On Monday October 28, 2019 at 2:40 a.m, I glimpsed the Apocalypse. It wasn't the first time. Nor my first evacuation. That weekend, I'd been monitoring the Bay Area fires where my 90-year-old dad sat in the dark for 5 days; a pre-emptive move from PG&E. We learned about cell phone towers, with batteries that don't work. No communication. We learned about generators and how their size determined medication and food longevity. We learned about wind speed and direction. And monitored both because our lives depended on it. Yet we also learned fire storms create their own weather. Spin in new, unpredictable directions. Fire embers jumped multiple lane freeways. We learned Santa Ana or Diablo Winds are dangerous and much more than dry, unpleasant inconveniences: They dry out already dry brush, and can turn a tree branch into a weapon hitting a power line, sparking a fire traveling 80 football fields a minute!
No one seemed safe. Anywhere.
Firemen became our heroes. Our celebrities. Our everything.
I've been obsessed about climate change and fires and what it means for our planet's future and my daily choices of what to eat (vegan), drive (fuel efficient) and for whom to vote (Elizabeth or Bernie). Climate change is my issue #1. I evacuated for the recent Getty Fire, and two years ago, the Skirball Fire. I've inhaled the worst air for weeks, or was it months? I used my IQ Air mask. But it was hard to escape the horrid smell and sense of doom and fine particulates of... homes and cars that burned nearby.
I'd love to run away but I live in Los Angeles.
On planet earth.
Climate change is everywhere. We're in this together.
I was hoping to hear from the "father" of climate change, James Hansen, about the California fires. And finally today James Hansen - the first scientist to sound the alarm for Congress in the 1980s; a Congress asleep at the wheel, and don't get me started on the disgraceful executive branch - emailed a report that starts with information about the California fires and where climate change impacts are headed.
James Hansen's piece Fire on Planet Earth offers valuable information. Please read and give to his Columbia University Earth Institute organization Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions (CSAS), if you're able. And vote for people that will prioritize solutions.
P.S. I find climate change deniers, and people confused about whether or not climate change is real when it's right in front of their eyes and in every newspaper, magazine and online outlet, and leaders who choose to ignore our best science are on some level complicit in the greatest crime against earth and humanity,
shameful. If that's you, it's time to wake up and make changes, most importantly vote for leaders who choose to understand and implement needed change. It will be an overhaul to life as we've known it, which is better than the alternative. Species are already going extinct. Apocalypse.
Salient words about reducing fossil fuel production and use from Hansen's Fire on Planet Earth
"As long as fossil fuels are not required to pay their costs to society, they will continue to be burned. The costs, from air pollution, water pollution and climate change, are huge. The clear answer was: the way to phase out fossil fuels is to collect a gradually rising across-the-board (oil, gas, coal) carbon fee, which is collected at the first sale at domestic mines and ports of entry. If the fee is added gradually, it has no cost – in fact it has negative cost, as economists agree: an economy is more efficient, generating more wealth, when prices are honest. The carbon price must rise steadily, so that fossil fuel emissions are phased out on the long run. The public in the U.S.12 will not tolerate rising fuel prices, if the government grabs the money. However, if the fee collected from the fossil fuel companies is distributed uniformly to legal residents, 70% of the public comes out ahead. Fee & dividend is progressive, as wealthy people have a large carbon footprint and will lose money, but they can afford it. Communication of “fee & dividend” with the public is not easy. A common response is: “if you give the money to the public, they will use it to maintain fossil fuel guzzling.” The public is really that stupid? When the price of a product made with fossil fuels rises far above a similar product made without fossil fuels, the public will buy the expensive one? Economists disagree with that; their studies show that a rising carbon fee is the fastest way to phase out fossil fuels."
More information
Videos of James Hansen and his warming predications to Congress in 1988 and James Hansen on ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms.
HOPE looks like this: The power of youth to address climate change with Greta Thunberg at the helm was recognized today. Time Magazine 2019 Person of the Year
League of Conservation Voters turn environmental values into national, state and local priorities.
NY Times Climate and Environment
