“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snow melt from the north to flow daily into many parts of California, including the parts that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Donald Trump. That water restoration declaration never existed.
“I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to flow into California. He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster.”
Trump fabrication.
I live in a rightwing, pincushion, spear-catching state that is the major vegetable growing and technology creating state in the Union. California. Far from perfect, California is the most important part of our national economy. According to the Calif. Public Policy Institute, in 2023, California's gross domestic product (GDP) was about $3.9 trillion, comprising 14% of national GDP ($27.7 trillion). Texas and New York are the next largest state economies, at 9% and 8%, respectively. California's economy ranks fifth internationally, behind the US, China, Germany, and Japan. What’s more, California contributes significantly more to the federal tax base than the aggregation of any benefits it receives. And there are rather large areas of California – from farm country to the wealthiest enclaves of Orange County – that are politically as red as Idaho.
Fact: we are facing “natural” (actually, man-induced) disasters that are escalating in number and intensity as virtually every year, the average global temperature exceeds that of the previous year. Hurricanes, wildfires, coastal erosion, rising seas, severe drought in some areas, severe flooding elsewhere. Above all, demon winds of unprecedented ferocity are decimating our way of life. And no, this is not God’s punishment to anti-Christian/woke Americans for embracing diversity (isn’t that the tolerance set out in the New Testament?) or the “hate thy neighbor” anti-immigrant wave that throws the baby out with the bathwater. Who will rebuild our losses? Harvest our crops? Do the work local Americans cannot or will not do?
From my window in my home office, I can see massive smoke enveloping the Westside of LA and the hills that rise above the city. I am getting texts, emails and phone calls about who, in my group of friends, folks I work with every day, have lost their homes, cars, possessions and memory-laden personal effects. I have cried solid tears for their losses… and while I know they will come back better than ever, unlike so many leering at California, grasping at Schadenfreude as if it we the elixir of gods, delighting in our misery, I feel their pain, even as I struggle to recover from my own major surgery.
At a time when Americans should pull together, the death and destruction around me has become wildly exploited by the religious right – that punishment motif – MAGA for some purported compromised competence because there are too many DEI first responders (raw racism) and a complete misunderstanding of the largest urban American firestorm (with winds at hurricane strength supercharging embers of destruction to attack new targets) in the 21st Century. Simply, no one has ever had to deal with a firestorm of this magnitude. While a small portion of our water reserves were being updated and repaired, no one at any level of understanding thought we were lacking enough water to feed hydrants everywhere. But we were. One of our essential water-dropping aircraft was taken out of service when it collided with a civilian drone that had no business being there.
We’ve had virtually zero rain. Atmospheric rivers may have doused Northern California, but they missed us. Everything here is profoundly dry. We are lumbering past that 1.5 degrees Celsius red alert level, facing a future of increasing damage and intensity. And this will hardly be relegated to California. Climate change denial is all the rage in so many demographic segments of America… and “drill, baby, drill” will neither reduce prices at the pump nor restore America to greatness again. Rightwing vituperatives solve nothing, in fact lead people not to act in order to “teach those lefty Californians a lesson.”
Californians have fought fires all across the US, leaped into action when hurricanes decimated vast regions and voted to increase disaster relief without limits or question. We’re Americans! We only ask that we be treated and cared for as we have treated and cared for other Americans in their time of need.
I’m Peter Dekom, and apocalyptic Los Angeles is not a disaster that we be relegated to the history books; it is the vision of the world of the future that just couldn’t give up fossil fuels.
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