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Bjorn Lomborg’s “planet isn’t burning” claim rests on global burned-area statistics dominated by declining African savanna and grassland fires — vast areas that burn briefly and regrow each year (“The planet isn’t burning, but the climate change narrative is,” Star-Advertiser, Insight, Aug. 31). That’s very different from what’s happening in boreal and conifer forests, where a 2024 study found the most extreme, damaging wildfires have more than doubled in frequency since 2003. Those are the fires that destroy communities and take decades to recover from — the kind Hawaii knows all too well after Lahaina.
Averaging grassland burns with forest infernos hides exactly the danger that matters.
Roger Jellinek
Kahaluu
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