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The Guardian view on the LA fires: Donald Trump’s denial and division fuel climate inaction | Editorial
Events in California reveal how political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that needs urgent action to prevent it becoming an irreversible disaster
The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, displaced 180,000 and scorched about 40 square miles – an inferno driven by fierce winds and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent, intense and destructive – leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their wake. The US president Joe Biden responded by mobilising federal aid. By contrast the president-elect, Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and stoke political division.
The climate crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and east Africa’s devastating drought show nowhere is safe from its effects. Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a case to view all crises through a green lens. Instead Mr Trump’s denialism works to foment distrust about the science. He’s not just aiming to delay the onset of truth. He wants to demolish it. It’s a familiar playbook: the fossil fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency but chooses profit over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
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Continue reading...California fires: 10 killed and 10,000 structures destroyed as blazes continue
Strong winds and low humidity continue as five fires rage across Los Angeles area, with death toll expected to rise
Weather forecasters in Los Angeles expect fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 10 people.
Urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning, as five fires raged across the metropolis.
Continue reading...Winter storm threatens 80m as US south faces heavy snowfall and closures
Up to 9in of snow expected in Arkansas and Tennessee as climate crisis leads to more frequent extreme weather cases
More than 80 million people across southern US states were on alert on Friday as a powerful winter storm that dumped heavy snow and glazed roads with ice across much of Texas and Oklahoma lumbered eastward.
Some governors have declared a state of emergency as the weather forced school closures across the region and unleashed havoc for traffic.
Continue reading...Como científico del clima, supe que debía dejar Los Ángeles
Constellation Energy to Buy Power Producer Calpine
After the fire, the insurance battles: LA victims’ ordeal may just be beginning
‘Now we have to make sure there’s not a second, financial tragedy that follows the physical catastrophe,’ says consumer advocate
California homeowners who lost everything in this week’s devastating Los Angeles-area fires now have to battle their insurance companies to recover the value of their homeowners’ policies – if they are lucky enough to have insurance at all.
With estimates of the economic damage from the fires now reaching $52bn-$57bn, consumer advocates and veterans of past disasters say homeowners can expect weeks or months of paperwork to prove that they have lost what they say they have lost, if not also pressure from claims adjusters and a whole class of disaster professionals to make a quick settlement for less than they are entitled to under their policies.
Continue reading...As wildfires devastate LA, Republicans point fingers at Democratic California leaders
Trump and Maga allies are using the fires to attack leaders like Newsom – possibly foretelling power struggles ahead
If ever a situation cried out for elevating national unity over political divisions, the dystopian scenes emanating from the Los Angeles fires surely qualified.
The catastrophe that has left at least 10 people dead as of Friday morning, more than 1,000 structures destroyed and forced thousands fleeing their homes would – in an ideal and less polarised America – spur humane empathy and solidarity in place of tribal partisanship.
Continue reading...‘I had to save myself’: details emerge about Los Angeles wildfire victims
Death toll rises to 10 as first identified victims were Altadena residents affected by ongoing Eaton fire
At least 10 people have been killed in the wildfires still surging across the Los Angeles area.
Victor Shaw, 66, was the first of the fatalities to be named, after he died in the Eaton fire raging to the north-east of LA while attempting to extinguish flames at his home of 55 years in Altadena.
Continue reading...To resist the climate crisis, we must resist the billionaire class | Peter Kalmus
To solve the climate crisis, power must flow away from the billionaire class
When I feel uncertain, I find it’s helpful to write down things I know to be true. Fossil fuels are causing irreversible planetary overheating. Overheating threatens essentially all life on Earth. Oil and gas executives knew this but they chose to systematically lie and block a climate transition. They continue to make this choice.
I choose to focus my energy on the climate crisis because a habitable planet is a prerequisite for everything worth fighting for, and because the prospect of losing a planet feels horrific and sad to me in a primal way that I can’t express with words. I’m also simply in love with the Earth. But planetary overheating is really just the most geophysical symptom of extractive colonial capitalism – “billionairism” – a system designed to pump wealth from the poor to the rich, creating billionaires, the healthcare crisis, the housing crisis, genocide, hierarchies like racism and patriarchy, and a great deal of suffering.
Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution
Continue reading...As a Climate Scientist, I Knew It Was Time to Leave Los Angeles
US right wing fans misinformation fires as firefighters battle Los Angeles blazes
A similar campaign of rumors and lies was seen after the North Carolina hurricane, with DEI a primary target
As Los Angeles firefighters battle ongoing blazes, prominent rightwing figures are spreading bigoted criticism of the response and lies about who is to blame, including that the fire is raging because of diversity within the fire department.
The misinformation echoes the claims that plagued the North Carolina hurricane response. Both disasters led to outrage, which partisan actors seized upon to advance their political goals, muddying the already confusing information ecosystem that accompanies a fast-moving news event.
Continue reading...We’ve Breached a Key Limit for Global Warming. Now What?
Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers
National Trust to restore nature across area bigger than Greater London
Charity reveals plans to create 250,000 hectares of nature-rich landscape as it marks 130th anniversary
In past decades the focus has been on protecting beautiful landscapes such as the Lake District, trying to save the crumbling coast or breathing life into historic country houses.
Now the National Trust is marking its 130th anniversary by unveiling “moonshot” plans to address what it regards as the current national need – the climate and nature crises.
Continue reading...2024’s Record-Breaking Heat Brought the World to a Dangerous Threshold. Now What?
Hottest year on record sent planet past 1.5C of heating for first time in 2024
Highest recorded temperatures supercharged extreme weather – with worse to come, EU data shows
Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing “misery to millions of people”.
The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows. That is a jump of 0.1C from 2023, which was also a record hot year and represents levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.
Continue reading...Fires like those in LA could hit Sydney or Melbourne. How prepared are we? | David Bowman for the Conversation
It’s possible for massive fires to burn in Australian cities. Planning needs to reflect this
As the Los Angeles wildfires rage, we are watching a disaster unfold in real time.
We knew this would happen eventually. We have moved from possible futures to these things now happening. The deferment has ended.
Continue reading...World’s richest use up their fair share of 2025 carbon budget in 10 days
Emissions caused by wealthiest 1% so far this year would take someone from poorest 50% three years to create
The world’s richest 1% have already used up their fair share of the global carbon budget for 2025, just 10 days into the year.
In less than a week and a half, the consumption habits of an individual from this monied elite had already caused, on average, 2.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to analysis by Oxfam GB. It would take someone from the poorest 50% of humanity three years to create the same amount of pollution.
Continue reading...Burned homes and rattled nerves: Altadena residents grapple with toll of deadly LA blaze
With winds scattering embers across swaths of land, the Eaton fire burns down some houses while leaving others unscathed
Ash was falling gently over the Historic Highlands neighborhood of Pasadena, California, on Thursday as residents began to grapple with the toll of the Eaton fire still being fought in the mountains above.
This area was under an evacuation order on Wednesday, and the next day the streets were still littered with fallen branches from Tuesday night’s intense windstorm. The fire broke out early in the evening and spread rapidly amid the powerful gusts, killing at least four people and destroying more than 5,000 structures in the area, which also includes the Altadena and Sierra Madre neighborhoods. As of Thursday afternoon, the blaze had burned 13,690 acres and remained 0% contained.
Continue reading...