‘Half the Country’s Thinking Magically’: California Fire Victims Grapple with the Political Paralysis Over Climate Change
4 days, 6 hours ago

‘Half the Country’s Thinking Magically’: California Fire Victims Grapple with the Political Paralysis Over Climate Change

Politico  

There’s an idea I’ve heard from many Democrats, especially in California, that more experience with natural disasters might spur more urgency around climate change. California’s former governor, Jerry Brown, told me when we met last month in Sacramento that Trump might represent something of an opening for Democrats on the issue: “If the assault on the environment is as extreme as expected, then I believe the fervor for protecting the environment will increase far beyond what it is today.” Attitudes about climate might shift, he said, when “we get a big set of fires or floods, which we’re going to get.” He was right, it turned out, about the set of fires. The same day I visited Altadena, a group of researchers released a study describing how climate change had accelerated “hydroclimate whiplash” between wet and dry conditions, increasing the risk of fire. Its lead author, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California’s agriculture and natural resources division and UCLA, told me that one of the challenges when it comes to public opinion about climate change is that while people “correctly understand that climate change exists,” many “don’t feel it is viscerally or tangibly affecting them.” Major catastrophes are relatively rare, and when they do happen, not everyone draws a connection to climate.

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History of this topic

Death toll from Los Angeles fires rises to 24, with dangerous winds incoming
2 days, 4 hours ago

Death toll from Los Angeles fires rises to 24, with dangerous winds incoming

Deccan Chronicle  

The death toll from massive wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles rose to 24 on Sunday, with officials warning of incoming dangerous winds that could whip the blazes up further.The fires continued to rip through the United States' second-largest city for the sixth day, reducing whole communities to scorched rubble and leaving thousands without homes.Massive firefighting efforts have staunched the …

Republicans see the LA wildfires as an opportunity to punish California
2 days, 6 hours ago

Republicans see the LA wildfires as an opportunity to punish California

Salon  

I live in Santa Monica, California, and as you can imagine, the last few days have been traumatic. I wrote that nothing can really compare to the shock of watching those two skyscrapers come down in the middle of America's premiere city but I don't think it's entirely dissimilar. More recently, as you can see from that speech, it was …

Los Angeles wildfires have become perfect fuel for Trump and climate denial
Trending News
4 days, 6 hours ago

Los Angeles wildfires have become perfect fuel for Trump and climate denial

Salon  

As of Friday, the plague of wildfires in Los Angeles has consumed more than 20,000 acres, destroyed roughly 13,000 buildings, forced more than 180,000 evacuations and caused at least 11 deaths. “Climate change is 100% responsible” for the wildfires Kyla Bennett, director of senior policy at the activist group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told Salon. “The weather patterns over …

California Governor invites Trump for wildfire survey after 'worthless fish' jibe
4 days, 6 hours ago

California Governor invites Trump for wildfire survey after 'worthless fish' jibe

India Today  

Days after US President-elect Donald Trump blamed the California Governor for the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, Gavin Newsom on Saturday invited the Republican to take stock of the devastation and meet the victims. In a hard-hitting letter to Trump, the California Governor asked him not to "politicise a human tragedy" and "spread disinformation from the sidelines". Explaining the reason behind …

Stop playing politics with the LA fires and address the key cause: man-made climate change
4 days, 10 hours ago

Stop playing politics with the LA fires and address the key cause: man-made climate change

The Independent  

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Never missing an opportunity to turn …

The California wildfires are not ‘natural disasters’ – they’re man-made catastrophes
4 days, 21 hours ago

The California wildfires are not ‘natural disasters’ – they’re man-made catastrophes

The Independent  

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Southern California’s shift from months of …

Floods, droughts, then fires: The hydroclimate whiplash hitting the world
5 days, 6 hours ago

Floods, droughts, then fires: The hydroclimate whiplash hitting the world

India Today  

Los Angeles is engulfed in flames as a series of devastating wildfires wreak havoc across Southern California, driven by the phenomenon known as "hydroclimate whiplash." However, the subsequent summer of 2024 brought record heat and an unusually dry start to the 2025 rainy season, creating a landscape filled with highly flammable vegetation. As of January 10, 2025, at least five …

Letters to the Editor: Altadena, my neighborhood, has burned. Make fossil-fuel companies pay
5 days, 6 hours ago

Letters to the Editor: Altadena, my neighborhood, has burned. Make fossil-fuel companies pay

