Wildfires force California to reckon with a not-so-new normal
The wildfire destruction over a wide swath of California moved Gov. Jerry Brown to offer a sobering prognosis for the state’s future. “This is the new normal,” he said, “and this could be something that happens every year or every few years.”
He made his comments in December after surveying the damage wrought by fires in Southern California that caused more than $3 billion in losses. Nine months later, the Democratic governor echoed his own words as 18 wildfires burned across the state, most of them in its northern half. At a press conference Wednesday, he forecast a rise in the number, intensity, and cost of fires, warning of “the new normal that we will have to face.”
His choice of phrase draws polite
A familiar obstacle‘A little bit of a cop-out’
