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<i><font size="+1"><b>August 28 , 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[science clip]<br>
<b>What's behind August 2020's extreme weather? Climate change and
bad luck</b><br>
The month of August alone has brought hurricanes, wildfires and a
derecho<br>
August 2020 has been a devastating month across large swaths of the
United States: As powerful Hurricane Laura barreled into the U.S.
Gulf Coast on August 27, fires continued to blaze in California.
Meanwhile, farmers are still assessing widespread damage to crops in
the Midwest following an Aug. 10 "derecho," a sudden,
hurricane-force windstorm.<br>
<br>
Each of these extreme weather events was the result of a particular
set of atmospheric -- and in the case of Laura, oceanic --
conditions. In part, it's just bad luck that the United States is
being slammed with these events back-to-back-to-back. But for some
of these events, such as intense hurricanes and more frequent
wildfires, scientists have long warned that climate change has been
setting the stage for disaster...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/2020-extreme-weather-climate-change-hurricane-derecho-wildfire">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/2020-extreme-weather-climate-change-hurricane-derecho-wildfire</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
[DeSmogBlog]<br>
<b>As QAnon Conspiracy Spreads on the Far Right, Climate Science
Deniers Jump Aboard</b><br>
By Sharon Kelly - Thursday, August 27, 2020 <br>
- -<br>
"The QAnon movement hasn't traditionally covered climate change, but
in May, when an influential QAnon account tweeted about climate
denial, there was a notable and sustained increase of QAnon content
shared within the climate denial group," Michael Khoo, an advisor on
disinformation for the environmental group Friends of the Earth, and
Melissa Ryan, CEO of CARD Strategies and author of the Ctrl
Alt-Right Delete weekly newsletters, wrote in an article published
today on Medium...<br>
- - <br>
Not only is QAnon taking up climate denial, but prominent climate
deniers have been taking up QAnon.<br>
<br>
"The other thing we see is that the right needs QAnon more and more
to amplify their messaging," said Ryan.<br>
<br>
Take, for example, Naomi Seibt, a young German YouTuber who has
questioned climate science and who has worked with the Heartland
Institute, a U.S. think tank and notorious promoter of climate
science denial.<br>
<br>
"So do you want a beautiful planet that you can stare at but that's
it? It's just like looking at a TV screen," the Express, a UK
newspaper, quoted Seibt as saying in May. "As a climate realist, I
don't deny that we don't have some negative impact on the planet.
But I don't think that it's related to CO2 emissions."<br>
<br>
Seibt briefly rose to broader prominence following a Washington Post
article about her in February -- though she remains far less
well-known than Greta Thunberg, the young environmental activist who
the Heartland Institute has sought to compare with Seibt. "She
reportedly chose not to renew her contract with [the] Heartland
[Institute] in April 2020 after facing potential fines from a
regional broadcasting authority," DeSmog's profile on Seibt notes.<br>
<br>
In addition to speaking about climate, Seibt has publicly spoken
about her views on race and religion. "Seibt's rise as the young
face of climate skeptics has drawn scrutiny of her past remarks. On
Friday, video circulated of Seibt's remarks after a shooting at a
German synagogue," Bloomberg reported on February 28. "'The normal
German consumer is at the bottom, so to speak. Then the Muslims come
somewhere in between. And the Jew is at the top. That is the
suppression characteristic,' she said in comments first reported by
The Guardian."...<br>
<br>
In July, the trial of that synagogue shooter, charged with murdering
two people and the attempted murder of dozens more, began with the
accused shooter stating that he felt he was "on the bottom rung of
society" and that he was "superseded," as he sought to justify
horrific crimes.<br>
<br>
As in Germany, white supremacists in the U.S. have increasingly
engaged in racially motivated "mass shooter" armed attacks on
unarmed people. And QAnon followers have also begun committing
violent acts. "I think it's also important to remember that the FBI
has declared QAnon a domestic terrorism threat," said Ryan, "and
QAnon has inspired kidnappings, it has inspired at least one murder,
it has inspired arson, there is a real danger from these folks who
