Another rake conversation
The death toll from wildfires choking the west coast of the US continued to rise on Sunday as authorities feared more bodies were likely to be found in the charred ruins of towns across several states, and politicians lambasted Donald Trump for his response to the escalating crisis.
It’s what he does so as not to panic us.
The White House announced that Trump would visit California on Monday for “a briefing”, a move that drew strong criticism from Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles.
“He’s going to come out here and probably tell us ‘I’m going to send you rakes’ instead of more help,” Garcetti told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the president’s claims that wildfires in the state are caused by poor forestry management and not fuelled by the climate crisis.
Not even send us more rakes but just shout at us for not raking.
Trump issued a disaster declaration in August but has been largely quiet about the wildfires since. At a rally in Nevada on Saturday night, he said: “I spoke to the folks in Oregon, Washington … they’ve never had anything like this. But, you know, it is about forest management … and other things, but forest management.”
That part is true, but the problem is not failure to “rake the forest floor.” The problem is failure to allow controlled burns, with the result that there’s way too much fuel.
I can hear the fog horns from ferries out on the Sound right now, because the smoke mixed with fog is so thick visibility is a few yards/metres.
But it is NOT only or even primarily about forest management. It is also about climate change, which Trump still vociferously denies (probably as honestly as his denial of Covid’s seriousness). And by “forest management” Trump and his ilk really mean “clear cut the rest of the old growth forests and leave (flammable) stubble behind! ”
It is also about the American Dream, the Arcadian dream. We don’t want to live in the cities with THOSE PEOPLE. We want to live on five acres in the (flammable) pretty trees. Which makes forest management (including controlled burns) even harder. There was a story where one person burned out of Santa Rosa chose to move to a more dangerous setting in Paradise, CA where he got burned out a second time. And some demand public subsidies for their lifestyles, because they don;t want to live in the stack and pack suburbs or cities. They vote deep red, of course.
There is a difference between a politician withholding information known to the government from the populace because “panic in the streets”, and that same politician telling it like it is and letting the populace make their own decision on panic or otherwise. The same happened in the Canberra bushfire of 2003. Four lives lost and about 400 houses because a slimeball of a Chief Minister wanted to avoid “panic in the streets” and kept quiet when he should have been onto the media and warning everyone about what HE knew was coming.
Yes California has been allowing development right up to the edge of the forests, which turns out to be a really bad move.
Adds a whole new dimension to Trump’s career if you think of it as ‘the rake’s progress.’