no thanks. it's much easier to deny climate change if you can blame it on an individual. correlation, not causation!

I feel your pain Charles, if only the fire had started without the fireworks ..., but you're doing your best to keep the global warming narrative from being upstaged by an these thrill seeking juvenile delinquents.

I gotta kinda reluctantly and (as an Oregonian who visits that part of the state quite regularly, sadly) agree, and said as much in a different thread. Perhaps it's easier just to concede that all things worthwhile and beautiful are destined to be destroyed as we make USA great again.

Here's a neat story about some neat fellow Oregonians who recently took it upon themselves to destroy a unique geologic formation that took a mere 18 million years to form.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2…

So I can't blame an idiot who tossed a firework into a dry forest during a burn ban while surrounded by 'no fireworks' signs for starting a massive forest fire because American society doesn't do enough to combat global warming? I don't even think so.

He's not far from the truth, but the deficiency we're witnessing is much deeper. This behavior stems from a lack of respect. It's cultural, and it's us. No amount of shaming or belittling will change that.

Fireworks, cigarette butt, lightning, sunshine refracting through a glistening drop of dew - does it really matter what triggered the fire? If conditions for a fire exist, the fire will eventually occur.

@6 I think, the greater point is, when the Camel's back breaks, it's only a fool who blames the last straw.

Global warming is real AND this kid is a fucking dipshit.

Charles this is your worst fucking click bait yet.

Every time I think "Charles can't possibly come up with something more needlessly contrarian and idiotic", you prove me wrong. Well done Sir!

I want to pull his little pants down and whip his little bottom til it's all nice and pink. That will teach that naughty little teenager!

Irrational demonization? Seriously? A group of teenagers purposely set fire the forest, filming themselves while doing so, laughing while doing so, and then left in a big hurry and were only caught because a woman who witnessed it got a cop to give chase and catch them before they got away. Millions of acres of land burnt to the ground. Who knows how much damage has been done in any number of ways to any number of people. FUCK THOSE KIDS AND NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO IF THEY ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO ANYTHING WILL EVER MAKE UP FOR THE DAMAGE THEY HAVE DONE. What? You think people are being unfair? How about you STFU. Those pissants are from WA and OR (where I live) is literally destroyed in irreparable ways. Those kids should pay with their lives. Set them on fire, laugh at them and videotape it to watch later.

Yeah. Like "Don't play with matches" is a new thing and not something I learned/grew up with in the goddamn 1960s.
Fuck these smarmy little assholes.

I personally blame the lack of real parenting.. Not this modern "Timeouts" and "Children need to be nurtured" Bullshit. even as a Liberal, I don't buy that crap. Kids since the late 80s and beyond have a severe lack of respect, manners, and proper attitudes. I can't prove it scientifically (unless someone wants to give me a grant to study it), but I do firmly believe that a lack of consequences that had more impact than standing in a corner for 5 minutes has a lot to do with it.

Charles, what percent of your own writings do you believe? It's more than 50% - you're not a troll. It's not 100% - you're not unintelligent or insane. I think it's that Schrödingerian "certain uncertainty" that keeps me clicking (and eye-rolling) into all Mudede material.

...but genuine feedback: this was way too obviously trolling.

Yeeeeah, no, FUCK THIS KID. And fuck his parents. And fuck fireworks. THEN fuck climate change and all of its deniers.

Seriously, Charles? Is the smoke getting to your brain?

If I may paraphrase - "I want those little firecracker-happy bastards caught and hung up by their Buster Browns!"

This line of reasoning sure sounds a lot like letting off a group of teenage gang rapists because the victim was dressed provocatively and society doesn't do that much to discourage rape. I mean seriously boys will be boys right?

@21, yes. Those trees shouldn't have been right out there in the open with their inflammable wood on plain view.

Thank god at least the comments on this article are sane, because the article itself is fucking nonsense. Sucks this is the first ever Stranger article I've read--will not be reading more, but explains my disdain for the snarky bullshit that passes for "journalism" in the same-parent-company Portland Mercury.

So off base on this! ...I really believe that 99% of all kids who grow up in the Pacific Northwest learn how to love & respect our incredible natural resources. Sadly, it only takes a few bad apples to destroy what has taken thousands of years to create, and which millions of people enjoy. Of course these kids need to be held accountable ...I'm thinking like 6 months in juvenile detention, followed by 6 months of community service (not that i'm really hopeful this will happen, but it should...) Charles, wake up man, do you really believe what you're saying?

If the fire was human caused there should be righteous anger. If climate change is human caused there should be righteous anger. Both are legitimate. The question Charles raises, what are we doing about climate change, is legitimate. Seems some people cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

So, Charles, given that adopting a plant-based diet is the number one thing any individual can do to reduce their climate and environmental impacts and fight climate change, more than even getting rid of their cars, can I assume you're vegan? I mean, surely you wouldn't be writing pieces passing judgment on people driving cars when you haven't done the biggest and easiest thing you can do to be part of the solution, right? Right?