are drawn to this and become just embroiled in it."...<br>
- -<br>
The teenage Seibt has previously denied allegations of anti-Semitism
and her mother, an attorney whose clients have reportedly included
politicians from the far-right German AfD party, previously told The
Guardian that Naomi is not a supporter of the far-right. "'In fact,
I was commenting that I think it's wrong to comment on different
races and to view them differently,' Seibt said," in response to
questions about her views on race, The Guardian reported. "'We
should just all be regarded as the same.'"<br>
<br>
More recently, in addition to talking about climate change and other
topics, Seibt has begun posting about QAnon. "As of right now, I
don't consider myself an active part of the QAnon movement," Seibt
said in a YouTube video posted earlier this month and whose title
refers to two QAnon themes, "but I am on the side, watching and
evaluating for myself what I think is verifiable and what to me
seems too far out there."<br>
<br>
"I do not consider myself an active part of the QAnon movement, nor
will I ever attach a label to my activism," Sebit said in response
to a question from DeSmog about whether her position had since
changed, adding that she also does not identify as a white
nationalist, part of the far-right, or an anti-Semite. "But as long
as the QAnon movement continues its peaceful protest against matters
of injustice, I consider it a positive contribution to the global
political discourse."<br>
<br>
"I do not view any ethnicity or religion as superior," she said,
adding that she identifies as a libertarian. "I promote a reduction
of centralised state power so that individuals may act freely. The
premise for that freedom, of course, is that the individual does no
harm to his or her fellow citizens."...<br>
- - <br>
Social Media Fail<br>
Khoo and Ryan pointed to the ways that social media companies for
years failed to conduct the most basic scrutiny of information that
they publish online and allowed all sorts of demonstrably false
information to be repeated in an endless rumor mill online.<br>
<br>
"Facebook has policies that let Trump lie uninterrupted," they
wrote. "And when climate deniers get a simple fact-check on
Facebook, members of Congress themselves have sent letters to
company executives to complain."<br>
<br>
All of this can, of course, have significant policy consequences in
the real world.<br>
<br>
"The danger for environmental advocates and for the planet is that
QAnon could be the energy that stops a big push for any meaningful
climate action," Khoo told DeSmog. "If a Green New Deal is the next
thing, we could see QAnon followers serving as the foot soldiers in
that war."<br>
<br>
There's also the risk that fossil fuel companies and trade
organizations might jump on the QAnon bandwagon, inspired by the
conspiracy theory's popularity. Last week, President Trump praised
the movement, claiming not to know much about it except that "they
like me very much."<br>
<br>
"If QAnon becomes more mainstream," Ryan said, "I could see a
scenario where industry groups that are invested in climate denial
and fossil fuels and such will be incentivized to embrace QAnon or
rely on those tactics and networks."<br>
<br>
The other risk is that conspiracy theorizing, when mixed with social
media, can not only bring in adherents, it can also raise money.<br>
<br>
"The new addition to this history of climate capitalism is the
capitalism behind the clicks, the monetizing of disinformation that
happens on all the platforms," Khoo and Ryan wrote. "Virality is
central to the profit model, as are ads. Whether or not they're true
is secondary, from a business perspective."<br>
<br>
And the reality is that QAnon has been growing, with NBC News
reporting earlier this month that Facebook discovered QAnon accounts
and pages have attracted over 3 million member and follower
accounts.<br>
<br>
Last week, Facebook removed nearly 800 QAnon groups and took some
steps to restrict QAnon hashtags and other social media. That
follows moves by Twitter to take down roughly 7,000 Twitter accounts
and designating QAnon as "coordinated harmful activity."<br>
<br>
Some see that as far too little, far too late. "They've had three
years of almost unfettered access outside of certain platforms to
develop and expand," Brian Friedberg, a senior researcher at the
Harvard Shorenstein Center's Technology and Social Change Project,
told MIT Technology Review in July.<br>
As of press time, Facebook and Heartland have not responded to
