Donald Trump’s response to the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles suggests that his U.S. presidency, through vitriol, cutthroat deals, and disregard for the climate crisis that is making wildfires more devastating, may well have contributed to this. It provided a clear introduction to how to deal with the growing threat of disasters. Floods and other disasters.
As of Thursday, four fires caused by wind speeds typical of hurricanes had burned 63 square miles (163 square kilometers) of Los Angeles, an area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, destroying more than 12,000 homes and Destroyed businesses. and killed at least 25 people. The Palisades and Eaton fires are the largest fires that have reduced entire areas to ashes and have not yet been completely extinguished.
Fires have always been part of California’s story, but the state is becoming increasingly hotter, with the area burned increasing fivefold since the 1970s as the rainy season slows and rising heat dries soil and plants. I’m doing it. There has been little rain in Southern California since May due to the most severe “megadrought” in 1,200 years.
“Climate change is adding fuel to the fire and completely outpacing our ability to adapt in certain areas,” said John Abatzoglou, a climate scientist at the University of California, Merced.
But President Trump’s focus during the fires has been to attack Democratic leadership in California and the largest city affected, saying habitat protection for “essentially worthless fish” has left the Los Angeles area as fire hydrants run dry. He baselessly claimed that the flow of water had stopped.
“Gavin Newsom should resign,” the president-elect posted on Truth Social about California Governor Gavin Newsom. “This is all his fault!!!” Trump also reposted a doctored image of the famous Hollywood sign with flames blazing in the background, altering it to read, “Trump was right.”
The disaster unfolded against the backdrop of a new era of political knife fights, unleashed conspiracy theories, and the elevation of the fossil fuel industry that has fueled climate change disasters.
Republicans in Washington, D.C., this week threatened to withhold unconditional disaster aid to California, a move Trump is said to have cut off aid to states he felt were politically hostile. It’s a reenactment of the period.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s energy secretary nominee, Chris Wright, vowed during his nomination hearing to increase oil and gas production because “there is no such thing as dirty energy and clean energy.” Mr Wright has said he accepts the climate crisis is real, but came under pressure for previously saying “wildfires are just hype”.
Fossil fuel industry executives poured tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign after he promised to remove numerous environmental regulations and drill more of America’s land and waters. I’m losing my mind thinking about a second term.
The victory comes Monday at the exclusive launch of the Fossil Fuel Industry, hosted by Harold Hamm, a billionaire oil and gas executive who supported the fossil fuel industry, on the rooftop of the Hay-Adams Hotel, a block from the White House. Characterized by parties. Investing money in President Trump’s election.
The reversal has left climate change advocates reeling, with even former allies joining their cause. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a prominent Trump supporter, wrote to X’s 212 million followers that while climate change is real, its progress is “not a cause for alarm. “The cause of the fire was “bad governance by state and local governments,” he said. This is a level that will cause water shortages. ”
Musk also took aim at the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental organization, to which he previously donated more than $6 million. Tesla’s CEO accused the organization of aiding and abetting the fire by opposing the removal of flammable plants. “Stop funding the Sierra Club,” Musk, once hailed as a hero by environmentalists, wrote on X.
“Mr. Musk is indulging in disinformation and lies. That’s what Elon Musk is now,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club. “It’s unfortunate and a far cry from the man we knew when he was one of the largest donors in the history of the Sierra Club. He’s a different person.”
Environmental protection remains popular with Americans, Jealous argued, and progress can be achieved at the state level and through the courts. But Jealous acknowledged that the increase in green donations since the presidential election is down compared to since Trump’s last victory in 2016, and the nation is now even more weary and divided. There is a feeling.
“I felt like last week was a microcosm of what the next four years are going to be like. It’s going to be tough,” he said. “The modern Republican Party is run as a wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, and we have a president who seeks to confuse and confuse the American people. That is unconscionable.”
No hydrant-based fire suppression system exists anywhere in the world and cannot generate enough water to extinguish a fire of this size.
Jesse Keenan, climate adaptation expert
Experts say President Trump calls the climate crisis a “giant hoax” and insists on political conflicts and conspiracies after disasters like fires and hurricanes, leading to a frenzied planet that will increasingly overwhelm efforts to stop the destruction. It may become difficult to see what is happening. Even wealthy places like California, which has the most firefighting resources in the world, are struggling to keep up.
When the fire hoses ran dry in Los Angeles, different funding decisions and the availability of shuttered reservoirs could have made some difference in saving homes. However, the scale of the fire was not a forest-scale conflagration, and simply obliterated a system designed to deal with one or two urban residential fires.
“The Los Angeles County Fire Department was prepared for one or two large wildfires, but was unable to respond to four,” Chief Anthony Malone said, citing other actions. He added that the results remained the same.
“There are no hydrant-based fire suppression systems in the world that can generate enough water to put out a fire of this size,” said Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation expert at Tulane University. This is civil engineering impossible.”
Instead, the focus should be on preventing further residential sprawl into areas that have been experiencing wildfires for years and are becoming increasingly fire-prone, Keenan said. Although California has some of the strictest homebuilding and fire safety regulations in the nation, it also faces a shortage of affordable housing, with an estimated 1 million new homes expected to be built in and around dangerous forested areas by 2050. It is scheduled to be built.
“These fires will still occur even without climate change, but climate conditions will only make them more likely and more extreme,” Keenan said. “Sheer indifference to risk is widespread, people are making trade-offs to live in these areas, and the construction industry is crushing every attempt to stop construction in these dangerous areas. .”
Difficult decisions about where Americans can live in a changing climate will likely be accelerated by an escalating insurance crisis that is driving up premiums in some of the nation’s most vulnerable communities.
Meanwhile, rebuilding abandoned sites will be made more expensive by requirements to make homes more fire and wind resistant, while immigrants are often nationals, and President Trump’s attempts to crack down on immigration could drive up labor costs, Keenan said. Restoration work is underway.
But even amidst this turmoil, the climate crisis is receding from the national conversation. Banks and other major institutions are scaling back their environmental efforts, and the federal government is following Florida’s lead in eliminating mere mention of global warming. Globally, climate change is receding from the agenda, even as countries fail to meet their emissions reduction targets and the costs and disasters pile up. Last year was also the hottest year on record.
“It’s amazing how many people are blaming all of this on bad government decisions. People… “They don’t seem to want to make the connection between climate change and climate change.” Palisades. Morovati said his home was spared, but dozens of his friends were left homeless.
“It felt like our city disappeared in the blink of an eye, in 24 hours,” Morovati said. “It’s heartbreaking, our communities are like battlefields. The ferocity of the fires is on a whole new level. Change is real. You can call it something else if you want, but it’s here. ”
