The Los Angeles Blame Game

As Los Angeles was being consumed by fire, the politicians were out and around explaining that it is not their fault. From Governor Gavin Newsom to Mayor Karen Bass, these political lightweights have refused to accept responsibility. 

Of course, California is the bluest of blue states. It is difficult to find a Republican with any power over local governance. So the political grandees have decided to blame it all on climate change.

Or should we say, global warming.

I will make an exception for one Jen Psaki, who has claimed that it’s all Donald Trump’s fault. Once a flack, always a flack. Pathetic.

The Democratic left has preferred in most cases to blame it on the climate. Then again, how does it happen that climate change is advancing so rapidly when the rulers of California have instituted policy after policy to control it. 

True green believers would have it that climate change is not merely responsible for the Los Angeles inferno; it is also responsible for the hurricanes that appeared in Florida and North Carolina recently.

And yet, we recall Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis taking charge of the recovery situation before the hurricane hit the west coast of his state. How does that compare to the dimwitted mayor of Los Angeles who chooses, at a time when she knows that the fire situation is about to become apocalyptic, to take off on a junket to Ghana?

John Nolte offers a point-by-point ironic refutation of the attempt to blame it all on climate change.

In his words:

 Climate Change failed to clear the brush. 

Climate Change failed to do controlled burns. 

Climate Change failed to build the reservoirs voters demanded in a referendum about a decade ago. 

Climate Change cut the fire department budget. 

Climate Change forgot to ensure the hydrants would pump water. 

Climate Change didn’t create a power grid that could be shut off in emergency areas. 

Climate Change stopped the city from hiring firefighters based on merit.

So, climate activists had their way with California. The result is only too evident.

Chris Martz argues that said environmentalists are not serious people. As though you did not know that.

Climate activists … never criticize China or India for emitting CO₂ without bound. 

They don’t support nuclear power.  

The only mitigation techniques they support is the decarbonization of western economies. 

They neglect urban planning, zoning / building codes, beach nourishment, better forest management and water resource management

Climate activism is a reconstituted Romantic attack on the Industrial Revolution and free enterprise capitalism. The notion that nature is pristine and fundamentally good, or was such before human beings got their hands on it, is a reactionary attack on modern economies. 

Nowhere is this belief held more fervently than in Hollywood, the creature of an alternative reality, dedicated to producing a fictional alternative to reality? One might recall the painting of an apocalyptic fire that animates Nathaniel West’s novel, The Day of the Locust.

Finally, Leighton Woodhouse has suggested that the fire was no one’s fault. Except, that is, for the people who chose to build in a place where they should not have built:

But the fundamental engine for these disasters is the simple, physical reality of California, which prevailed before any of us were born: We built a massive civilization in a place where fire is as much a part of the natural habitat as summer rains are in the east.

Back in the day one Donald Trump advised California Governor Newsom to take charge of fire prevention. He told Newsom that he should clear the underbrush and to assure the availability of sufficient water to fight fires.

Naturally, Newsom ignored the advice. He is so smart that he would never take advice from a Republican, no less a MAGA Republican.

It’s easier to blame the weather.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for fee.