Global Warming: Devastating forest fires

Re: “Oregon fall firestorms cautionary tale in worsening drought” [June 3, Northwest]: It is a gut punch for all of us who live west of the Cascades and believed that wildfires would never threaten us. One of global warming’s fiercest consequences is the worsening of drought. And drought brings forest fires, even to typically wet climates like here in the Pacific Northwest.

The quote: “…fires ripped through temperate rainforest just a few minutes’ drive from the ocean” is part of the caution I feel viscerally. We can no longer pretend we are free from the threat of drought-induced raging forest fires that spread near our homes. Caution does not mean living in fear, but rather stepping up together to get real solutions to global warming.

The best, most powerful one is to put a rising price on carbon pollution and return the funds back into the pockets of ordinary people. As climate-killing dirty fuel grows in cost, then the clean alternatives will expand. Contact your members of Congress and push for carbon-fee-and-dividend legislation. Cautionary tales need to have happy endings, not devastation.

Bobbie Morgan, Bainbridge Island