
Since Jan. 7, 23 catastrophic wildfires have burned down Los Angeles County neighborhoods and entire communities. These fires, fueled by drought conditions triggered by eight months without rain, low humidity and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds, have killed at least 25 people, forced 200,000 to evacuate and destroyed or damaged more than 12,000 structures at an estimated cost of $150 billion.
Although destructive wildfires across America had at one time been rare, today they occur with greater frequency impacting every state across the country. The world has witnessed a similar increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and heat waves. According to climate scientists, the burning of fossil fuels has caused greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, to rapidly rise in the atmosphere, trapping heat and warming the planet that we describe as climate change.
Instead of responding to the apocalyptic fires in Los Angeles with empathy and pledges of support, President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA sycophants, right-wing news outlets, conservative commentators and conspiracy theorists spewed lies and racist, homophobic rants. Many blamed diversity, equity and inclusion policies for the fire, instead of climate change that most of them deny is real, and a global disaster they pledge to make worse with their reckless advocacy of “Drill, Baby, Drill!” policies. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Michael Richardson, an activist with the group Third Act, who talks about the real-world impact of the climate crisis we see now in the disastrous Los Angeles wildfires and elsewhere across the globe.
MICHAEL RICHARDSON: So here we have that for over 100 years plus, the fossil fuel companies have reaped huge profits by pumping their products into the nation, the world economy. And all the while they are reaping these huge profits, they’re sowing these emissions, these greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. And they didn’t set aside any money to pay for the damage that was going to result, even though, and you probably have reported on this, that over 30 years ago, they knew the consequences of burning their product, putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that would warm it in such a way that it would cause climate chaos. So here we have today, the common taxpayer, the homeowner, the insurance payer is left to pay for the damage that they sowed on our communities from the more intense and more frequent weather events that have been caused directly from the production of burning of their fossil fuels.
SCOTT HARRIS: In terms of U.S. policy, I’d like to get your views on the last four years of the Biden administration where he said they’ve done more than any other administration in history to push policies that address the climate crisis. And of course, people who are activists say not nearly enough is being done in the U.S .or anyplace else.
And now we’re preparing for Donald Trump’s regime where he promises to roll back any of those policies passed by Congress under Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act, which had a lot of good policies, although they didn’t go nearly far enough. The fact is we may see a rollback of those minimal steps forward and some really draconian and retrograde policies to take their place.
What are your concerns about the next four years under Donald Trump who wants to put climate change deniers in positions of power throughout his administration? He continues to say that climate change is a hoax in the face of all scientific evidence and that the lives lost — catastrophe after catastrophe in Los Angeles and the southeast of horribly powerful hurricanes fueled by climate change. What, what are some of your concerns, Michael?
MICHAEL RICHARDSON: Well, I think the concerns are shared by all of us. We used to talk about one step forward and two steps back. Well, I can’t count the number of steps backwards we’re gonna be taken now. But let’s not get distracted by this. We all recognize that these tipping points in the climate are coming at us way faster than the scientists have predicted. You can read all about it in today’s news.
But there’s another tipping point that’s coming at us also quicker than anticipated. And this is a positive one, the rapid buildout of renewable energy. This is gonna happen regardless of the Trump administration. Now, I wanna just like sidetrack what I’m talking about in a minute. Even though the Biden administration did more than any other president since Carter to advance renewable energy, during the Biden administration, they also put out in this nation globally more fossil fuels out of the ground.
More money went into that process from big business, big banks and asset managers and more greenhouse gases went into the atmosphere. So again, let’s not get distracted. Let’s stay focused on what we need to do now with what we got and what we got is the ability to fast track the rapid buildout of renewable energy.
Right now in California, there’s day after day where 100 percent of the energy needs the electrical needs are coming from renewables. Now, it’s not every day, it’s an occasional day, but they’re becoming more frequent. And right now we know that renewable energy has reached the point of being cheaper than gas and nuclear. So if we can continue on a fast pace over the next three or four years, we can actually make it where — get a load of this: fossil fuels and nuclear as far as the main source of our energy — will be obsolete.
But again, let’s not lose track of the problem that we have three years, four years at best to get this done. We don’t have to wait until 2050 to find out if we’re gonna be at 2.5 degrees Celsius or 3 degrees Celsius. Don’t have to wait. We will know by 2029 whether or not we’re going to make it because we’ll know how much greenhouse gases are in our atmosphere and we will know whether or not we’re going to be able to stave off the worst case scenarios. So again, we need to be aware. We need to focus on what’s going on. We cannot ignore the horrible things that are gonna be happening with “drill, baby drill” and all the other distractions out there, but we have to stay focused on where we’re going. And that is the rapid buildout of renewable energy.
For more information, visit Third Act – New York at thirdact.org/upstate-
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Michael Richardson (17:48) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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