TechTweets


hook The author is talking about a concrete, relatable subject: the California wildfires of 2019, which is made more real with the accompanying image. But she also makes it personal and emotional (it's her childhood home) and adds dramatic tension with "not in the ways you expected." These techniques provide a reason to write now, a clear subject for the tweetorial, and an engaging question which makes the reader want to learn more.		Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 I’ve been watched the landscape of my childhood burn with an aching heart, and wondering how much climate change is to blame. Turns out human activity is a major driver of California’s wildfires, but not just in the ways you might imagine. (pic: Noah Berger) 1/10 https://t.co/aX1CIJSrGi
mechanism narrative The author maps the general components of fire (fuel, oxygen, ignition) to the specifics of the California wildfires. The description of each component is its own mini-narrative, which heightens the drama and relatability in way that simply listing components would not.		Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 Fires need 3 things to burn: fuel, oxygen, and ignition. A warming climate means less rain and less humidity, which means that California’s vegetation - potential fuel - is dryer than before. 2/10
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 Drier fuels—grasses, shrubs, forests—catch fire more easily, allowing fires to grow bigger and spread faster. So, there’s your fuel. Next, oxygen… 3/10
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 When you build a fire in a fireplace, you use a bellows or hearty lungfuls of air to blow oxygen across lit kindling and get the flames really crackling. The state of CA has its own natural bellows. 4/10
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 The Santa Anna winds in Southern CA and the Diablo winds in Northern CA are powerful wind events that have been happening in the fall for thousands of years. But climate change is both making them stronger… 5/10 https://t.co/Jji2AJ3qv0
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 and extending the hot, dry period in the fall, when these powerful winds arrive after months of little, if any, rain. When these winds gust across the tinderbox of parched vegetation, all you need is a spark to ignite a crisis. 6/10
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 Which brings us to ignition. The state’s failing power infrastructure, controlled by the private utility PG&E, has sparked hundreds of wildfires in recent years, a handful of which have been catastrophic. 7/10 https://t.co/IibLv4wUtr
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 But at the same time, developers are building in previously undeveloped, increasingly fire-prone areas, which means extending electrical lines and other power infrastructure into fire-prone areas... 8/10
	Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 and increasing the possibility of potentially devastating fires across the state. 9/10 https://t.co/cqaZGeWHfg
payoff By the end of the tweetorial, the author has answered the question posted in the first tweet: how do the wildfires relate to climate change. The author makes a callback to the hook with "as I watch my home state burn", which reminds us of why this was so important to talk about in the first place.		Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21 So as I watch my home state burn, I see how climate change contributes and how people continue to erect subdivisions in a tinderbox as if it doesn’t. 10/10

hook
The author is talking about a concrete, relatable subject: the California wildfires of 2019, which is made more real with the accompanying image. But she also makes it personal and emotional (it's her childhood home) and adds dramatic tension with "not in the ways you expected." These techniques provide a reason to write now, a clear subject for the tweetorial, and an engaging question which makes the reader want to learn more.

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

I’ve been watched the landscape of my childhood burn with an aching heart, and wondering how much climate change is to blame. Turns out human activity is a major driver of California’s wildfires, but not just in the ways you might imagine. (pic: Noah Berger) 1/10 https://t.co/aX1CIJSrGi

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mechanism narrative
The author maps the general components of fire (fuel, oxygen, ignition) to the specifics of the California wildfires. The description of each component is its own mini-narrative, which heightens the drama and relatability in way that simply listing components would not.

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

Fires need 3 things to burn: fuel, oxygen, and ignition. A warming climate means less rain and less humidity, which means that California’s vegetation - potential fuel - is dryer than before. 2/10

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

Drier fuels—grasses, shrubs, forests—catch fire more easily, allowing fires to grow bigger and spread faster. So, there’s your fuel. Next, oxygen… 3/10

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

When you build a fire in a fireplace, you use a bellows or hearty lungfuls of air to blow oxygen across lit kindling and get the flames really crackling. The state of CA has its own natural bellows. 4/10

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

The Santa Anna winds in Southern CA and the Diablo winds in Northern CA are powerful wind events that have been happening in the fall for thousands of years. But climate change is both making them stronger… 5/10 https://t.co/Jji2AJ3qv0

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

and extending the hot, dry period in the fall, when these powerful winds arrive after months of little, if any, rain. When these winds gust across the tinderbox of parched vegetation, all you need is a spark to ignite a crisis. 6/10

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

Which brings us to ignition. The state’s failing power infrastructure, controlled by the private utility PG&E, has sparked hundreds of wildfires in recent years, a handful of which have been catastrophic. 7/10 https://t.co/IibLv4wUtr

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

But at the same time, developers are building in previously undeveloped, increasingly fire-prone areas, which means extending electrical lines and other power infrastructure into fire-prone areas... 8/10

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

and increasing the possibility of potentially devastating fires across the state. 9/10 https://t.co/cqaZGeWHfg

payoff
By the end of the tweetorial, the author has answered the question posted in the first tweet: how do the wildfires relate to climate change. The author makes a callback to the hook with "as I watch my home state burn", which reminds us of why this was so important to talk about in the first place.

Meehan Crist @meehancrist · Nov 21

So as I watch my home state burn, I see how climate change contributes and how people continue to erect subdivisions in a tinderbox as if it doesn’t. 10/10