questions from DeSmog.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/08/27/qanon-conspiracy-naomi-seibt-climate-science-deniers">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/08/27/qanon-conspiracy-naomi-seibt-climate-science-deniers</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Dave Roberts clips - opinion]<br>
<b>A second Trump term would mean severe and irreversible changes in
the climate</b><br>
No joke: It would be disastrous on the scale of millennia.<br>
By David Roberts - Aug 27, 2020<br>
If Donald Trump is reelected president, the likely result will be
irreversible changes to the climate that will degrade the quality of
life of every subsequent generation of human beings, with millions
of lives harmed or foreshortened. That's in addition to the hundreds
of thousands of lives at present that will be hurt or prematurely
end.<br>
<br>
This sounds like exaggeration, some of the "alarmism" green types
are always accused of. But it is not particularly controversial
among those who have followed Trump's record on energy and climate
change.<br>
<br>
"As bad as it seems right now," says Josh Freed of Third Way, a
center-left think tank, "the climate and energy scenario in Trump II
would be much, much worse."<br>
<br>
The damage has not primarily been done, and won't primarily be done,
by Congress, except through inaction (which is no small thing).
Under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate has effectively
abdicated its duty as a legislative body; it now mostly exists to
approve far-right judges to the federal bench.<br>
- -<br>
First, though, let's talk about the main thing, which is that a
Trump victory would make any reasonable definition of "success" on
climate change impossible.<br>
- -<br>
The US needs to completely transition off electricity generated by
coal and natural gas, vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel, and
buildings heated by natural gas and oil -- and quickly.<br>
<br>
Everything Trump has done pushes in the opposite direction. Four
more years of Trump, backed by a Republican Senate, will mean a
heavy drag on global efforts to control carbon. Progress on
decarbonization will slow in the US, and the example America sets
will slow other nations' progress as well, making the aforementioned
10-year mobilization all but impossible. That is a difference that
will reverberate for centuries.<br>
- - <br>
The administration is also going after other methane rules on oil
and gas operations, and in the process, trying to change the EPA's
rulemaking process to make future regulations more difficult. That
brings us to a key point.<br>
The Trump administration is stacking the deck to advantage fossil
fuels<br>
Aside from all the rules the administration has eviscerated, is
eviscerating, and plans to eviscerate, it is also pushing several
changes to agency procedures that will make it more difficult to
regulate in the future.<br>
<br>
Under administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA has proposed to alter
the way it does cost-benefit analysis to exclude consideration of a
rule's "co-benefits" -- reductions in other pollutants that come as
a side effect of reducing targeted pollutants. (A coalition of
environmental groups has opposed the change, which violates EPA
precedent, statutory intent, and common sense.) If the change goes
into effect -- as it surely will given another term and friendlier
courts -- all future air quality rules will be weakened.<br>
<br>
The EPA has also promulgated a "secret science rule" that would
exclude from consideration a wide swath of studies demonstrating the
danger of air pollution (including its danger in helping spread
Covid-19). Without those studies to rely on, justifying public
health regulations would be more difficult going forward. The EPA's
own independent board of science advisers said the change would
"reduce scientific integrity" at the agency.<br>
<br>
Speaking of independent science advisers, starting under Pruitt, the
EPA began pushing out science advisers who had received grants from
the agency (which includes most of them) and replacing them with
fossil fuel cronies. Amusingly, even a science board packed with
Trump appointees has said that three of the agency's major recent
rule changes flew in the face of established science. Still, given
another term to finish the job, Wheeler could effectively eliminate
independent scientific review at the agency.<br>
The administration has also gutted the National Environmental
Protection Act (NEPA), which requires the federal government to
