The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed yesterday titled, “Climate Change Hasn’t Set the World on Fire.”

The article quickly dismissed another recent corporate media trope, that the number of global wildfires is increasing every year because of climate-change. Apparently, and unsurprisingly, that is 100% not accurate:

Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward. In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere.

The authors pointed out that, despite all the headlines about the Canadian wildfires, there were fewer fires in the rest of the world, and thus net global fires declined. Fewer burning acres each year have led to overall lower levels of smoke, which likely prevents almost 100,000 infant deaths annually, according to a recent study by researchers at Stanford and Stockholm University.

Furthermore, contrary to corporate media’s constant whining, climate policy is NOT the “only way” to reduce fires. Prescribed burning, improved zoning and enhanced land management are much faster, more effective and cheaper solutions for fires than climate policy, explained the authors.

For good measure, the authors worked in the facts there are now more polar bears than ever, and the number and strength of hurricanes has been falling, not rising. Thanks, Science™