BBC: "We are witnessing apocalyptic scenes". Gaza? Nope. Rich folks' homes burning in California!
Posted by Der on January 9, 2025, 11:22 am
My heart goes out to any poor people who've lost stuff and any wild animals caught up in this. Rich people losing their homes? Obviously, I'm devastated. I probably won't sleep tonight. Never again, in fact.
One guy had only recently managed to save his 5 homes in Malibu! Whew! nm
I get your righteous anger but losing your home IS devastating whether you're in Gaza or a wealthy person in LA. Sure, money cushions life's blows but everyone has things of great personal value that can't be replaced. I find it hard to understand the lack of preparedness and what seems like a lack lustre approach from fire-fighters.
Re: Maybe try and be a little kinder in 2025, Der -some explanation behind the fires.
Lack lustre may not be fair. They've been caught out. It's winter, Santa Ana winds are not supposed to blow in winter., that's directly due to global warming and changed weather patterns. 100 mph gusts, that's hurricane force, a gigantic bellows for fires, oxygen in abundance. And the winds heat up, and the air dries out as the air falls from the mountain tops, Foehn winds, from the mountains. There's been no rain, a drought for moths, also likely global warming, as October usually is the "wet season" in LA, literally no rain for months, though further north it has been very wet. It's following a very wet prior winter, and the lush growth of undergrowth, and the winter temperatures are higher, The fire service tends to wind down in winter, vehicles are being serviced, firemen are on holiday, ie. the Swiss Cheese model in action. So it wasn't "lack lustre" that's probably a bit unfair, , it's the future coming earlier than expected.
Though other factors might include less water than needed, dried out fire hydrants, and reduced funding for the fire service. These problems stressed by right wing, global warming deniers. In fact the chief fire officer said that mostly they have had enough water, thought the pressure has been reduced, not surprisingly.
Goodness me, what did I write that deserved such a challenging and combative response? Almost entirely false, you say. To which I say, bollocks.
I will give you this, Santa Ana winds can occur in January apparently but they are commonest in Autumn, from Oct to Dec. They tail off in winter. Wiki states Santa Ana winds are known for the hot, dry weather that they bring in autumn (often the hottest of the year), but they can also arise at other times of the year.[Also the wet season starts in December, not October, as I claimed, ok, but December has gone by with no rain. .
Rain falls from Dec to March usually. They've had none. All the rain apparently has fallen further north,
Los Angeles usually gets several inches of rain by now, halfway into the rainy season, but it’s only recorded a fifth of an inch downtown since July, its second driest period in almost 150 years of record-keeping. The rest of Southern California is just as bone-dry.
So your assertion that there has been rain in LA is totally false. I also noted several other factors that have been implicated, your "almost entirely fabrication" under etc etc. is also wrong
Your definition of drought is also wrong, stored water has nothing to do with it. Definition, (perhaps look t up, Shyaku?, A long period of abnormally low rainfall, especially one that adversely affects growing or living conditions. Obviously stored water might alleviate a drought but the drought is still there.
A heat wave is still a heat wave, even if you have an air-conditioner to ameliorate it. A parched drought-stricken landscape is still a fuel for wild fire, even if water still flows through your tap.
If you're going to attack someone on these pages for their mistakes or misunderstandings, which we can all do at times, it would pay first to get your own facts right, and secondly not put people's backs up by such confrontational language. Thank you, JKM
And, why am I wasting my time.with a person I've never met and haven't a clue about........
Because he lives there and know what he's talking about?....nm
Fine, I didn't know that, but perhaps a word of explanation rather than his bald confrontation might have made me a bit less reactive, eh Keith, though you like to be pretty confrontational yourself, so perhaps I'm replying to the wrong person , - Shyaku says it has been raining in LA, and every report Ive read says it hasn't for months, so who's right? And in most respects, as far as I can tell, my posting covered points and opinions expressed in news outlets in the US. If he lives in LA, then I'm sorry his town has been so severely affected and with so many distressed people and some who been killed.
Re: Almost entirely false ... Any chance or resolution to this debate?
similar to when the Times and WAPO chastised people for not showing sufficient empathy at the killing of health insurance executive Brian Thompson, CEO of United Health Care!
And it's crazy to compare the suffering of Palestinians with the discomfort experienced by rich folks in California. What I was doing was comparing the no-holds-barred language used by the BBC to describe the fires with the restraint they show when describing the genocide in Gaza. The BBC is trying to make sure we get our priorities right and realise that in this hierarchy of ours rich white people are at the top. And they will take every opportunity to drill this home.
> I find it hard to understand the lack of > preparedness and what seems like a lack lustre > approach from fire-fighters.
The US has an incredible ability to both gut its public services and pretend that they are simultaneously world class and so bloated as to be in serious need of gutting. The result is what we are seeing now: when a service is urgently needed, it is no longer there. We actually saw the same thing with Covid: I recall a printed, highly colourful 'Which nation will cope best with a pandemic?' graphic provided by, I think, Forbes, which placed the US in 'USA is number one, yaay!' position. And its response in reality was every bit as bad as was ours -- for the same reason: the neoliberal destruction of everything important.
