Blue flames are products of extreme heat but “green” flames are products of extreme environmentalism, as we saw last week when fire engulfed London’s Grenfell Tower.
From London to California’s Sun Valley, so-called green policies that disregard basic principles of fire safety are sparking deadly infernos. This issue deserves our immediate attention far more than Russian hacking myths and fairytales.
The odor of burning plastic filled the air as 250 firefighters rushed to the scene of Grenfell Tower on June 14. But the flames spread too quickly and intensely for even this army of professional flame-stoppers. At least 30 people died, some 74 were injured and many more remain unaccounted for—meaning that the true death toll is closer to 60.
For years, the 24-story public housing tower’s residents had complained via the Grenfell Action Group that the building—originally constructed in 1974—was a fire hazard. Instead of heeding the warnings, London Mayors like Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson aggressively pressured local councils to reduce carbon dioxide by refurbishing older buildings. (The 2008 Climate Change Act obligates the UK to slash greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050 in comparison to emissions in 1990.) Unfortunately, safety was sacrificed for the sake of reducing emissions.
No one knows what first started the Grenfell Tower fire. We do know that major experts are tying the “eco-friendly” exterior insulation or “cladding” to the fire’s uncommon force and rapidity.
Grenfell Tower underwent a massive retrofit in 2016 to reduce the building’s emissions costing 10 million pounds ($12.8 million). The building was clad with a form of insulated aluminum that experts like forensic architect Christopher Miers attribute to helping the fire quickly “leap from floor to floor.” Venting behind the cladding acted effectively as a chimney. This means London’s most devastating fire in years is especially heartbreaking because it was preventable.
London is not alone. Fires in Dubai and China have been attributed to similar style of insulation. In our rush to reach arbitrary green goals, we are unfortunately losing all common sense and forgoing basic tests (like fire safety) to ensure that new construction methods fulfill one primary job: sheltering human beings.
Preventable Pyres
In the United States, green policies are inciting metaphorical and literal funeral pyres in our forests—ravaging vast tracks of land from coast to coast.
We annually spend about $1 billion fighting fires. Certainly, fires are a natural occurrence, but not to the degree that we are experiencing. The New American reportson: “gross mismanagement of the national forests by the U.S. Forest Service and the incessant lawsuits of radical environmentalists that have thwarted all reasonable attempts at proper forest management. … Hundreds of millions of board feet of dead and dying timber … [are] left to rot and create massive bug infestations and fire hazards…”
Some 5.6 million acres burned annually in the U.S. for roughly the past decade, reports the National Interagency Fire Center. The Obama administration piggybacked on Clinton administration’s failed “Northwest Forest Plan” that eliminated tens of thousands of timber jobs without deterring fires by unconstitutionally putting an additional 9.2 million acres of land under federal (mis)management.
And in February, environmental activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (supported by the Obama administration) showed their affection for the earth by torching it to cinders. Two children were burned so severely that they were rushed to a Bismarck hospital when their negligent guardians set fires in protest of the federal order to leave.
The trend: radical environmentalism neglects to account for the basic safety and health of humans and forests. As a result, horrific fires occur that should never have happened.
Tell your legislators: Stop, drop, and roll up your sleeves. We have quite a few environmental regulations that need reform.
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