Story Proposals

After meeting with Addy Hatch today in class I've refined my two story proposals. But before I go further into that I will post my primary original story proposal.

1) The effects of climate change on Wildfires.
I thought it would be interesting to explore the recent history of wildfires in Washington specifically focusing on the area around Spokane. I think this would be interesting and relevant to readers in Eastern Washington after a summer when numerous houses were destroyed by fires in the area.
In doing this I would like to address some questions: Are wildfires increasing in Washington? If so why are they increasing? What are the economic impacts of wildfires? Is there a family with a story about how their house was burned? What are the environmental impacts of wildfires? What will happen with this issue in the future? How is rainfall tied in and how will this change as we experience further climatic change?
In the 2003 Seattle P-I series on climate change a section on forests briefly addressed some of the issues involved with forest fires. This would be a good place to look for some starting ideas and initial sources.
Some sources could include Jerry Franklin a UW forestry scientist and his colleagues as well as employees in the forestry programs at other NW schools, specifically the University of Idaho.
On this topic I found a couple of journal articles, they are as follows:

1. Understory vegetation response to thinning and burning restoration treatments in dry conifer forests of the eastern Cascades, USA from Forest ecology and management. 255, no. 8-9 (2008 May): p. 3130-3140.
2. Atmospheric, climatic, and ecological controls on extreme wildfire years in the northwestern United States. Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America. 15, (2005 Feb.): p. 154-174.

After talking with Hatch I also decided to consider another story that would involve me talking to different people who do not believe in climate change in the sense of global warming. I would then synthesize their ideas and talk about the social and political aspects of climate change. This would be a good exercise in portraying a view that is different from mine in a balanced manner without letting my own personal biases intrude on the story. I also think this would be very interesting for me to write and for readers to read.