Critics blast DEI, Democrats, bad forestry and eco-activists for L.A. fires, but never mention climate crisis

I lived in Los Angeles for 29 years, most of it amid the ravines half a block from the 282-acre nature preserve of Debs Park in the northeast part of the city. Because of our proximity to this wild area, we learned when we bought our house there that our fire insurance was going to be at least double the average (and that was three decades ago). We were fortunate that no fire ever hit. And the area is untouched by the blazes that are still turning parts of the city into what looks like the flattened, burnt-out villages along the front lines of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine. Of course, deadly smoke from those fires is reaching far beyond the blazes. 

Into this conflagration, eager not to send relief aid to any Democratically governed state, the MAGA forces have stepped in with lies about who and what is at fault, targeting DEI and alleged failures to change forestry management. Elon Musk led the pack, with the Convict President-Elect adding his own aromatic tidbits. From Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian:

On Wednesday, for example, Musk took some time out from obsessively tweeting about whether the US should “liberate” Britain to proclaim that the Los Angeles fire department (LAFD) “prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes”. He has continued to post spurious claims about diversity initiatives (for example, “DEI means people DIE”) for days now, along with posts insinuating that if LAFD’s fire chief weren’t a woman, then things would be very different.

Musk is not the only one trying to link wildfires to “wokeness”: all the usual suspects are at it. Donald Trump Jr has also been busy making uninspired jokes about DEI meaning DIE. The rightwing actor James Woods and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly have railed about the fire department promoting diversity. Even CNN commentator Scott Jennings blamed the wildfires on DEI policies.

Not a word about the climate crisis even though that’s what put Los Angeles under conditions it’s never faced since its founding 244 years ago.

Somewhat less outrageous critics are drawing up lists of things that they assert political leaders have done wrong or not done at all that are at fault, if not for the fires, then at least for their rapid spread. In the weeks and months ahead, you can expect considerable lying propaganda (in addition to the screeches of the Donvict-Elect and the cowardly publisher of the Los Angeles Times) leveraging the fires for rightist political gain against old targets. To be clear, this is not to say that flawed policies, defective budgets, and mismanagement didn’t play a part. But the idea being put forth in some circles suggesting that this wouldn’t have been the $150 billion disaster it is if only government officials had been on the ball is utterly bogus. Note that they mean Democratic officials.

Check out, for instance, the stance of ultra-right Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, who represents Ohio’s 8th Congressional District, He was on Mornings with Maria at Fox Business Friday and answered her question about whether upcoming congressional legislation would contain disaster relief for the Los Angeles fires. Davidson said we “need to address fires,” as was the case with previous hurricane damage, adding, “…but, if they want the money, then there should be consequences where they have to change their [forestry management] policies.” In other words, bend to our will or suffer for it.

“California wants the money without changing the policies that are making the problem badder [sic] or worse,” Davidson said. “And I don't see how Republicans can possibly support that." On Xitter, Davidson said state leaders must “manage water, so you have water for people and firefighters,” “manage forest, so dead fuel is removed rather than retained for future fires,” and to “let insurance markets function, so homeowners aren't left without fire coverage.”

If Davidson had done the barest amount of research he’d know that California had to set up a state-backed insurance operation because so many private companies won’t accept the risk without imposing premiums beyond the reach of many residents. 

California is responsible for more than 13,200,000 acres of public land, and there is little doubt that working toward forest resiliency has been slow. Early in his term, Gov. Gavin Newsom sought to address the wildfire problem with the California Vegetation Treatment Program, which was implemented to accelerate environmental reviews of forest management projects. But of the 525 currently approved projects on 666,450 acres, only 231 over 6,000 acres are complete. 

Nonetheless, since 2015, California has doubled its budget for firefighting and fire prevention to almost $3.8 billion. In 2023, the state treated 700,000 acres for wildfire resilience, and between 2021 and 2023, prescribed burns more than doubled. In addition, the new budget includes another $4 billion for future efforts, there is a newly established dashboard so Californians can themselves track the state’s wildfire prevention efforts, 2,000 more state firefighters are being added over the next five years, and what was already the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet has been greatly expanded.

Without question, California needs to do more. However, one big issue is the slow pace of environmental review for prescribed burns and other forest management permits, both on the 19 million acres of federal public land in the state, and those 13 million state-owned acres. These can sometimes take years. You want to make permitting faster? Stop underfunding and understaffing the agencies that handle the reviews. These inadequate budgets don’t just apply to environmental reviews. The USFS’s proposed 2025 budget was cut by $500 million from the department’s request. That just about covers the proposed increase of $433.5 million for wildfire management from the comparable funding level in 2024, and the proposed $32.8 million increase for management of forest systems. Fire-fighting policies are nothing without budgets. 

There is, in addition, a crucial element—the most important element—that’s mostly been mentioned only in passing since the Los Angeles fires got rolling. The climate crisis. Here’s meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus at The Guardian:

These fires are a watershed moment, not just for residents of LA, but emblematic of a new era of complex, compound climate disaster. Conditions for a January firestorm in Los Angeles have never existed in all of known history, until they now do. [...]

The short answer is that the greenhouse gases humans continue to emit are fueling the climate crisis and making big fires more common in California. [...]

The more complicated answer is that these fires are an especially acute example of something climate scientists have been warning about for decades: compound climate disasters that, when they occur simultaneously, produce much more damage than they would individually. As the climate crisis escalates, the interdependent atmospheric, oceanic and ecological systems that constrain human civilization will lead to compounding and regime-shifting changes that are difficult to predict in advance. That idea formed a guiding theme of the Biden administration’s 2023 national climate assessment.

We know how most elected Republicans feel when it comes to climate or anything environmental. Congressman Davidson, for instance, has a 3% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Of climate change, he’s adopted the cop-out stance of "I'm not saying it's a total falsity and I'm not saying it's a certainty."

From David Gelles and Austyn Gaffney at The New York Times, here’s some reality for Davidson and the other 130 Republicans in Congress who are still climate science deniers:

With temperatures rising around the globe and the oceans unusually warm, scientists are warning that the world has entered a dangerous new era of chaotic floods, storms and fires made worse by human-caused climate change.

The firestorms ravaging the country’s second-largest city are just the latest spasm of extreme weather that is growing more furious as well as more unpredictable. Wildfires are highly unusual in Southern California in January, which is supposed to be the rainy season. The same is true for cyclones in Appalachia, where Hurricanes Helene and Milton shocked the country when they tore through mountain communities in October.

Wildfires are burning hotter and moving faster. Storms are getting bigger and carrying more moisture. And soaring temperatures worldwide are leading to heat waves and drought, which can be devastating on their own and leave communities vulnerable to dangers like mudslides when heavy rains return.

Every one of the 50 states—blue, red, and purple—faces the predicted litany of impacts scientists say the climate crisis will lay on us globally in the years go come. Davidson and his ilk are going to have to work especially hard trying to turn relief aid into a political pawn every time a disaster smacks a city or state with Democratic leadership.