Donald Trump’s response to the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles has provided a stark prologue to how his US presidency will likely handle the growing threat of such disasters – through acrimony, brutal dealmaking and dismissal of a climate crisis that is spurring a mounting toll of fires, floods and other calamities.As of Thursday, four fires, whipped up by wind speeds more typically found in hurricanes, have torched 63 sq miles (163 sq km) of Los Angeles, a burned area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, destroying more than 12,000 homes and businesses and killing at least 25 people. The Palisades and Eaton fires, the largest of the conflagrations that have turned entire neighborhoods to ash, are still to be fully contained.Fire has always been part of the Californian story but the state is becoming more incandescent – the amount of burned area has increased fivefold since the 1970s as its rainy season shifts later and soils and plants dry out in rising heat. Southern California has barely had any rain since May, on the heels of a “megadrought” worse than any time in the past 1,200 years.“Climate change is adding fuel to the fire and it is absolutely outpacing our ability to adapt in certain areas,” said John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at the University of California, Merced.Yet Trump’s focus during the fires has been to assail the Democratic leadership of California and its stricken largest city, baselessly claiming the habitat protection of an “essentially worthless fish” stopped water flowing to LA as overwhelmed fire hydrants ran dry.“Gavin Newscum should resign,” the incoming president posted on Truth Social about Gavin Newsom, California’s governor. “This is all his fault!!!” Trump also reposted a doctored image of the famous Hollywood sign, flames flaring in the background, that had been changed to “Trump was right.”The disaster has unfolded to the backdrop of a new Trumpian era of political knife fights, unleashed conspiracy theories and the exaltation of a fossil fuel industry that has helped ferment climate-driven disasters.In Washington DC this week, Republicans threatened to withhold unconditional disaster aid for California, an echo of Trump’s first term where he allegedly halted assistance for states he felt were politically hostile to him.Meanwhile, Chris Wright, Trump’s nominee for energy secretary, vowed in a nomination hearing to boost oil and gas production because “there isn’t dirty energy and clean energy”. Wright, who said he accepts climate change is real, came under some pressure for previously saying that “wildfires are just hype.”Fossil fuel executives have swooned at the thought of a second Trump term, having pushed tens of millions of dollars to his election campaign after he promised to delete a slew of environmental regulations and subject more of America’s land and waters to drilling.On Monday, this triumph will be marked by an exclusive inauguration da
Ven. Gen 17th, 2025
