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At least 10 people have died in the devastating Los Angeles wildfires as firefighters continue to battle multiple infernos in the area. Thousands of homes and other structures have been destroyed, and some 180,000 people are under evacuation orders. Multiple neighborhoods have been completely burned down, including in the town of Altadena, where our guest, climate scientist and activist Peter Kalmus, lived until two years ago, when increasing heat and dryness pushed Kalmus to leave the Los Angeles area in fear of his safety. "I couldn't stay there," he says. "It's not a new normal. … It's a staircase to a hotter, more hellish Earth." Kalmus discusses an op-ed he recently published in The New York Times about the decision, which he says was toned down by the paper's editors when he attempted to explain that fossil fuel companies' investment in climate change denial and normalization has only accelerated the pace of unprecedented large-scale climate disasters. "This is going to get worse," he warns, "Everything has changed."
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Former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, has been laid to rest in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, following a state funeral held in Washington, D.C. "He was the last president to actively encourage participation and involvement in governmental processes by the progressive civil community," remembers the celebrated civil society and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Nader compares Carter's progressive credentials to President-elect Donald Trump's flouting of the law and embrace of dangerous beliefs like climate denialism. Carter "brought the best out of people," Nader says, while "Trump brings the worst out of people."
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Raging wildfires continue to scorch communities across the Los Angeles area, killing at least five people, displacing about 100,000 more and destroying thousands of structures. With firefighters unable to contain much of the blaze, the toll is expected to rise. The wildfires that started Tuesday caught much of the city by surprise, quickly growing into one of the worst fire disasters in Los Angeles history. Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council have come under criticism for cutting the fire department's budget by around 2% last year while the police department saw a funding increase. Nearly 400 incarcerated firefighters are among those who have been deployed to battle the fires. Journalist Sonali Kolhatkar, who evacuated her home to flee the destruction, says it has been "frustrating" to watch the corporate media's coverage of the fires. "No one is talking about climate change in the media," she says. We also speak with journalist John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World, who says the L.A. wildfires should be a wake-up call. "This blind — frankly, suicidal — loyalty to the status quo of keeping fossil fuels preeminent in our energy system is creating an increasingly difficult situation and unlivable situation," says Vaillant.
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