rigorously assess the effects of its actions on the environment and
local communities, and is one of the principal avenues through which
communities of color and other vulnerable communities communicate
their interests to the federal government.<br>
<br>
In July, the White House Council on Environmental Quality released a
proposed rule that would dramatically limit the range of federal
agency actions to which NEPA applies, limit consideration of
cumulative and indirect impacts (like climate change and
environmental justice), and curtail public involvement in the
decision-making process and judicial review. Given another term to
see the change through, the White House could shape every major
federal agency decision going forward.<br>
- -<br>
The administration is also trying to revoke California's waiver
under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to set its own
(typically more ambitious) emissions standards. If it succeeds, it
would sabotage not only California's standards but those of the 13
states (and Washington, DC) that have adopted them.<br>
<br>
And it won't be the only way a vindictive Trump could go after his
perceived enemies. "Blue states will be starved of federal funding,
which means massive cuts that inevitably lead to a degradation in
environmental enforcement and investment in cleaner energy," says
Freed, "but also likely big reductions in mass transit funding and
aid to cities that will push more people into cars and more
emissions."<br>
- -<br>
Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch have
recently been making noise about radically limiting the ability of
federal agencies to regulate at all, under a hyper-conservative
interpretation of the "nondelegation doctrine."<br>
<br>
"It's impossible to exaggerate the importance of this issue," my
colleague Ian Millhiser writes. "Countless federal laws, from the
Clean Air Act to the Affordable Care Act, lay out a broad federal
policy and delegate to an agency the power to implement the details
of that policy. Under Kavanaugh's approach, many of these laws are
unconstitutional, as are numerous existing regulations governing
polluters, health providers, and employers."<br>
<br>
There may already be five conservative votes on the court for this
radical lurch backward. If Trump gets another two SCOTUS
appointments, it is all but a certainty.<br>
<br>
Land, water, and wildlife are also getting the shaft<br>
I've mostly been focusing on the EPA and energy, but Trump's damage
is omnidirectional.<br>
- -<br>
A second Trump term will almost certainly see a renewed push for
more offshore oil and gas drilling, expanding on the recent opening
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A plan to open virtually all
the nation's coastal waters to drilling was put "on hold" after
pushback from courts and coastal communities last year, but it will
return, as will further delays for offshore wind projects.<br>
<br>
Bernhardt also moved the headquarters of DOI's Bureau of Land
Management to Grand Junction, Colorado (a fossil fuel hub), and gave
DC staff 30 days to decide whether to follow. Predictably, and by
intent, the move resulted in an enormous brain drain, as about half
of the experienced staff left...<br>
- -<br>
There is no telling how many more agencies Trump could gut given
four more years. Many staff, at EPA and other agencies, have been
holding on to hopes of a new president. If Trump is reelected,
there's likely to be a huge exodus of knowledge and talent from the
federal government.<br>
<br>
<b>Trump's foreign policy is entirely devoted to fossil fuels</b><br>
Promoting fossil fuels has been one of the few consistent themes of
Trump's foreign policy.<br>
- -<br>
In a second term, Trump is unlikely to rejoin Paris; he's much more
likely to remove the US from the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change entirely. It is an open question whether the Paris
framework could survive that at all.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>Four more years of Trump would leave democracy, and hope for
a safe climate, in tatters</b><br>
The above constitutes a highly selective list, a small portion of
the damage Trump has done to climate and energy progress across
federal agencies and international agreements. There are plenty of
other examples to cite, including his beloved trade wars, which he
will undoubtedly expand in a second term. A recent analysis found
that his solar tariffs to date have cost 62,000 jobs in the solar
industry and blocked 10.5 gigawatts of new solar from coming online.
