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No link to fires, climate change

With destructive, deadly wildfires in California making both headlines and dramatic pictures, expect a new round of claims that climate change is to blame.

But if there is a link between global warming and wildfires, it is a negative one. Solid, scientific research indicates the area burned by such blazes globally has been decreasing for about 20 years.

“Global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago,” concluded British researchers in a study published in the journal Science.

This is not a one- or two-year phenomenon. The total area burned by wildfires globally declined by about 25 percent during the past 18 years, the study notes.

It is so even in the Golden State. There, the number of wildfires consuming more than 300 acres has been declining steadily since 1980, according to a study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

Junk science and political correctness have combined to give many, perhaps most, Americans an inaccurate impression regarding climate change — as well as other energy-related issues.

That is no accident. Knowing few of us read the scientific literature, environmental alarmists assume they can get away with lies. That assumption needs to go up in smoke.

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