That noted blasphemer Michael Shellenberger earned the wrath of the green magisterium earlier this summer when he said: “The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California.” Count us as apostates also, for we have said the same thing ourselves. We wrote about California here and Australia here. And why utter such a heresy? Because it’s true.

The warnings about Australia’s coming reckoning with brush-induced wildfires came five years before the conflagration, a case of scientific reasoning that stands in contrast to the climate crowd who only ever predict things after the fact. The California disaster meanwhile is also an example of warnings ignored, then a lesson so harsh even the government of California is forced to learn it, however reluctantly, namely in this case changing its forest management rules so landowners can once again clear excess fuel wood and underbrush loads.