Putting Out Fires, Part II

HAVING AN INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION with a Trump supporter about Trump is always risky. One is at risk of being inundated with an avalanche of nonsense, falsehoods, fake facts, denial, the whole kit n caboodle. My sixth grade teacher wisely admonished us to never talk about politics or religion, with anybody. I can kinda see her point. At my local senior center, which is predominantly pro Trump evangelical conservative, I am especially careful to steer clear, for the above reasons. Sometimes, one of them overhears me having an intelligent conversation with an intelligent senior center member, and, for some reason, simply has to jump into it,simply cannot resist, or doesn't want to. I told a friend of mine that president elect Trump is accusing the California government, state and local, of being incompetant by allowing the wildfires to begin and to burn out of control, which to me is a perfect example of why I despise Trump, for his lies and vicious, false accusations. An interloper injected the thought that if the state of California would clean up its wilderness areas,and not allow them to fill up with dead branches, the fires wud run out of fuel, and would be harmless, or less harmful, or perhaps wouldn't start in the first place. Native American lands, he assserted, which are well maintained, have no such wildfires. I need to fat check this, and I will, right after I either shoot the idiot who said this, or amazingly prevent myself from doing so. I don't even know whether the guy who said this is a Trumper, or whatever,but I suspect that he is. It sounds like their kind of reasoning, ignoring obvious realities, twisting facts. Particularly, ignoring climate change, as if it plays no role in wildfires worth mentioning. I can assure the gentleman that if ever square inchhi of every wooded area or grasslandin the western United STates were pristine pure clean of dead branches on the ground, we would still have the wildfires, especially in areas which experience months of severe drought, followed by fifty to one hundred mile an hour sustained, hot winds. Every time. Anybody with even a rudimentary brain can understand that the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires in the United States, as well as around the world, is the direct result of climate change, period. And, like climate change itself, which is concpicuously getting worse fast and which will obviously continue gettign worse, much worse, in the near future, the wildfires will continue to increase in number, and will continue to last longer, burn more land, and cause ever more devastation. Simply clearing out all underbrush and dead tree branches will not be sufficient to prevent future wildfires. Climate change means extreme weather, year round. Extreme storms, extreme floods, and extreme drought. And again, its already here, and worsening, fast. Our floods, storms, and droughts will all increase in frequency and severity next year, and the next, and the next...Climate hange, caused by human activity, has for decades beenofficially identified by the United States Department of Defense as the single greatest threat to American national security, period. Not Russia, China, or illegal immigration, or terrorism... climate change. Accordingly, what are people who deny that climate chane is real, and that it is caused by people? What do you call an American citizen who refuses to acknoledge the very existence of the greatest threat to American national security? A "traitor" perhaps?