Word: tinder
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Ni?o provides the tinder, but humans provide the match. Human penetration of the Amazon, rather than lightning or other natural phenomena, sparks most of the huge fires, and that penetration is increasing, along with deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture. Fire, deforestation and roads are linked in an unholy trinity. In 1998, Brazilian authorities found themselves battling enormous fires in the states of Par? (where 40% of the southeastern forests burned), Roraima and Mato Grosso. Most blazes started near roads as settlers burned accessible forest to clear land for farms. The only reason even bigger stretches of the dense forest...
Nature sometimes has suicidal impulses. This year in the American West, it has set itself on fire--fire's version of The Perfect Storm, a convergence of dry summer lightning, blast-furnace air and millions of acres of tinder. The worst is yet to come...
...author Wallace Stegner wrote: "The remaining Western wilderness is the geography of hope." Right now, it is the geography of tinder. What's the best way to save...