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Mr Manchin said there are “very good things” in climate investments in legislation this week, but added that talks with the White House over the entire package have stalled. Mr Manchin said rising inflation was among the reasons for his reluctance to support the package.
The President’s $1 trillion infrastructure package, passed with bipartisan support, including $47 billion helping communities prepare for extreme floods, storms, droughts and fires. But climatologists and the president himself said a much larger package is needed to mitigate future natural disasters.
“We’re still in drought—that’s something our state will continue to struggle with, so when we have these hot extremes with drought in our area, we’re at greater risk for these kinds of events, and some of that has to do with climate. Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University.” “It’s changing,” said Becky Bolinger, assistant state climatologist at .
Mr. Biden has pursued other ways to reduce damage from fires, including increasing the number of air tankers and helicopters available and raising the wages of federal firefighters to $15 an hour.
There are limits to what the federal government can do to prevent wildfires. State and local governments have control over many measures to reduce damage, including reducing home construction in fire-prone areas.
The fire in Colorado was a reminder of how many million Americans in the West are now at the forefront of devastation from a warming climate prone to prolonged droughts and extreme wind conditions. It’s not just mountain towns and cottages tucked into the woods threatened by wildfires, but suburban communities like Louisville and the neighboring town of Superior, where the fire has shattered dead-end streets and burned a Target.
“There’s something very different about that,” said Lori Peek, director of the Center for Natural Hazards at the University of Colorado Boulder. “More people live in neighborhoods like this than we think of when we think of a crazy neighborhood.”
Dr. “Yesterday was the suburban ring,” Peek said. “The urban core of tomorrow?”
Jack Healy contributing reporting.
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