Climate Change and wildfire risk
This is a research and writing exercise
- What factors are playing a role in this year's dramatic fire season on the west coast?
- What role does climate change play?
Research
Look for news stories on the fires this year on the U.S. west coast.
- NYTimes - Climate and Environment section.
- The Guardian - Environment section
- Yale University - School of the Environment "E360"
- Others?
Read several articles, with a goal of understanding some of the different factors--including climate change--in this year's fires.
Writing
When you're writing your final papers, you should avoid "extended quotes" from your sources. Show your personal understanding of what you've read: Instead, paraphrase what you've learned in your own words.
To highlight the distinction between quoting and paraphrasing, in this assignment I'd like to see both the original words that you find, explaining the role of climate change, side-by-side with your paraphrasing of how you understand that process. So...
- Copy and paste a few sentences of explanation of the role of climate change from *two* of the articles you read. Surround them with quotes. For each of the two, include the URL to the article.
- Now, in your own words, paraphrase those explanations: Put in your own words *one* summary of how you understand what you've just quoted (from two articles).
- Find three other factors that played a role in the large number of fires this year. For each of those three,
- paraphrase what you've read about that other factor,
- include a URL to the article from which you're getting the information.
Finally, reflect on what you've found out, and what you'd like to know more about...
Write a paragraph or two synthesizing your thoughts, conclusions so far, and further questions you still have about the reasons for this historical fire season, and in particular the role of climate change.