‘Cognitive Dissonance’: New Mexico Wildfire Prompts Calls for Urgent Climate Action

The largest active wildfire in the United States—already more than half the size of New York City and quickly growing—is forcing thousands of residents in New Mexico to evacuate their homes. It’s just one of more than a dozen blazes already raging in the Southwest during a particularly early and destructive wildfire season, prompting calls from state lawmakers to urgently address climate change, even as New Mexico continues to pull hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil out of the ground every single day.

“Our communities are experiencing a devastating drought, in fact, the worst drought in over a millennia, and unprecedented wildfires, including over a dozen wildfires across our state months before fire season,” U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, said during a committee hearing of the New Mexico Legislature last week. “The science is clear—climate action cannot wait.”

The Calf Canyon fire, which has already scorched more than 157 square miles of land and burned down homes that have been around for centuries, is the latest brutal reminder of the rapidly worsening consequences of the climate crisis, driven largely by humanity’s unquenchable thirst for energy and the fossil fuels that still provide it.

In some ways, the Calf Canyon fire is also highlighting what’s at stake if major oil and gas producing states like New Mexico can’t move beyond the immediate financial allure of fossil fuels, as more and more economic experts say that failing to quickly transition to renewable energy and other low-carbon sources will have The long-term consequences of the U.S. economic downturn will be far worse. 

Even as unprecedented wildfires, floods and heat waves in recent years continue to show with horrifying clarity the threats posed by climate change, politicians in fossil fuel economy states like New Mexico—many of them Democrats—continue to be the largest roadblock to President Biden’s attempts to pass national climate legislation.

West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin is the most visible example of this political dynamic. Biden is also a secretive member of this political dynamic. Faces immense pressureDemocrats in Western states should back off any policy which could hurt the fossil fuel sector to avoid losing seats at the upcoming midterm elections. This includes New Mexico Democrats, where oil production on federal land makes up a large portion of state revenue. As the midterm elections draw nearer, this pressure has only grown.

New Mexico actually has an interesting political dynamic when it is concerned with global warming. Democratic Governor. Michelle Lujan Grisham is the Democratic Governor. The state has been an unexpected climate champion over recent years, winning praises from environmentalists for its efforts to support renewable energies and pass climate policies. 

The state has also tripled its renewable energy production since 2019. New Mexico has tripled its renewable energy capacity since 2019. You may have heard that methane traps heat more effectively than carbon dioxide in the short term. Scientists say that it is essential to reduce climate change.

But New Mexico is also the second largest oil producing state in the country, contributing more than 10 percent of the total U.S. oil output in January, with more than a third of the state’s budget in recent years coming from oil and gas royalties on public lands. That has forced Democrats there to search for compromises that can advance policies to support renewables and mitigate climate change without hurting the state’s bottom line and jeopardizing Democratic seats.

For Rep. Stansbury, a freshman Democrat who quickly rose from obscurity to prominence among Capitol Hill’s climate hawks, New Mexico’s sometimes contradictory politics represent, in many ways, the broader crossroads the nation currently faces as it attempts to reckon with the climate crisis.

“One of the strange and incongruent realities of our time is that we’re living in a moment of a climate crisis at the same time that the oil and gas industry is booming in the United States,” Rep. Stansbury The Washington Post. “And there’s so much cognitive dissonance around that it’s difficult to even wrap your mind around.”

Monday evening saw firefighters continue to fight the Calf Canyon fire as well as another large blaze, Hermits Peak fire. Officials issued additional evacuation orders for residents near Sante Fe, New Mexico. It’s the second time in recent months that we’ve seen a wildfire take a dangerous turn toward populated residential areas—something Researchers warn that it will only get more commonAs the climate heats. However, while thousands of New Mexicans have fled, not everyone feels the same privileged to pack up and leave.

“This is all I have,” David Lopez, a mechanic who lives with his family in two trailer homes a couple miles northwest of the fires, According to the Associated PressHe raked the grass and sprayed water all over his property, in an effort to prevent any flames from reaching his home. “I worked really hard for it.”

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