The answer is the fires in western United States.
In social science this is called, 'priming'.
When the warming doesn't happen they will have their excuse in place.
Two Years Before the Mast is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana Jr., published in 1840.
California...
“The only thing which diminishes its beauty is, that the hills have no large trees upon them, they having been all burnt by a great fire which swept them off about a dozen years before, and they had not yet grown up again.
The fire was described to me by an inhabitant, as having been a very terrible and magnificent sight. The air of the whole valley was so heated that the people were obliged to leave the town and take up their quarters for several days upon the beach.”