Fueled by Climate Change, California’s Raging Wildfires Are Threatening Vulnerable Communities First

I go to bed and wake up with prayers and anguish for all the suffering and horror, death and destruction in California and other places in our country and around the world. Every single day we see the terrifying impact and reality of climate disruption. And yet the corporate mainstream media repeatedly and intentionally does not tie these catastrophic events to man-made climate change. Doing so would expose the urgency of the emergency and the need for dramatic and radical immediate change in the whole of our society. Instead they contribute to the deadly epidemic of disempowerment and lack of vital information and actions to address the great crisis we are now living. This must be exposed, challenged, and changed! And until it does, I believe that there is an imperative that we turn to independent investigative journalism and other non-corporate funded resources, actively choosing to not limit ourselves to those corporate funded, and therefore compromised, media resources such as PBS and NPR, CNN and MSNBC, ABC and CBS, etc. We will continue to not truly comprehend the full nature of the climate and ecological crises until we understand and connect the dots and absorb the reality of this human caused crisis and threat to a livable planet. We simply must radically change direction. NOW. Maintaining the status quo is killing us, other species, and our Earth Mother. — Molly

Democracy Now! —
California is bracing for a day of strong winds as climate change-fueled wildfires continue to burn from Los Angeles to north of the Bay Area. After a chaotic weekend of mass evacuations and blackouts that left millions in the dark, firefighters in Sonoma, California, made headway Monday, containing 15% of the massive Kincade fire that has burned nearly 75,000 acres. Firefighters still face an uphill battle in combating the at least 10 blazes raging across the state, including the growing Getty fire, which erupted in one of Los Angeles’s most opulent communities Monday. Fires in California are typical this time of year, but the length and severity of the state’s fire season has grown due to climate change. We speak with Leah Stokes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and researcher on climate and energy politics. We also speak with Ariel Kelley, the CEO of Corazón Healdsburg, a bilingual family resource center based in Northern Sonoma County.

From this interview:
LEAH STOKES: Well, we know from research from scientists that climate change has dramatically worsened fires in the West. There is research that says that fires have gotten 500% more risky as a result of climate change and that two times more area has burned because of climate change. We know that the drought that California has recently come out of was also caused by climate change. And yet some of these deeper stories about what is happening in California, what is happening across the United States with climate change, are not told by the media. Instead, it’s just a focus on the fire, a focus on sort of the proximate causes and not a focus on the fact that we have already warmed the planet by one degree Celsius and we are headed in a very dangerous direction.

Please go here for the full transcript and video interview:
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/29/california_fires_leah_stokes_ariel_kelley?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=599a40c1e3-Daily_Digest_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-599a40c1e3-191574905