Six years ago on Medium, I wrote the following:
The Republicans have systematically turned climate change into a partisan issue, you know, like abortion, and have done so to manipulate their gullible electorate into believing the lie that there is no such thing as man-made climate change. They spew the dumbo rhetoric any time they can, that “oh the weather changes all the time.” Or “I don’t believe climate change is real — even if the planet is warming, it isn’t our fault.”
Yeah, it is. You dig up fossil fuels and you burn them, that warms the planet. They were buried for millions of years which, in turn, cooled the planet, making it an ideal atmosphere for all kinds of different forms of life, including us. What’s coming next is uncharted territory for humanity. We have no idea how bad it’s going to get. We just know it WILL be bad.
I was not only furious with rage, but I was quick to blame the other side for deliberately sabotaging our noble efforts to stop the warming of the planet, as though we ourselves were not contributing to it. We acted like we could buy a hybrid here, go vegan there, recycle our plastic, and be absolved from contributing to this existential crisis we all now must face.
It isn’t that I don’t believe the planet is warming, or that sea level won’t rise, or that it is directly the fault of so many people on the planet. What has changed is that I no longer blame the other side, and I no longer see my former side as the good guys in the fight. No, I see them as hypocrites. I was a hypocrite too.
I’d been in a bubble for much of my adult life because I lived online, in virtual spaces. Yes, I was raising my daughter in public schools, but those were a bubble too. We all belonged inside the same utopia. We read the same articles. We watched the same news. Our worries were the same worries. We spoke the same language, and all of us shared the belief that the biggest threat we faced was climate change and that the biggest obstacle we faced was the Republicans.
And then, my daughter moved across the country, and I got a couple of dogs. Rather than fly and leave my dogs at home, I began driving across the country. Those drives changed everything for me, not just how I saw climate change but how I saw my fellow Americans. This was how people actually lived, not how we did, inside our haze of paper straws and cotton diapers.
I saw the trucks driving on the interstates to deliver food and goods, the many hotels that require air conditioning and heating, the slaughterhouse trucks providing food for so many in this country, and the tiny houses in the middle of the desert with one embattled air conditioner sticking out of the window.
Looking at all of this, all of these places, and all of these businesses, it was easy to see that there was no turning this thing around. There is no way to convince every state and citizen to hop aboard what is an existential crisis for the upper class. Life just isn’t like that.
Everyone wants things that work, cars that run, planes that fly. They want washing machines, dishwashers, flat-screen TVs, office buildings, emergency rooms, and new computers and tech support lines, to buy groceries they can afford, to get fruit in the middle of winter, to watch movies and doom scroll social media — and “every Tweet warms the planet,” as Roy Scranton once wrote.
Even if we could convince every single American to accept our fixes, what would we do about Russia, India, or China? We seemed to have gone all in on fantasy but we’re disconnected from reality.
What we believe on the Left, or at least we used to, was climate change was Armageddon, doomsday, the end of everything. Therefore, what mattered to us isn’t so much that we solve the problems to survive climate change, but that we convert everyone else to our way of thinking. If we could do that, we believed, we could start making the big changes to our country and world.
The Left is still haunted by the ghosts of the past, back when we really did have the power and the opportunity to make real change. We squandered that power, and then we blamed the other side. In so doing, we could wash our hands of real solutions, whether it was gun violence, poverty, failing schools, floods, fires, or hurricanes.
And now, in the perfect cocktail of high Santa Ana winds, no rain for months, and a city caught off guard, the fires rampaged through the beaches of the Pacific Palisades and Malibu and the mountains of Altadena and continue to burn.
There were rumors of not enough water, not enough firefighters, and no way to control the speed of the flames as they ripped through the dry brush, burning one house after another as we watched the tragedy unfold on live television or YouTube.
This time, the narrative swirled around California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass, newly elected in 2022 as the first female and second Black person to serve. Bass had left the country in January, known as the last month of the Santa Ana cycle that comes every Fall.
From the University of California:
The region sees about 10 Santa Ana wind events a year on average, typically occurring from fall into January. When conditions are dry, as they are right now, these winds can become a severe fire hazard.
Because she was out of the country, she could not address the city's immediate needs. The scene was pure chaos, with the firefighters risking life and limb to keep the flames away from homes and neighborhoods. Everything burned. The Humane Society was overwhelmed. Whole histories of places and families were wiped clean, flattened by a force of wind we were not prepared for.