(If you can stomach a more comprehensive list, check out this piece
from the Global Current.)<br>
The main bulwark against Trump's changes so far has been the courts,
but that bulwark will not hold against an administration with four
more years to bolster its legal cases and appoint sympathetic
judges.<br>
<br>
Under Trump and McConnell, the Senate has already appointed 200
federal judges, almost a quarter of the total number. If McConnell
keeps the Senate, the next four years could see half of federal
judges being Trump appointees and a 7-2 conservative majority on the
Supreme Court. That would likely mean a rapid return to pre-New Deal
jurisprudence, radically curtailing the reach of foundational
environmental laws. Trump -- or, more precisely, the Federalist
Society -- would be utterly unrestrained.<br>
And that's not even accounting for the possibility that Trump could
simply ignore court judgments he doesn't like, which seems to be the
logical next step for an administration that has faced so little
accountability for its law-breaking.<br>
<br>
In a second term, especially if Republicans keep the Senate, there
would be few tools left to use against Trump's march into the fossil
fuel past. Big businesses and financial institutions might exert
some influence. The EU might impose a border adjustment tax. But
most hope would fall on direct activism.<br>
- -<br>
Yet activism is only going to get more difficult, as it tends to
under authoritarian states. "It's impossible to separate the
massive, vicious assault on democracy and civil rights Trump would
prosecute in a second term from the actions he would take on climate
and energy," says Freed. Many states have been passing laws ramping
up the scope and severity of penalties for direct activism,
increasingly being redefined as "domestic terrorism." Trump's use of
federal forces to brutalize protesters in Portland is likely a
preview of a much more extensive crackdown on civil disobedience in
a second term. Some environmental groups are already having serious
discussions about how to prepare their members.<br>
<p>There's no sugarcoating it: If Trump wins the election and
Republicans keep the Senate, democracy in America might not
survive. At the very least, any hope of public policy to rapidly
decarbonize the US is off the table. The US will push actively in
the opposite direction.</p>
I often think about this passage from a 2016 commentary in the
journal Nature (signed by 22 noted climate scientists):<br>
<blockquote>Policy decisions made during [coming years] are likely
to result in changes to Earth's climate system measured in
millennia rather than human lifespans, with associated
socioeconomic and ecological impacts that will exacerbate the
risks and damages to society and ecosystems that are projected for
the twenty-first century and propagate into the future for many
thousands of years.<br>
</blockquote>
<b>Thousands of years.</b><br>
Trump's damage to the climate is not like his damage to the
immigration system or the health care system. It can't be undone. It
can't be repaired. Changes to the climate are, for all intents and
purposes, irreversible. They will be experienced by every generation
to come.<br>
<br>
It is a cliché by now to call this the most important election of
our lifetimes, but even that dramatic phrasing doesn't capture the
stakes. From the perspective of the human species as a whole, the
arc of its life on this planet, it may be the most important
election ever.<br>
Read full article -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/8/27/21374894/trump-election-second-term-climate-change-energy-russia-china">https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/8/27/21374894/trump-election-second-term-climate-change-energy-russia-china</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[OK lets have a look]<br>
<b>What's Left to Destroy</b><br>
Aug 22<br>
What do four more years of Trump mean for the climate and energy
agenda?<br>
Since taking office, the Trump administration has set-off on an
extensive effort to deregulate and weaken climate and environmental
protection, while promoting fossil fuels. This includes vehicle fuel
efficiency standards, the Clean Power Plan, methane leaks, and an
overlying effort to undermine scientific rule making. U.S.
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are up since 2017 and the bedrock of
environmental standards weakened across the federal government.<br>
With less than 100 days to go before the general election, we ask
what a second term of the Trump administration spells for the
climate and energy agenda. Our assumptions are the following: the
2020 election is won by the incumbent, split congressional chambers
with Democrats holding the House, and Republicans winning a swath of
gubernatorial and state legislator positions.<br>
<br>
Sections:<br>
<blockquote>1. Oil and Gas<br>
<br>
2. Fuel Efficiency Standards<br>
<br>
3. Research & Development<br>
<br>
4. Solar and Wind Power Financing<br>
<br>
5. Laws and Regulations<br>
<br>
6. Supreme Court Cases<br>
<br>
7. Republican Obstructionism<br>
<br>
8. Eroding Cooperative Federalism<br>
<br>
9. International Climate Policy...<br>
</blockquote>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theglobalcurrent.com/home/whats-left-to-destroy">https://www.theglobalcurrent.com/home/whats-left-to-destroy</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[VICE news video]<br>
<b>Russia's Fires Are So Out of Control They're Melting Polar Ice
Caps</b><br>
Aug 26, 2020<br>
VICE News<br>
As temperatures reached a record 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the
Russian Arctic this summer, the shrubs, grasses and mosses of the
tundra started to burn. That's an entirely new source of
planet-warming carbon, as well as methane from thawing permafrost.
