One of the grimmest of the current global ironies is that newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump will inherit responsibility for dealing with the aftermath of the latest spate of fires that have devastated Los Angeles. It’s ironic because Trump is, in his own often repeated words, a self-proclaimed climate change denier.
This disaster comes at a time when much of the media coverage I have read lays the blame for the increasing incidence of these fires largely upon accelerating climate change. Yes, undoubtedly these fires are, to some extent, due to the local geography and especially the strong winds that sometimes supercharge the spread of LA fires. I do not, in any sense, wish to undervalue the tremendous efforts made by communities affected by the brush fires assailing the area.
In New Zealand, we rely, to a large extent, on volunteer firefighters. In reference to a recent appeal for support from the NZ Fire Service, we are largely dependent on volunteer firefighters in some 600 stations nationwide. So, I was somewhat surprised to learn that in LA, and presumably other parts of the US, if you have the money, and firefighters are available, you can effectively hire your own private mini firefighting force to help keep you safe.
Massive destruction
According to US media reports, a series of ferocious wildfires erupted on January 7 and spread across the LA area killing at least 27 people and destroying thousands of structures. Although the fires have, by now, been largely contained, the death toll could grow.
All credit to the wonderful efforts to contain the damage, but clearly at issue is the growing impact of accelerating climate change in creating the conditions for the latest outbreak of fires. Apparently, southern California had less than 10 per cent of average rainfall since
October 1 and the powerful offshore winds that regularly hit the region catalysed the latest fire eruptions while wind gusts topped 70 miles per hour at several locations. This all adds up to the perfect (fire)storm.
John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World said in one report that climate change is making disasters like the wind-driven LA fires even fiercer.
“We can expect fires of this intensity, and worse, in the future,” he said, expressing a view shared by many other climate experts. “The types of fires we’ve seen over the past 10 years are qualitatively different from the previous 100 years.”
As well as many other climate experts, in many media reports, Vaillant said the recent fires were caused by something science has been telling us about for decades, the CO2 our combustion engines keep pumping into the atmosphere.
Another climate scientist, Peter Kalmus, has been sounding the alarm for years – it feels like, while he’s trying to share the science of climate change with the world, no one is listening.
“So, for a few years I wanted to move to some place a little bit less fiery,” he said in a recent CBS report. “But I want to make it clear, I don’t think there’s any place safe from climate change. I am hopeful that, if there’s a silver lining to this tragedy, it’s that, you know, the public will wake up and get angry and say, ‘We need to do something about this. Enough is enough.’”