But why weren’t we prepared? We’ve been warning about this very thing happening for decades. Did we really mean it, or was it just a way to gain more donations and political power, and none of it was real? Well, just as the unsinkable ship did sink, the big fire did come, and the progressive Left was exposed for ineffectual leadership yet again.
And as the power went out, no one really tied it together as they screamed about climate change - power, we need it. We need it for everything. We need so much of it. Only fossil fuels will suffice unless we go nuclear, and that, too, was a problem for the Left.
But why, Mayor Bass? Why doesn’t the most wealthy state not have enough firefighters? Why were we caught with our pants down?
Don’t politicize this tragedy from the people who politicize not only every tragedy but also everything else—our culture, schools, relationships, language, food, friendships. Nothing is not political on the Left.
What do we have to show for it? Nothing. We have an industry devoted to absolving the rich of their sins of wealth—DEI and hybrid SUVs. We have actors like Leonardo DiCaprio broadcasting their concerns on Instagram. We have film directors like Jim Cameron and Adam McKay saying, “I told you so,” and we’re supposed to do what? Keep listening to them as our leaders fiddle while LA burns?
Adam McKay’s carbon footprint came secondary to making his climate film, Don’t Look Up, one of the worst movies ever made, starring every sanctimonious, unbearable celebrity known to man. I watched that movie and thought about the energy it took to make it, screen it, and stream it. The energy it took to mount the Oscar ceremony, the private jets to fly the stars around. What hypocrites, I thought, even back then as a Democrat.
Here is a scene from Don’t Look Up:
Right, Adam, sure thing. So just give me an approximate estimate of the plan here. To keep making movies starring Jennifer Lawrence? To keep tweeting? Or is there some solution you have to offer? In the movie Jaws, they don’t waste time shaming everyone on the boat and telling them how dangerous the shark is. They try everything, every tool they have at their disposal, even the ineffectual shark cage.
What have the Democrats done instead of killing the shark? Well, let’s look at the year that Don’t Look Up was released. 2020. Remember that year, Adam? Remember the Great Awokening? Remember what happened after that?
Suddenly, climate change only mattered if they could somehow tie it into social justice. “Climate change is transphobia” might have worked.
Do you think I’m kidding? A quick google search and look at what pops up:
Says Google’s AI:
But why stop there? Let’s go all the way, shall we?
They’ve already found their pivot:
All I’ve heard from the Left is blaming the Republicans year after year, decade after decade. But when the Republicans try to suggest ways to manage the coming fires and storms, what do we get? More purity tests, more conversion therapy, believe what we believe. But solutions? Nowhere in sight.
How can we face ourselves if this has been our message for over 20 years now and yet they’re still trying to explain away the fire hydrants not having enough water or having to fly in firefighters from Mexico or Canada.
And what of the young? Full of hopelessness and anxiety about the future because they’ve been told the planet is ruined and doomsday is coming. Why bother having kids, they have been convinced to believe. And there’s nothing we can do about it because those mean old climate deniers on the Right won’t let us, so sorry kids, you’re just going to have to live with it.
The buck has to stop somewhere, and in Los Angeles, this was a massive failure of leadership across the board.
Here is Michael Shellenberger:
Here is Chamath Palihapitiya:
I’m guessing nothing much will change in California because what would happen if they decided to stop blaming Republicans and start listening to them? What would happen if they started doing the controlled burns they didn’t want to do? Or following Trump’s warnings and advice about dealing with the hard realities of actually preventing wildfires?
Just as in the movie Jaws when Quint’s harpoons didn’t work and Hooper’s shark cage didn’t work, they had just to bring in the city cop to get the job done. And that is why God invented Republicans.
We’re finished with excuses by now. We’re done with the blame game and the sanctimonious lectures. It’s too late to turn things around in the ways the utopian Left dreams about. Now is the time to find ways for all of us to survive the coming storms and wildfires. We need to face the hard realities of this being our new normal.
Those who have fled the Left to join MAGA understand this, which is why so many of us voted for them. We know only one side has the right tools to get the dirty job done and kill the shark, whether you believe climate change is real or you don’t. Something is happening, and we need people prepared to stop blaming the other side and start rolling up their sleeves.
So yes, do politicize this tragedy because there is no excuse for the most progressive government in the country to have gotten it so wrong.
I love my state. I grew up here. I may never leave. We will rebuild. When I grew up, California was a red state. Something tells me that with all of the red pills flying off shelves, that might just be how this story ends.
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