Dr. Monty Hempel is director of the environmental science department at the University of Redlands and past president of the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS). He is an internationally recognized authority on climate disruption, environmental science and politics, and other environmental issues.
 
“We live in a time when it is hard to distinguish natural disasters from human-induced ones.  California’s wildfires are a good example of this.  It seems very likely that human-caused climate change is contributing heavily to both California’s vulnerability to wildfires and to the extreme weather and wind conditions that make those fires much more destructive when they occur.
 
"We've had record 'hurricane trains' in Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean; now record wildfires in California; and a long list of record temperature, precipitation, and drought events. It is a record year for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. The dire predictions of climate scientists have been spot on." 
 
Hempel earned his Ph.D. in government, environmental policy and M.A. in international environmental policy at Claremont Graduate University; and B.A. in ecology and public policy at the University of Minnesota.