Yes, there are a lot of failings - I'm listening to Katie Helper and her contributors, posted above. It includes water supplies diverted to farming - one Californian billionaire "farmer" of pistachio nuts owns 250 square miles of orchards which use more water for irrigation that the entire supply of Los Angeles, , poor urban planning (ie building in fire prone areas) reduced funding to the fire service, the fact that this happened in winter, when fires would be less expected, and of course climate change. The conditions though were absolutely dire - for instance too windy to employ helicopters and planes, all the planning in the world will sometimes be caught short. .
Re: BBC: "We are witnessing apocalyptic scenes". Some further pondering
Thanks Der, good comment. A lot of people will be thinking something similar. Sue C is telling us to be a bit more charitable? Which is fair enough, I'd agree. But I think it's like this.
7th October, Did hundreds of people deserve to die, be maimed or kidnapped by Hamas operatives in Gaza. Of course not, no-one deserves to die a violent horrible death however inflicted, by fellow man or by act of God
But did the state of Israel deserve its comeuppance that day? Of course it did. .
Do any of those rich folks losing their lives, property, memories, ease, deserve what's happening to them? Of course not. Can we and should we feel aghast and full of sympathy for them, Of course we should
But you know, when Fort McMurray burnt to a crisp along with hundreds of people or Paradise, I did have this horrible guilty and disturbing thought, I thought, well, maybe if enough people lose their lives in such a ghastly way, when they lose their property and comfort and ease, perhaps that would be a sufficient warning to humanity, to our leaders, our businesses, and our ordinary citizenry, enough is enough, we have to stop pretending, we have to take note, we have to change our ways. Perhaps a horrible event if sufficiently large and damaging would actually be something useful and yet save us all. .
Pious thought, though, wasn't it John Monro? If the world can stand by and watch in real time tens of thousands being slaughtered in Gaza, which we could actually do something very easily to stop, like, for instance, a single phone call from Biden to Netenyahu, how are we going to deal with global warming, which requires a total reset of the way we now run our lives, a total reset of humanity's hubris and inexhaustible wants and desires, and a full retreat from its it's ultimately fatal irrational optimism and addiction to technological progress, it's emotional immaturity and retreat to violence.
And in Los Angeles, in that burning ghetto of unimaginable wealth, we see the rich suffer what the poor suffer all over the world all the time, I have this horrible distressing inhuman feeling of some sort of fate taking charge. I hate myself for it, but it's like a one of those musical brain worms, I can't easily rid myself of it. . Those folk, whose carbon emissions probably outweigh those of most poor people by a hundred or a thousand to one, well, that is something that anyone with a philosophical bent might wish to ponder.
Yep, 1.5 deg C rise attained this year. As I wrote in 2015 after Paris, that agreement was another pious promise. That was the promise of keeping temperature rise below 1.5deg by 2100, We are there already, and we have 75yrs further to go. Hansen says global warming is accelerating, I concur, other scientist say no proof. Current rate of rise is three times what it was in the first part of last century, now 0.2 deg / decade = 1.4 deg more by 2100 = 2.9 deg by 2100 only if no further acceleration. But that's nonsense, if it's accelerating now, it'lll accelerate even more, that's the nature of the exponential function.
Add in that the landmasses of the northern hemisphere are increasing in temperature at nearly twice the global rate,, you're looking at 5+ deg C rise affecting 80% of the world's population. This will be unsurvivable to hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people.
Sorry to say this, but we're stuffed.
Dr Martin Luther King had some wise words on this. In his speech, describing the "Fierce urgency of Now" You will all know these words, but they're worth remembering, although it is too late to do so. .
" This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…” We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation."
And all I can add, now I've just passed by 78th birthday are these final verses of Edward Fitzgerald's first (and best) edition of his free translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (from where "the moving finger writes" - where it continues "and having writ, moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line , nor all they tears wash out a word of it" (I used to know and recite the whole Rubaiyat off by heart and can still quote most of it)
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, And wash my Body whence the Life has died, And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt, So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.
That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air, As not a True Believer passing by But shall be overtaken unaware.
Indeed the Idols I have loved so long Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong; Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup, And sold my Reputation for a Song.
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before I swore - but was I sober when I swore ? And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel, And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour - well, I often wonder what the Vintners buy One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close ! The Nightingale that in the Branches sang, Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows !
Ah Love ! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire !
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane, The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again: How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same Garden after me - in vain!
And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot Where I made one - turn down an empty Glass !
So lads and lasses fill a cup for me, and yourselves, just for the sake of it, though I don't intend to go just yet. I will go at some indeterminate but approaching future time to be buried in the first cresting wave of us baby boomers as human flotsam washing in to shore, and more sadly indeed as the first cresting wave of humanity's fate in a simmering planet.
It's AWFUL!!! It's DREADFUL!!! It's DEVASTATING!!! TEN people die in LA fires
on January 9, 2025, 11:22 am