Soot from these fires also helps melt polar sea ice.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3R0PoS_Q4Y&t=224s&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=curated_vice_daily_1473227">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3R0PoS_Q4Y&t=224s&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=curated_vice_daily_1473227</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[NPR on the ironic power of wind and gravity]<br>
<b>Hurricane Laura Rips Down 'South's Defenders' Confederate Statue
In Lake Charles, La.</b><br>
The South's Defenders Memorial Monument features a young
flag-bearing soldier, looking out over the lawn of the Calcasieu
Parish Courthouse, where it has stood for more than 100 years. But
Laura, which came ashore as a Category 4 storm with winds of 150
mph, knocked the soldier off its pedestal and onto the grass...<br>
- - <br>
The storm damaged or destroyed a number of other landmarks,
including a bowling alley, a casino and a Happy Donuts, which is a
popular source of pastries such as king cakes and kolaches.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/hurricane-laura-live-updates/2020/08/27/906717766/hurricane-laura-rips-down-south-s-defenders-confederate-statue-in-lake-charles">https://www.npr.org/sections/hurricane-laura-live-updates/2020/08/27/906717766/hurricane-laura-rips-down-south-s-defenders-confederate-statue-in-lake-charles</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[GIZMODO reports]<br>
<b>Bill de Blasio's Back-to-School Plan Ludicrously Relies on Global
Warming to Ward off Coronavirus</b><br>
On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced part of his
vision to protect students from the coronavirus. Chiefly among them
is proper air ventilation. Some researchers have found this can
reduce the spread of the highly contagious virus.<br>
<br>
Keeping windows open is a no-brainer, then. Right? Well, until
winter rolls around. New York regularly sees cold-ass winter days.
De Blasio, however, isn't too worried. According to Spectrum News,
de Blasio told reporters on Tuesday that global warming would bring
enough days where teachers could open classroom windows this winter.
You read that right: The mayor's solution to winter-time classroom
safety during a pandemic is good old global warming.<br>
<br>
"I hate to say it, but the winters aren't the winters we used to
know, so we're going to have a number of days throughout the year
where you can have the windows open in a way that works because this
is global warming in action, unfortunately," de Blasio said during a
presser...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/bill-de-blasio-s-back-to-school-plan-ludicrously-relies-1844845587">https://earther.gizmodo.com/bill-de-blasio-s-back-to-school-plan-ludicrously-relies-1844845587</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[LA Times]<br>
<b>Californians fleeing wildfires are talking about climate change
like never before</b><br>
By SAMMY ROTH - AUG. 27, 20206 AM<br>
California continues to burn, and it's hard to focus on much else.<br>
<br>
I'm guessing your news feed, like mine, has offered an endless
stream of doomsday images and headlines: More than 1.4 million acres
burned, at least seven dead and 136,000 people ordered to evacuate,
even as weather conditions began to improve. More than 1,600
structures destroyed, mostly by the second- and third-largest fires
in state history. Nearly 14,000 lightning strikes.<br>
<br>
The numbers and facts can be overwhelming. Difficult to comprehend.
