Global warming will lead to wildfires, two experts say

WASHINGTON (July 7) -- Global warming could bring on years of drought, resulting in more wildfires and public health problems, two speakers from Harvard Medical School and Duke University said during a Washington press conference July 2.

"The chief concern has to be that global warming, if left unchecked, will mean more intense weather extremes, including drought," said Paul R. Epstein, a medical doctor and the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "The resulting, and worsening, wildfire problems in the United States could well mean a steadily increasing toll in the related health problems."

As wildfires become more prevalent, so will haze pollution, he said.

"Global warming is causing much of the world´s water to evaporate, leaving dry, vulnerable forests," said William H. Schlesinger, dean of Duke University´s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences in Durham, N.C.

In 2002, more than 7.3 million acres of U.S. forestland burned, but largely because of global warming, the stage is now set for even more wildfires, Schlesinger said.

The two called for reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide, considered to be the primary greenhouse gas.

The Civil Society Institute, a nonprofit activist organization that addresses issues including climate change, organized the press conference.