DUBLIN, Calif.—Mira Shah was in sixth grade five years ago when a brush fire ignited on the hill in front of her house. Shah had heard that global warming was making natural hazards like wildfires more common and destructive. But climate change seemed like an abstract threat until a fire burned so close to home.

Then, in January, a series of catastrophic fires ravaged several Los Angeles communities, not far from one of Shah’s cousins and an aunt. Climate change made the hot, dry, windy conditions that fueled those fires 35 percent more likely, according to the international research organization World Weather Attribution .

For Shah, who had a burgeoning interest in economics, the L.A. fires crystallized her concern that climate change posed an urgent threat to lives and livelihoods. She

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