LA Times  

Homes and cars burned in the Eaton fire are seen on West Manor Street in Altadena Jan. 9. To the editor: As an environmental lawyer steeped in the fossil-fueled “climate whiplash” that unleashed the wildfires ripping through Los Angeles, I was still stunned to be packing up my family and cats to flee our Altadena home Tuesday night. One of …

The Los Angeles Fires Will Put California’s New Insurance Rules to the Test
55 years ago

The Los Angeles Fires Will Put California’s New Insurance Rules to the Test

Wired  

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Over the past five years, California has become a poster child for what climate-fueled weather disasters can do to a state’s home insurance market. “With input from thousands of residents throughout California, this reform balances protecting consumers with the need to strengthen our market against climate …

The causes of the California wildfires are closer to home than you think
5 days, 14 hours ago

The causes of the California wildfires are closer to home than you think

The Independent  

If we build on flood plains, properties will flood. John Vaillant, author of the bestselling and quite unputdownable Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, likes to say we think we live in a “magic bubble” of denial. As Vaillant wrote about a huge fire in Vancouver in August last year: “While researching Fire Weather, I interviewed a lot of …

US President Joe Biden approves major disaster declaration for California amid Los Angeles wildfire
6 days, 3 hours ago

US President Joe Biden approves major disaster declaration for California amid Los Angeles wildfire

Live Mint  

US President Joe Biden approved declared that a major disaster exists in the State of California and ordered Federal aid to supplement State, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by wildfires and straight-line winds beginning on January 7, 2025, and continuing. In a statment from White House, the President said, “The President’s action makes Federal funding available …

California wildfires show we are not prepared for climate change
6 days, 6 hours ago

California wildfires show we are not prepared for climate change

Salon  

I spent most of the evening on January 7, a Christmas Day celebrated by Orthodox Christians around the world, monitoring local news and emergency apps for evacuation alerts for the Los Angeles area. As one writer pointed out on X on Tuesday night, “this is how people turn into climate refugees.” As Salon has previously reported, nowhere will be safe …

Intensifying climate whiplash set the stage for devastating California fires
Trending News
6 days, 6 hours ago

Intensifying climate whiplash set the stage for devastating California fires

LA Times  

The devastating wildfires that have ravaged Southern California erupted following a stark shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather — a phenomenon scientists describe as hydroclimate whiplash. “The evidence shows that hydroclimate whiplash has already increased due to global warming, and further warming will bring about even larger increases.” The extreme weather shift over the last two years in …

Elon Musk uses wildfires to attack California’s DEI practices — as MAGA faithful spread wild conspiracies
6 days, 7 hours ago

Elon Musk uses wildfires to attack California’s DEI practices — as MAGA faithful spread wild conspiracies

The Independent  

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Elon Musk has lashed …

It’s not really the right time for nasty California fires. What are the factors that changed that?
6 days, 7 hours ago

It’s not really the right time for nasty California fires. What are the factors that changed that?

Associated Press  

Southern California is experiencing it’s most devastating winter fires in more than four decades. A man walks past a fire-ravaged business after the Eaton Fire swept through Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. A man walks past a fire-ravaged business after the Eaton Fire swept through Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. Share Share Copy Link copied Email …

LA fires: The disaster in California just revealed a very grim truth.
6 days, 7 hours ago

LA fires: The disaster in California just revealed a very grim truth.

Slate  

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Going into early Wednesday morning, even more fires started within the county and consumed hundreds of acres, while Palisades fire hydrants found themselves sapped of water. Just one day after Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram would no …

Trump Goes On Puzzling Truth Social Rant About California Wildfires
6 days, 9 hours ago

Trump Goes On Puzzling Truth Social Rant About California Wildfires

Huff Post  

LOADING ERROR LOADING In what appears to be his first public statement addressing the multiple, devastating wildfires that have burned nearly 2,000 structures in the Los Angeles area and killed at least five people, President-elect Donald Trump did nothing but blame California Gov. In a convoluted rant on social media, Trump accused Newsom ― whom he called “Newscum” ― of …

Letters to the Editor: California’s piers are imperiled. Will we take climate change seriously now?
1 week, 6 days ago

Letters to the Editor: California’s piers are imperiled. Will we take climate change seriously now?

