun Sivaram

The wildfires raging through Southern California neighborhoods from the Pacific Palisades to Pasadena are horrifying and tragic. Although these wildfires have intensely local effects, they are attributable, at least to a small degree, to global climate change caused by the greenhouse-gas emissions of major economies around the world. The California wildfires offer a concrete example for how to apply an approach I call “climate realism” to understanding the threat of climate change to U.S. interests and adopting a pragmatic stance in response.

Here are five ways to contextualize the unfolding tragedy through the lens of climate realism.

Perilous levels of climate change this century are inevitable. Climate realism starts by acknowledging the hard reality that the world is virtually certain to miss climate targets, such as limiting global warming above preindustrial levels to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by century-end or achievi

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