<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/13/la-fires-future-climate-change>
"When I send anxious texts to friends in Los Angeles – friends who have been
evacuated or who are waiting to leave , friends escaping a fire zone, wondering
if their life’s work has been destroyed, worrying about the smoke’s effect on
an asthmatic child – I always begin with the same three words:are you OK?
But a continent away, watching photos and videos of a city I love being
incinerated, overcome by waves of terror, grief and mourning, I have other
questions.
For example: when are we going to universally acknowledge that climate change
is a current crisis and not (as even Elon Musk admits) a future possibility?
When are we going to admit that the fires in California are not just “what
happens in California”. We’ve read our Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler, so we
know that the Santa Ana winds are a thing. But when are we going to understand
that this isn’t just local – or normal?
When are people going to agree that the fires (not just this fire, but a plague
of recent conflagrations) have been fueled, in speed and intensity, by our
warming environment? When are we going to notice that climate disasters are
happening not just in California but in Hawaii, North Carolina, Greece and
Sudan? For how long can we continue to think that we are – that anywhere is –
immune? How are we not horrified when politicians deploy the misery and loss as
ammunition aimed at the other team, blaming someone or something for a global
disaster, much of it caused by carbon emissions?
It’s not as if people haven’t been saying this for a while. Thinking about Al
Gore makes you realize how unfortunate it is that being concerned about our
planet’s future, about our children and grandchildren’s future, suggests that
we are all Debbie Downers, wimpy crybaby snowflakes.
Days ago, in the
New York Times, a climate scientist explained his decision
to leave Los Angeles, two years ago. The city had become frightening,
unlivable. Its future was all too clear. The damage to the climate, and its
accelerating pace, he noted, has been obvious to the petrochemical industry for
decades, but its executives have used their influence to block legislation that
might have controlled it.
There’s plenty of information out there about how dire our situation has
already gotten. The (largely older) people who watch network evening news will
surely have noticed how many broadcasts lead with houses swept away by a flood,
with pans along the wreckage left by a tornado. To reporters and producers, the
Los Angeles fires must seem like a godsend from hell.
But the media know that the public has a short attention span. During the early
days of the fire, Los Angeles was briefly displaced in the news by speculation
about the supreme court’s ruling on the TikTok ban. Much of the press coverage
focuses on what the city needs to do in order to be prepared for future
disasters, with only a passing mention of the fact that they’re part of a
larger problem. It’s a little like having a long, impassioned argument about
how best to insulate the attic when the roof is caving in.
Maybe the widespread inability to focus on the root cause of the problem is
part of the problem. Maybe our brains have been so effectively rewired by
screens and scrolling that we’ve lost the ability to connect the dots. We view
the fire and floods and mudslides as separate events, when the fact is that
they’re connected. And part of the population is so busy trying to keep food on
the table that they don’t have the time or energy to think about the planet.
The struggle for survival enables those who aren’t struggling to do pretty much
what they want."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