They start to become meaningless.<br>
<br>
To get a handle on what it all means, I called Anita Chabria.<br>
<br>
Anita is a Times staff writer based in the Sacramento Valley. She
was on the front lines of the 2017 Tubbs fire, the 2018 Camp fire
and the 2019 Kincade fire. This year she's covering the LNU
Lightning Complex fires. She's learned to always bring a paper map
because of all the times her GPS has lost signal on remote mountain
roads where the smoke is so thick it's hard to see.<br>
<br>
"It's like being on the moon," Anita told me. "You go down these
roads where all the trees are black and everything's burned, but
some of the utility poles are still standing and burning more
slowly. It's hot. I always have to wear boots because when you get
out it's hot on the ground. And propane tanks are popping. It is a
little crazy at times."<br>
<br>
Anita and I spoke Monday afternoon as she prepared to go back into
the field. She talked about what makes the current fire emergency so
unprecedented, why California isn't prepared to deal with this scale
of devastation, and how people living through these disasters are
thinking about climate change.<br>
<br>
Here's an edited and condensed version of our conversation. <br>
<br>
ME: You've covered a lot of big fires. What's different about what's
happening right now?<br>
<br>
ANITA: What's striking about these fires is how quickly we went from
nothing in California to our largest fire crisis in history. Just in
the span of a couple days, we've seen 1.4 million acres burn. We
just have never seen anything else like this.<br>
<br>
And what's becoming more and more clear is we do not have the
resources to fight it. So our only goal right now is to protect
people and property and infrastructure, and wait it out for cooler
weather to help us get this under control.<br>
<br>
We have 14,000 firefighters out right now. I've heard people say we
need three times that many folks just to start to get a handle on
these things. We don't have the equipment, we don't have the
engines, we don't have the air power.<br>
<br>
ME: What aren't we doing right now that we would be doing if we had
more resources?<br>
<br>
ANITA: Normally you set a defensive line around the fire. Your goal
is to ring the fire in and keep it from spreading. And you do that
by sending hand crews to dig fire lines, bulldozers to dig fire
lines. You literally circle the fire, and then you have a defensible
perimeter.<br>
<br>
We don't have enough people to set lines at all the fires. So that
means our priority is not containing these fires from going farther
like we normally would, it's simply pushing them back from our most
populated places, from the places where they're going to do the most
damage.<br>
<br>
ME: That's so depressing.<br>
<br>
ANITA: We've just been incredibly lucky. I think what the
firefighters don't want to say out loud is that one good windstorm
and we could lose total control of this. Right now, if there's one
blessing in this, [it's that] Santa Cruz saw some high winds for a
while, but we haven't seen those gusting winds that blow it across
the freeway and take it into the neighborhoods.<br>
<br>
My little contribution to the world is when I talk to people in the
evacuation centers, I always get their address, so if I'm near their
home I can take a picture and tell them if it's there or not.
Because the anxiety for people is they've left and they have no idea
if their house is there or not, and they can't get through. But I
can.<br>
<br>
ME: There's been a lot of research showing how climate change is
making these wildfire crises worse. Have you seen that in your
reporting?<br>
<br>
ANITA: Time and again this week, people have told me they are living
through climate change.<br>
<br>
I see it the most in the interviews I do with people in places like
Sonoma County, who will tell me over and over again that when they
were kids, it was wet this time of year. They remember it being so
lush and so cool. And now, literally within one generation, they see
they are living in a different climate than they grew up in, even
though they're in the same town.<br>
<br>
I hear it from moms all the time. They're in these towns where they
grew up, and then they're raising their kids there, but it's not the
same place that they grew up in, weather-wise. And that makes it not
the same place fire-wise and safety-wise.<br>
<br>
ME: So often the narrative about climate is that it's hard to get
people to care, because it's not their lived experience. It's in the
background, exacerbating existing crises. So it's fascinating to me
to hear about people who realize that climate change is happening to
them.<br>
<br>
ANITA: It wasn't so much a discussion before, like with the Tubbs
fire. But now everywhere I go, it comes up in the interviews.
Because they aren't just a community that has lived through fire.
They're a community that is living through perpetual trauma.<br>
<br>
It's not just that your house gets burned. It's children being taken
out of school, children whose safety is threatened, families that
are having to flee in the middle of the night on an annual basis.
