Carson On California: California’s wildfires underscore willful Republican ignorance

This was not supposed to be the subject of this week’s column. A week ago, I was prepared to write about the end of California’s legislative session. My barbs and criticisms were being polished, and though I was deeply disappointed by the legislative failures I intended to write about, I was looking forward to excoriating the negligence of our state representatives in today’s paper. 

Instead, in a manner that feels horrifically metaphoric, the reality outside my window has forced me to change course. By the time this column is published, California’s wildfires will have burned more than 3 million acres, forced 64,000 residents to evacuate their homes, and killed at least 26 people — all while turning the skies a sickly orange and gray. 

These fires were, in many respects, foreseeable. Yes, the lightning storms that sparked fires across the state were rare, but the vulnerability of the land it struck — more specifically, a landscape that had been rendered into highly flammable kindling by a historic heatwave — was well understood. 

In other words, the wildfires were predictable and those in power (corporate executives and politicians) knew that their actions would only exacerbate crises like the one Californians face today. 

Internal documents from the fossil fuel industry have repeatedly indicated that the industries’ scientists and corporate executives were well aware of the disastrous heatwaves and droughts their products would cause. Scientists working for the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration during the 1960s warned of the “deleterious” effects of carbon dioxide on climate change and, since then, a near unanimous consensus among scientists has formed affirming the role of human activity in climate change. 

And yet, despite decades of this growing consensus, one dwindling but powerful faction of Americans chooses to remain wilfully ignorant: Republicans. In a 2019 Pew Research study, only 14% of Republicans surveyed agreed that human activity contributes a “great deal” to climate change, compared to 84% of their Democratic counterparts. Similar levels of partisan ignorance were echoed in the United States Congress, where 129 of the 130 legislators who denied or doubted climate change were Republican. 

This ignorance, a childlike compulsion to hold on to a repeatedly disproven conviction no matter how much evidence mounts to disprove it, lies at the center of all that is wrong with the United States.

In the U.S., human contributions to climate change are often met with denial despite the fact that approximately 97% of climate scientists agree that human activities play a crucial role. In a similar vein, many also deny the existence of systemic racism despite 400 years of evidence to the contrary. We falsely maintain a righteous facade of democracy while three out of the U.S.’s four political power centers — the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, presidency and Supreme Court — are led by a party that the majority of Americans did not vote for. We declare that this is the greatest country in the world even though we lag far behind developed peer nations in almost every meaningful metric, from success and education to happiness and health.

And now, violent and hellish wildfires are here to remind us once again of our fatal ignorance. 

I realize that some may find issues with this premise. After all, California is a state that bleeds blue, with a Democratic governor and a legislature largely controlled by the same party. But California, for all of its progressive leanings and zeal for green policies, cannot fend off the destruction of climate change if the rest of the country buries its head in the sand and denies the scourge’s existence. 

In the words of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California can make all the investments it wants in firefighters, clean energy and expensive infrastructure, but until the federal government takes action to reverse the course of climate change, climate catastrophes will be an annual fixture for years to come. 

Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, none of this is new. The science has been widely available and accepted for decades. As recently as 2019, the U.S. Army issued a report in which it warned that Americans could soon witness the climate change-induced collapse of the nation’s domestic power, water and food systems. Blackouts, disease, starvation, thirst and war might become the norm and the U.S. military itself might crumble, the report stated. 

Still, our president largely chooses to ignore this glaring reality. For three weeks, as lives were destroyed and the fires raged on, President Donald Trump failed to acknowledge the crisis publicly. After nearly four years of watching Trump roll back environmental protections, however, no one in their right mind can reasonably say they are surprised by the administration’s negligence.

I could conclude with another scathing line about the president or some policy proposal that is most likely already being considered. However, as smoke and ash fill the air and force us into our homes, I don’t think there exists a more appropriate, eloquent conclusion than the following snippet, pulled from a recent article in The Atlantic: 

“We’re trapped inside because of the pandemic and because of the fires, but ultimately we are most confined by the inequality, selfishness, and greed that created this moment,” Emma Marris wrote. “Even in the wide-open West, we’re still stuck in the United States of America.”

Stuart Carson is a senior writing about California politics. He is also one of the deputy diversity & inclusion directors for the Daily Trojan. His column, “Carson on California,” runs every other Monday.