Mhmm.

wow, charles mudede defending someone? they must be a minority.

Even if we lived in the carless utopia that Charles yearns for, where the only carbon burned is that carbon emitted by a candle stuck in a Chianti bottle, we would still have to worry about wildfires, and we would still have to worry about beastly children (Especially teenagers, who are a special kind of beast)

My good contrarian, will you also be defending the teens who just tried to lynch the biracial kid, as they are just "reflecting society"? I'm with 18. This isn't an either/or. Fuck these entitled assholes and fuck climate change deniers (and also fuck racists).

@26 given that adopting a plant-based diet is the number one thing any individual can do to reduce their climate and environmental impacts and fight climate change

Not having children is #1.

At best, Charles Mudede is an armchair bound unreliable narrator.

"Do not demonize children; demonize the society that inculcates them."

i can demonize both, thanks. i'm good like that.

@30: killing yourself is #1.

Unfortunately, Charles is correct. Get a clue, anti-ecologists.

Forests have co-evolved for millenia with fires, only in the last 150 years have humans attempted to stop them with campaigns like "Smokey the Bare", making fires way worse when they do start. Building communities in such lands is only asking for them to burn down, The Timber Industry uses such events to advance its agenda.

http://oregonwild.org/about/blog/nine-th…

Left wingers find attenuating circumstances for many criminal acts because we know how much nurture conditions our behavior. We want to work on the conditions that make such acts possible so they aren't repeated rather than focus on the 'idiocy" of the perpetrator as if that explained everything. Charles is right: why do we raise kids so out of touch with our environment?

As long as Charles achieves the goal of receiving attention directed towards him by posting writings like this typical trolling crap, he seems validated.
No amount of rational discussion or irrational insults to get him to change or stop being a troll will work because as I said this is all about getting attention and also feeling a false sense of power by upsetting people in some way.
This is just confirmation of a weakness he has in common with Donald Trump.

When I was a kid growing up in rural Oregon in the '80s, we played with gasoline and kerosene and fireworks that have long since been outlawed. We burned our trash and we took every substance from our chemistry sets and mixed them together and lit them with a fuse.

One thing we did not do was burn anything down.

All of our "experiments" were conducted in gravel or over water. The only casualties were our own toys that we chose to destroy because they were our personal property.

Looks like the 15-year-old boy is in for some serious trouble, possibly serving time & even making payments for the rest of his life. His parents are apparently cooperating with authorities ...so that's something...

Public demands consequences for 15-year-…

The conditions necessary for such a catastrophic fire didn't come from the match that lit it, but rather our forestry management and heavy handed fire suppression policies over the last 100 years that created the conditions and fuel loads that made this fire possible. The idiots started it, but it could have easily been any other natural or man made ignition. The root cause isn't the kids- it's poor forestry management, and some extra crispy dry conditions, that are making this so bad.

There are no words to describe this awful destruction. I do know that a "15 year old" should know right from wrong. Just another horror show in this world of ours. I am so sorry for such loss.

We ought not demonize the perpetrator, but our legal system sure as hell ought to prosecute.
Since they were minors, their parents should bear the full brunt of resposibility. Whether the Attorney General chooses to go light on sentencing, or expunge juvenile records upon emancipation is their concern and area of expertise.
If you just let him go, how can you prosecute anyone? What if we find later there was loss of life?
There is some flap about them giggling: that is what kids do. It is a totally normal response when the person does not know how to react. Leave that shit alone.

@34 technically that's true. Good luck convincing people to do that. It's easier to have a productive conversation about having zero or at most one child.

“But anger directed at this teen and his friends makes no sense whatsoever.”
False. Anger is justified because the behavior that directly caused the catastrophe was irresponsible by any reasonable standard.
“We do not live in a society that is doing much at all to deal with global warming.”
False. Many of us vote for leaders who accept climate change theory, we buy electric cars, hybrids, and commute by mass transit, bicycle, and foot, among other things, to make a difference.
“We have elected officials in a major political party who openly deny that climate change is happening.”
While many congressional seats were won by deniers, more than half the voters in the last election voted against the climate change denier in the oval office.
“The man about to head NASA is a climate denier.”
He accepts climate change and denies human causation and there's nothing anyone, save Congress, can do about his appointment.
“There were no marches when the US left the Paris Agreement.” Perhaps, but there was plenty of outrage in other forms.
“These kids behaved as their society behaves.” False. If your assertion were true, everyone would cause catastrophes every day, but we don't because most of us, while not perfect, make reasonably smart decisions that avoid calamity.
Those who make bad decisions must be held accountable for those decisions, and YOU, Mr. Mudede don't have a logical foundation for deflecting blame from the perpetrators to society.