LA Times  

To the editor: Your article on California piers imperiled by climate change quotes a researcher as saying, “There’s limited resources, and we have to think strategically about what are we going to protect?” This thinking has to encompass the reality that humans are not taking climate change seriously. To the editor: The destruction of California piers by storms exacerbated by …

Letters to the Editor: Regardless of Trump, the battle against climate change is picking up. Let’s keep it going
1 month, 3 weeks ago

Letters to the Editor: Regardless of Trump, the battle against climate change is picking up. Let’s keep it going

LA Times  

Postal Service worker inspects trucks in a flooded area of New Port Richley, Fla., after Hurricane Milton on Oct. 11. Last year, the average global temperature was 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, a tipping point for much greater damage. The renewable energy transition has also reached a tipping point; new renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, and almost …

‘Drill, baby, drill!’ and climate change denial: California braces for a Trump environment
2 months ago

‘Drill, baby, drill!’ and climate change denial: California braces for a Trump environment

LA Times  

As a candidate, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly professed his love of clean air and water, but he also dismissed climate change as a hoax, railed against zero emission electric vehicles and expressed contempt for the environmental regulations that seek to protect California rivers and estuaries. “We are in a very, very precarious moment.” The goals outlined in Project 2025 point …

California wildfires are spreading and intensifying faster, putting more people in danger
2 months, 2 weeks ago

California wildfires are spreading and intensifying faster, putting more people in danger

LA Times  

San Bernardino County firefighters work to save a home in Wrightwood as they battle the Bridge Fire in September. A new paper in the journal Science puts that sentiment to the test, with startling findings: California fires spread almost four times faster in 2020 than they had in 2001. “People are pretty good at putting out all fires,” said Park …

Hey, presidential candidates, climate change would like a word
3 months, 1 week ago

Hey, presidential candidates, climate change would like a word

LA Times  

It is Wednesday, Oct. 2. The Cedar fire killed 15 people and destroyed more than 2,500 structures in San Diego’s inland suburbs and rural communities; at the time, it was the largest California wildfire in 75 years. A fire season surpassing 1 million scorched acres of land that doesn’t feel like a big deal — that’s climate change. A hurricane …

Boiling Point: Heat, fires, floods — extreme weather has affected 99% of Americans
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Boiling Point: Heat, fires, floods — extreme weather has affected 99% of Americans

LA Times  

Welcome to Boiling Point. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, says it’s creating a new agricultural unit that will “significantly expand enforcement.” Climate change is altering conditions for desert plants, and scientists have for years projected that rising temperatures will make large portions of the Mojave Desert unsuitable for Joshua trees to survive by the …

Alaska flood: I left California's fires. Now, a glacier is coming for my town.
55 years ago

Alaska flood: I left California's fires. Now, a glacier is coming for my town.

Slate  

Thirteen years ago, I returned to my hometown of Juneau, Alaska. Nestled in the world’s largest temperate rainforest—where it rains on average between 90 and 120 inches a year—I could drink delicious water from the tap and breathe deeply in the pristine air. Specifically, this glacier: Almost one year ago exactly, on Aug. 4, 2023, ice melt that had accumulated …

Hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, billions of dollars is cost of extreme heat in California
6 months ago

Hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, billions of dollars is cost of extreme heat in California

Associated Press  

A blistering California heat wave over the past week and through the Fourth of July holiday could be topped off by the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth. The death toll from the extreme heat events identified by the Insurance Department was higher — estimated at nearly 460 in a first-of-its-kind report the department released last week. The report also …

Column: Hate the storm? Then start getting serious about climate change
11 months, 1 week ago

Column: Hate the storm? Then start getting serious about climate change

LA Times  

You know how oil and gas pollution is supposed to bring not only hotter heat waves, drier droughts and bigger wildfires, but also more intense storms? As The Times’ Grace Toohey wrote last week, scientists have found that because of rising temperatures, a catastrophic storm “is more likely to happen and to be more intense, with a 2% chance of …

Column: Solving climate change will have side effects. Get over it
1 year, 1 month ago

Column: Solving climate change will have side effects. Get over it

LA Times  

When I wrote a column two weeks ago urging the Biden administration to approve a lot more solar and wind farms on Western public lands, I knew I would get flak from critics of large-scale renewable energy — and indeed I did. I could spend all my time singing the praises of rooftop solar — which I did last week, …

America’s summer of extreme weather sparks major jump in climate crisis believers
1 year, 3 months ago

America’s summer of extreme weather sparks major jump in climate crisis believers

The Independent  

Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Extreme weather that brought dangerously high temperatures, wildfires, severe storms and flooding across the United States coincided with a …

Column: Time to panic? The home insurance market in California is collapsing because of climate change
1 year, 4 months ago

Column: Time to panic? The home insurance market in California is collapsing because of climate change

