Why are the California Wildfires so Destructive?

The horrific fires that are engulfing California are a part of the natural weather pattern in that state. I lived there for six years and remember winters with varying rates of rain and summers with unvarying rates of sunshine. By October everything was dry as powder and ready to burn. 

The LA Times, naturally, attributed everything to climate change: “Los Angeles is burning. Fossil fuel companies laid the kindling…a global economy built on fossil fuels — and a U.S. political establishment funded in great part by fossil fuel corporations and their allies — brought us to this point. After two wet winters fueled the growth of grasses and brush — ideal kindling for fires — across SoCal mountains and hillsides, the last few months saw an abrupt shift to record-dry conditions. This kind of weather whiplash is a hallmark of global warming.”

Stephen Koonin, a climate expert who taught at Cal Tech for 30 years, called this “nonsense.” Rather than the absurd accusation that this is the work of Exxon he says the cause was the conditions allowed by the government to fester in the bushlands of southern California.

This year in the area around Los Angeles the rain held off all fall. So in some sense this is a natural catastrophe like a hurricane or earthquake. But in another very real sense it is a religious catastrophe. My response to the LA Times: This tragedy was made infinitely worse because of California’s by-in to the doctrines of the Green environmental cult not the fossil fuel companies. Bad theology led to bad policy and resulted in bad outcomes.

Referring to environmentalism as the Green religion is now quite common with online pundits. Typical is this phrase from Robert Bryce: [A recent L.A. policy manual] “is a 59-page paean to the gods of sustainability, solar energy…diversity, equity, and, of course, the clean energy transition.”

I have chronicled elsewhere how the abandonment of Christian truth has led to social pathologies. See my video on why cities are a trainwreck of crime and homelessness. Now devastating fires are more devastating for the same reason. What are those bad policies that come from the Green religion?

First, wildfire abatement policies were halted due to adherence to the doctrines of the Green cult. LA tried to replace flammable wooden power poles with steel poles but were stopped by the Greens because it would threaten an endangered shrub. Greens hold the theological position that nature is pure and holy and that every intervention by mankind is evil and destructive. 

Noah Rothman in National Review observed: “A 2018 study…found that “overcrowded forests” contributed to an abundance of combustible materials on California’s forest floors — a condition exacerbated by the state’s “permitting requirements” and “constraints” on vegetation removal.”

Second, water storage failure: Again, Rothman: “And why was it that the first responders who attempted to contain the blaze quickly ran out of water?”

Because the state has failed to prepare water storage facilities…in deference to environmentalists groups that blocked the expansion of reservoirs, aqueducts, and pumping plants over the risk posed to endangered species.

Charles Lipson in the Spectator: “As for the green agenda, it is responsible for dumping billions of gallons of desperately needed fresh water into the Pacific each week instead of sending it to Southern California. The goal was to protect a small fish…Much-needed reservoirs were never built in the Southland or filled for emergency needs.”

Governments made a religious decision, making Left-wing, Progressive policies the priority, not disaster preparation..

Bryce talks about the city of Los Angeles’ Water and Power Department report that devotes page after page to electrifying their fleet and their commitment to diversity and other Green and Progressive shibboleths. Then he observes, “The report contains precisely one paragraph on wildfire mitigation.” So the report devotes 58 plus pages to Green doctrinal priorities.

Firefighters were selected for every reason except competence. The Greens overlap with left-wing Progressivism nearly 100%. They support diversity initiatives which select firefighters based on how oppressed their group is, not on the basis of their ability to fight fires. They spent money on diversity rather than repairing broken down fire trucks and had 40 useless vehicles sitting in their yard during the fire.

Rothman said: “The deadly wildfires that have leveled whole neighborhoods in L.A. this week have made [Mayor Karen] Bass’s decision to cut the city’s Fire Department budget by $17.6 million seem pretty short-sighted. That was, in fact, a compromise on her part; she had sought $23 million in cuts.”

And Lipson again: “Equally important but far less well-known is the impact of “green policies” on dangerous, above-ground power lines. Many are antiquated fire hazards. Their malfunctions and sparks start forest fires, but the state had priorities far more pressing…than upgrading those lines. They forced the state’s largest electric utility, PG&E, to divert its resources into building solar- and wind-power instead of upgrading its transmission lines.

Governments under the thumb of the Green agenda are trying to achieve broad theological goals rather than provide sound government. “That delusion has produced intolerable dysfunction.”

The situation in southern California is a terrible tragedy. The tragedy might well have occurred even if the area was not hamstrung by bad Green theology. But Christian doctrinal assumptions should guide public policy, not the false doctrines of the environmental movement. Rather than let nature run wild the Bible calls for men to have dominion over nature and keep it under control. God created the natural world to serve us not kill us.

Nothing would help more than a return to Jesus Christ and the doctrinal assumptions of the Christian faith. Those doctrines built the fabulous wealth of Western culture and would go a long way to helping preserve it.

More: What have liberals done to the West coast? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HslL8dnfas

Robert Bryce calls California fire policy a “paean to the gods” of environmentalism: https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/asleep-at-the-switch

The New York Times cries out for somebody to do something: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/opinion/los-angeles-fires.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20250115&instance_id=144776&nl=opinion-today&regi_id=192098175&segment_id=188293&user_id=312428a6983db1713c2ed5abc5829f49

The mismanagement of Los Angeles: https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/15/los-angeles-isnt-uniquely-dangerous-its-uniquely-mismanaged/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=los-angeles-isnt-uniquely-dangerous-its-uniquely-mismanaged&utm_term=2025-01-15

The priority of saving an endangered shrub: https://nypost.com/2025/01/14/us-news/california-bureaucrats-halted-pacific-palisades-fire-safety-project-to-save-endangered-shrub/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Noah Rothman in National Review:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/01/the-crisis-of-democratic-overconfidence/

Charles Lipson in The Spectator:

https://thespectator.com/topic/fire-earthquake-los-angeles-california-gavin-newsom/?utm_source=Spectator%20World%20Signup&utm_campaign=408b03fa91-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_01_15_08_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-408b03fa91-154787678

Climate Change Did Not Cause the Fires: https://www.thefp.com/p/climate-change-did-not-cause-the-la-fires-steve-koonin

Steven Koonin is a theoretical physicist and a leading voice calling for what he describes as “climate realism.” Koonin was on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology for almost three decades. For five years he was the chief scientist at BP, exploring renewable sources of energy. From there he served in the Obama administration as under secretary for science at the Department of Energy. 

Emily Yoffe: Los Angeles is burning. President Joe Biden has said that climate change, which he just called the “single greatest existential threat to humanity,” is the cause. Many climate scientists agree with him. What do you say?

Steve Koonin: Nonsense. While climate might be playing a minor role, by far the greatest factor affecting how much damage results from a fire is the fuel available to it. Have you cleared the brush and other vegetation or not? Also, there’s the infrastructure that you’ve built. Are the houses fireproof? How close are they together? If we want to avoid the kind of disasters we’ve just seen in the Los Angeles basin, there are so many things we could be doing much more directly and easily than trying to reduce CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions.

The LA Times blames Climate Change: https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2025-01-14/column-los-angeles-is-a-climate-disaster-the-fires-will-change-nothing-boiling-point

Charles Lipson on policy failures: https://thespectator.com/topic/fire-earthquake-los-angeles-california-gavin-newsom/?utm_source=Spectator%20World%20Signup&utm_campaign=408b03fa91-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_01_15_08_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-408b03fa91-154787678