Story From My Past, and Future
In the early 80’s, my older connected lobbyist roommate had invites to the Western States Governors Conference opening reception cocktail thing in Albuquerque, NM. Arriving slightly late, filling out the obligatory name tag a man behind me asked if I could fill one out for him, “sure,” what’s your name? “Bruce Babbitt,” I said “Babbitt, like Rabbitt?” Laughing he spelled out B-A-B-B-I-T-T, I patted the name tag onto his chest, we locked elbows and sashayed into the party.
Not sure if the flush of my cheeks matched the radiant heat rising like thermometer from my feet, as the larger than life, 3 term NM Governor, Bruce King, beelined his way over saying, “Governor Babbitt, nice of you to join us!” Or something like that – my ears were white hot and not working, and I was possibly mumbling something stupid. Fortunately, Roommate quickly, graciously, and calmly extricated me from being sandwiched between two giant old friends, inquiring what the heck was I doing with Governor Babbitt?!
(Still with me?)
Horrible wild fires have destroyed Ruidoso, Lincoln County, NM, largely National Forrest – an oasis in what most perceive as flat desert. I have advocated for a Western States Air Firefighting Response Team. If air support can get to a fire in the first two hours 80% of the time it can be contained in days – not weeks or months, the fire doesn’t become utterly devastating. There is a small Air Force Fire Fighting Brigade of 8-10 planes, based in NM. California State finally implemented one brigade a couple of years ago, but it’s not enough. There needs to be a similar coalition at every Air Force Base and every airport that can handle traffic and supplies from New Mexico north and west to Hawaii, every single western state. NOW. Cost too much? What about the hundreds of millions, even billions it costs to fight massive fires and FEMA for recovery?
Climate and fires will never get better. Tipping point was 2015, years before the climate scientists predicted it would be… we’ve done next to nothing. We need united western states action, we need it now. Until the Sierra Club sues and State and National jurisdictions jockey for position… sigh.