LA Times  

As another legislative session draws to a close in Sacramento, the problem lawmakers failed to fix is one of the most urgent facing Californians: the slow-moving collapse of the property insurance market as costs from climate disasters mount. Throughout the United States, in different geographies, we’re reaching a point where climate change is driving to an uninsurable future,” said Dave …

Boiling Point: The climate change challenge is ours
1 year, 4 months ago

Boiling Point: The climate change challenge is ours

LA Times  

Farmworker Leticia Jimenez, 61, inside her home at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in August in Thermal, Calif. Edited by Alice Short, “Our Climate Change Challenge” focuses on what must be done to slow down and ultimately reverse global warming, and who needs to do it: not just government and business, but every one of us. More particularly, how are …

California is working on solutions to worsening climate change. Will they be enough?
1 year, 4 months ago

California is working on solutions to worsening climate change. Will they be enough?

LA Times  

In the opening chapter of “The Ministry for the Future,” science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson details a calamitous heat wave that kills almost all the residents of a small town. “The simple equation is climate change, warmer atmosphere, more intense rain, more pollution, more problems but also major catastrophic infrastructure damage,” said Stefanie Sekich, senior manager of Surfrider Foundation’s coast …

CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here’s what you need to see and know today
1 year, 4 months ago

CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here’s what you need to see and know today

Associated Press  

A powerful storm that battered parts of Mexico and the western United States was fading on Monday, but just as Tropical Storm Hilary moved off-stage, Franklin was churning through the Caribbean to threaten Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years dropped more than half an average year’s rain on some areas, …

In Hawaii, concerns over ‘climate gentrification’ rise after devastating Maui fires
1 year, 4 months ago

In Hawaii, concerns over ‘climate gentrification’ rise after devastating Maui fires

Associated Press  

Kim Cuevas-Reyes, a 38-year-old cellphone store owner, snuck into Lahaina last Friday to see the remnants of her home with her own eyes. With a housing crisis that has priced out many Native Hawaiians as well as families that have been there for decades, concerns are rising that the state could become the latest example of “climate gentrification,” when it …

Majority of Californians fear worsening weather swings due to climate change, poll finds
1 year, 7 months ago

Majority of Californians fear worsening weather swings due to climate change, poll finds

LA Times  

As California continues to experience swings from one weather extreme to another, a majority of residents say they are increasingly concerned about the state’s changing climate, and some worry that weather impacts could force them to move in the future. Nearly 70% of registered voters say they expect that volatile fluctuations between severe drought and periods of heavy rain and …

California ‘weather whiplash’ fuels uncertainty in upcoming wildfire season
1 year, 8 months ago

California ‘weather whiplash’ fuels uncertainty in upcoming wildfire season

LA Times  

When Jonathan O’Brien sees the rolling green hills of Southern California, the grasses lush from this winter’s heavy rains, he can’t help but feel uneasy. “When that happens, it’s all but inevitable we will see a severe fire season or two.” This summer, however, O’Brien and other forecasters project that portions of the state could get a break. But this …

Review: Has climate change migration already begun?
1 year, 10 months ago

Review: Has climate change migration already begun?

Associated Press  

“The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration,” by Jake Bittle Wildfires, floods and rising seas are giving Americans a foreshadowing of what is to come, the author of a new book about the environment says — disruptions on a near Biblical scale. In “The Great Displacement,” Jake Bittle’s reporting strategy was to visit places such as Big …

California has lots of catching up to do on flood management — with or without climate change
1 year, 11 months ago

California has lots of catching up to do on flood management — with or without climate change

LA Times  

When Leland Stanford became California’s governor in 1862, he needed a rowboat to carry him to the Capitol to be sworn in. “Every year we’re managing for drought and for floods, and we always will.” Yes, and we’ve got lots of catching up to do on flood management with or without climate change. It’s going to allow us to pump …

California’s climate crisis is intensifying quickly and taking a heavy toll on residents, new data reveals
2 years, 2 months ago

California’s climate crisis is intensifying quickly and taking a heavy toll on residents, new data reveals

CNN  

CNN — California’s climate crisis is quickly intensifying, impacting every resident and “increasingly taking a toll on the health and well-being of its people and on its unique and diverse ecosystems,” new state data reveals. The evidence continues to mount of the impacts of climate change on the health, safety, and well-being of the state’s residents,” authors of the report …

Climate change is rapidly accelerating in California, state report says
2 years, 2 months ago

Climate change is rapidly accelerating in California, state report says

LA Times  

A firefighter goes through the burn zone of the Fairview fire near Hemet on Sept. 9, 2022. Ten of the 20 largest wildfires since 1950 burned in 2020 and 2021, including the record-breaking August Complex, which surpassed 1 million acres in 2020 to become the state’s first “gigafire.” “It is troubling how some of the changes are occurring a lot …