That's a horrible thing to grow up with, that's a terrible sense of
insecurity.<br>
<br>
Then if you combine it with maybe not speaking the language or not
being socioeconomically at the top, and you're having to flee in the
middle of the night when maybe you don't own a car -- the sense of
safety of a whole generation growing up in these fire places is
really compromised.<br>
<br>
ME: The people you're having these conversations with -- are they
thinking about moving somewhere else?<br>
<br>
ANITA: Absolutely. I talked to a woman in a story I recently did,
her name is Harvest Echols. She grew up in Healdsburg. Actually, her
dad and his siblings built a geodesic dome in the hills there. So
she grew up very hippie. She's in her 40s, and she has two kids.<br>
<br>
They were evacuating in an RV when I spoke to them. Last October
when they had to evacuate, it was a middle-of-the-night run to
Sebastopol, where they found a hotel, went to bed, and a couple
hours later there was pounding on their door because the hotel was
in the fire zone now. And so they had to flee again. And she was
just so traumatized on behalf of her kids that this time they're not
even waiting for the evacuation order. They bought an RV and they're
getting out of town. And she said she's thinking about moving.<br>
<br>
People are so tied to this region. It's Northern California, we're
Californians. No one wants to go anywhere else, really. But a lot of
people are talking about Oregon.<br>
<br>
ME: Have you seen anything in the course of your reporting that
makes you optimistic we're going to figure this stuff out as a
state, and learn to live in a reality with bigger and more
devastating fires?<br>
<br>
ANITA: I do personally think that California has some of the best
firefighters in the world, because they're the most experienced,
unfortunately. If there is a body of fire professionals that can
handle this now and in the future, it is California's firefighters.
I haven't met one of them that is not willing to to give their life
to this fight.<br>
<br>
What I hear over and over again from the experts is that we need to
get our act together when it comes to the reality of fire. We
prepare for earthquakes, we have earthquake drills. We build
earthquake-proof buildings. We could rebuild fireproof buildings. We
could treat fire the same way we treat other potential disasters
where preparing for it is an expectation.<br>
<br>
We need to up our game when it comes to living in those zones where
the wilderness is coming into contact with our suburbs. There are
things we can do to prepare for the reality that fire is going to
come through. California just hasn't fundamentally embraced that
truth.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2020-08-27/boiling-point-newsletter-california-wildfires-boiling-point">https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2020-08-27/boiling-point-newsletter-california-wildfires-boiling-point</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
August 28, 2014 </b></font><br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<br>
"At a private conclave with the billionaire Koch brothers' political
apparatus this year, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the
Republican leader, laid out a confrontational agenda for a
Republican-controlled Senate aimed at dismantling President Obama's
legislative successes through the federal budget.<br>
<br>
"In an audio recording leaked to The Undercurrent, a liberal-leaning
YouTube channel, and initially reported by the magazine The Nation,
Mr. McConnell told the mid-June gathering in Dana Point, Calif.,
that if the Republicans gained control of the Senate and retained
control of the House in November, Congress could use the budget
process to force the president to roll back his priorities.<br>
<br>
"'In the House and Senate, we own the budget,' he said, explaining
that the initial blueprint on taxes and spending does not require
the president's signature.So what does that mean? That means that we
can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending
bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing
what's called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to
do this or to do that. We're going to go after them on health care,
on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency,
across the board. All across the federal government, we're going to
go after it.'<br>
<br>
"The channel released audio of three other Republicans in tough
Senate races -- Representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas,
Representative Cory Gardner of Colorado and Joni Ernst, a state
senator in Iowa -- all of whom praised Charles G. and David H. Koch
and the millions of dollars they have provided to help Republican
candidates."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/us/politics/on-tape-mcconnell-envisions-using-budget-to-undo-obama-initiatives.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/us/politics/on-tape-mcconnell-envisions-using-budget-to-undo-obama-initiatives.html</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.msnbc.com/watch/mitch-mcconnell-s-promise-to-the-koch-brothers-322691139574">http://www.msnbc.com/watch/mitch-mcconnell-s-promise-to-the-koch-brothers-322691139574</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
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