"California’s Catastrophic Wildfires in 3 Charts"
by Isabella Isaacs-Thomas
Inadequate maintenance is partly to blame, courts have found. According to The New York Times, PG&E’s electrical network — which serves approximately 16 million people in Central and Northern California — has been linked to multiple destructive fires, and regulators have determined that the company “violated state law or could have done more to make its equipment safer” in several cases.
Power grids have also expanded to accommodate growing communities in the state, creating more opportunity for disaster. Keeley emphasized that California’s population has grown by 6 million since the year 2000.
“That 6 million increase in population means more people pushed out into areas of urban sprawl, of dangerous fuels, increased ignition sources, increased potential for people getting killed, an increase in the electric grid,” Keeley said. “So if there’s anything that can explain the increase in fires in the last 20 years, my feeling is it’s population growth.”
In addition to infrastructural issues like power grids, mitigating human error on an individual level is key to preventing future disaster. That’s why one of CalFire’s goals is to educate as many Californians as possible about how wildfires work, what causes them and the fact that they can affect communities in any part of the state — urban, rural or anything in between.
This year’s wildfires aren’t the only natural disasters or extreme weather events to devastate communities over the past several months, renewing attention on the global need to mitigate the growing climate crisis. But given the magnitude of that task, in the context of the California wildfires, Keeley argues that looking toward tangible, human solutions to human-caused problems can offer some degree of hope.
“It’s a positive view that we don’t just have to feel like we’re doomed to climate change,” Keeley said. “We can change our outcomes, in part due to how we deal with these situations.”
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Question
Use the passage and the video to answer the question.
Investigators Say PG&E Failed to Regularly Inspect Aging Equipment_Transcript
How does the tone at the end of the video compare to the tone of the end of the article?
(1 point)
Responses
Unlike the article, the tone of the video is angry as it places blame on the utility company.
Unlike the article, the tone of the video is angry as it places blame on the utility company.
Unlike the article, the tone of the video is optimistic as it offers human solutions to wildfires.
Unlike the article, the tone of the video is optimistic as it offers human solutions to wildfires.
Like the article, the tone of the video is hopeful as it presents changes to the utility company.
Like the article, the tone of the video is hopeful as it presents changes to the utility company.
Like the article, the tone of the video is reserved as it questions the human impact on the environment.
Like the article, the tone of the video is reserved as it questions the human impact on the environment.
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1 answer
The correct response is:
Like the article, the tone of the video is hopeful as it presents changes to the utility company.
This answer reflects the optimism about human solutions and changes that can be made to address the issues contributing to wildfires, consistent with the hopeful tone present in the article.