Column: California wildfires to Florida hurricanes, how the rich game climate change
2 years, 3 months ago

Column: California wildfires to Florida hurricanes, how the rich game climate change

LA Times  

Boats are stacked up at the Port Sanibel Marina in Fort Myers, Fla., on Sept. 29. “They have hurricane disasters which most likely cost billions of dollars,” went one email, “yet they keep rebuilding only to have the same disaster again.” He’s right. Climate scientists are skeptical, though, because as with so much of high-risk Northern California, it’s likely that …

Climate change fuels extremism in California wildfire zones
2 years, 3 months ago

Climate change fuels extremism in California wildfire zones

LA Times  

It’s hard to explain just how much some people in rural California dislike and distrust the rest of us, especially Gov. He issued a statement lambasting the “dictatorial whims of the State Water Board” and a “systemic attempt to destroy farming and ranching in order to run the people off their own land.” He encouraged “anyone to stop ‘voluntarily complying’ …

Climate deniers are costing California too much time, money
2 years, 3 months ago

Climate deniers are costing California too much time, money

LA Times  

Looking back, Bradley Bentz doesn’t know what took him so long to move out of Los Angeles County. “I kind of just.,” Bentz said, searching for the right words to sum up his life, “fell in love.” Lumber trucks display the Stars and Stripes in Greenville’s Gold Diggers Day parade. “I really think it would take a disaster to scare …

California Democrats cap legislative year with climate wins
2 years, 4 months ago

California Democrats cap legislative year with climate wins

Associated Press  

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tougher clean energy goals, a ban on new oil and gas wells near homes and schools, and establishing guidelines for capturing carbon and storing it underground are among the climate proposals California Democrats advanced in the final days of the legislative session. Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield, one of the state’s oil hubs, said the …

Wildfires are getting worse across the globe. How does California compare?
2 years, 10 months ago

Wildfires are getting worse across the globe. How does California compare?

LA Times  

An alarming new United Nations report warns that the number of extreme wildfires is expected to increase 50% globally by the end of the century, and that governments are largely unprepared for the burgeoning crisis. “We hear that people in D.C. think of fire as a Western issue, or a Californian issue, but it really isn’t — it’s a global …

We write about climate change. Here's what gives us hope
3 years, 1 month ago

We write about climate change. Here's what gives us hope

LA Times  

This is the Nov. 25, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. California’s attorney general is watching, filing legal actions against local governments that approve heavily polluting projects in communities already struggling with some of the state’s lowest air quality and highest poverty rates. It’s not just …

GOP push to shake label of climate crisis denier runs into Trump
3 years, 2 months ago

GOP push to shake label of climate crisis denier runs into Trump

CNN  

CNN — As global temperatures rise, some congressional Republicans are feeling the pressure to show they’re embracing climate change and offer up their own plan for how to deal with it. “It’s kind of a recent phenomenon in conservative politics, and really has developed well in the last few years,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, one of the Republicans …

On climate change, Biden $3.5T plan making up for lost time
3 years, 3 months ago

On climate change, Biden $3.5T plan making up for lost time

Associated Press  

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden visited one disaster site after another this summer — from California wildfires to hurricane-induced flooding in Louisiana and New York — he said climate change is “everybody’s crisis” and America must get serious about the “code red” danger posed by global warming. “This is a ‘code red’ moment, but Democrats are answering the call,’’ …

Out West, Biden points to wildfires to push for big rebuild
3 years, 4 months ago

Out West, Biden points to wildfires to push for big rebuild

Associated Press  

MATHER, Calif. — President Joe Biden on Monday used his first Western swing in office to hold out the wildfires burning across the region as an argument for his $3.5 trillion rebuilding plans, calling year-round fires and other extreme weather a climate change reality the nation can no longer ignore. “We can’t ignore the reality that these wildfires are being …

‘Ashes, twisted metal’: California residents reel amid wildfires
3 years, 4 months ago

‘Ashes, twisted metal’: California residents reel amid wildfires

Al Jazeera  

Wildfires are being ‘supercharged’ by climate change, Joe Biden says on visit to western US state hit by record blazes. “The town’s pretty much gone,” Mitchell said of Greenville, which had about 1,000 residents before the Dixie Fire burned it to the ground. “We can’t ignore the reality that these wildfires are being supercharged by climate change,” Biden said during …

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