Los Angeles fires: what needs to change?
Several fires have been raging for days in the Los Angeles area. At least ten people have died, hundreds of thousands have been evacuated and thousands of homes have been destroyed. The LA Fire Department has described it as "one of the most destructive natural disasters" in the history of the Californian metropolis. Commentators see different causes and a number of necessary consequences.
People cannot live everywhere
Commenting in The Independent, Chris Blackhurst points out that we shouldn't be surprised by the scale of the fires:
“If we build on flood plains, properties will flood. If we build in earthquake zones, there will be destruction. If we cover the hillsides that are home to scrub and prone to drought and exposed to fierce winds, there will be fires. Which bit of this do we not understand? And guess what, I've not even mentioned climate change. California was the wildfire state of the US long before the planet started getting warmer. The rising temperatures have fuelled the chances of more conflagrations, but the conditions for the horror unfolding in Los Angeles were present already.”
We're all responsible
Such disasters are avoidable, the taz points out:
“There are culprits and they should be clearly named. The drivers of the climate crisis include the super-rich with their excessive lifestyles. But of course also (fossil fuel) companies that make their profits at the expense of the planet. And the politicians who fail to put a stop to it. But no one can really evade responsibility, because politicians are elected and corporate products are consumed. We are all responsible for preventing the climate crisis from getting worse.”
Limits of sustainability have been reached
Il Manifesto criticises the increasing anthropogenic pressure in ecologically risky areas:
“Not an earthquake this time, but a catastrophic event that raises the inevitable question of how sustainable development based on unlimited growth in a fragile area can be. The limits of this sustainability appear to have been reached under the pressure of an extreme climate. The thousands of people who have lost their homes in recent days and the more than 100,000 who have been evacuated can be considered climate refugees in this sense.”
Learn the lesson instead of exploiting the blaze
El País hopes that politicians will draw the right conclusions from the disaster:
“One problem is the repulsive way in which the right in the US is starting to exploit the tragedy. ... The Republicans are obsessed with California's environmental policies, which were already a bone of contention during Donald Trump's first term in office. ... The fact is that for all its problems, California leads the US in climate change awareness, in part because of how severely it is affected. Amid the horror and grief, the hope remains that the lessons of this disaster will serve to promote even more resolute action against climate change in the difficult years ahead.”
Political disaster hot on its heels
Nature is also getting its own back on the rich and beautiful, writes Dov Alfon, editor-in-chief of Libération:
“This natural disaster also heralds a political disaster: the inauguration of Donald Trump, who immediately accused the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, of diverting water intended for Californians to protect an endangered fish species. He is referring to a new management plan for the Colorado River that has nothing to do with fighting fires. ... The Hollywood fire only goes to show that neither wealth nor beauty nor fame can save us from nature's revenge for our inaction.”