Tragedy in California
...and climate denial reaches baroque heights
I find it hard to overstate the shocking awfulness of the Eaton and Pacific Palisades wildfires. Yes, I’m a bystander, living in the UK, five and a half thousand miles from the unfolding tragedy. Also I do not wish any disrespect to those who have lost their homes or even loved ones to these fires. But I have a great deal of affection for the city, and the state. I have friends who have been affected. So this fire feels on one level pretty personal.
I first visited California in the summer of 1995. For a while I was in San Francisco, and then I was in LA. Actually, I didn’t stay in LA itself, but in a Youth Hostel in Santa Monica. I liked Santa Monica, and did the usual tourist stuff. I visited Venice Beach, saw where Arnold Schwarzenegger had pumped iron. There was a mini-bus tour from the hostel that took us to the Walk of Fame, Universal Studios and Beverley Hills. I got to see the HOLLYWOOD sign. The driver, I remember, had a ‘controversial’ shock jock on the radio.
LA itself struck me as significantly more run-down than in the movies. A pall of pollution hung over the city. Still, I enjoyed seeing the sights. One day, I took a bus out to the John Paul Getty Villa, which is close to Malibu beach. The Villa is a museum built by the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, which houses thousands of priceless antiquities. Thankfully it has — so far — narrowly escaped the Palisades fire that has otherwise devastated Malibu. (Update: the Getty Centre, separate from the villa has also reported that its site is fire safe and that there are no plans to move any of the art).
My visit to California was in some ways a pilgrimage. I was — and remain — deeply influenced by the Californian counterculture. I stayed at Berkeley when visiting San Francisco, which had been the home of the SF writer Philip K. Dick. I’d brought Dick’s late novel VALIS along to read on the trip. I also bought a massive omnibus of Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminati trilogy from a bookstore in Berkeley.
Then there was the music. One of my visits was to Haight-Ashbury where I had a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and bought a CD of the best of Grateful Dead. This was partly because Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist and vocalist of the Grateful Dead, had recently died. Other California bands of personal influence included the Doors, the Band and Jefferson Airplane. And of course, I couldn’t omit the LA group, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Then there’s movies and TV. For many, Hollywood has somewhat mythic dimensions as the place where dreams are made. Over the 20th century, Hollywood became one of the primary hubs of global culture. In many ways, a significant chunk of the history of film is the history of Hollywood. I began to list the number of beloved Hollywood films and TV shows, and soon lost count.
Of course, the place has always had a dark underbelly, which is explored in ruthless detail in the novels and movies of writers like James Elroy. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers also explored this dark underbelly in their iconic song 1999 ‘Californication’. It’s also certainly a tough place for writers. The Hollywood system can be brutal. A friend of mine worked as a writer for a while in LA, experiencing some of the highs but ending his writing career with a significant low. Perhaps ironically, under the circumstances, he eventually left and became a firefighter.
Still, the myth of Hollywood tends to be pervasive. LA had stamped itself on my brain long before I ever visited. Just one example: when I went to catch the Greyhound bus for Arizona in central LA, I realised that the station was situated very close to where Alex Cox had filmed Repo Man, a favourite movie from my teen years. I recognised the skyline from the movie. It felt a little surreal to be walking in a place where even a small piece of movie history had been made; and this felt more personal and more special for me than places like the Walk of Fame.
The California Fires
On Friday 10th January I watched the extended Channel 4 report on the LA fires. This outlined the current, terrible situation and explained that one reason why the fires had been so bad was because of the September droughts. This meant that when the seasonal almost hurricane-force Santa Ana winds came, the Palisades and Hollywood region had been like a tinder box. It didn’t take much to set that tinder box alight.
The firefighter Channel 4 interviewed said it was without a doubt the worst he’d ever seen.
On Saturday 11 January, the news was that the fires now threatened Encino and Brentwood. The Guardian, 11th January reported that
“The fires, which have consumed an area about two and a half times the size of Manhattan, have displaced 200,000 people and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and structures, including entire residential neighborhoods.” Source.
By the morning of the 12th, The Guardian reported that the death toll was up to 16 as five fires continued to rage. The article quoted Barbara Bruderlin, head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce as saying that “There are areas where everything is gone. There isn’t even a stick of wood left. It’s just dirt.” By Monday 13th, the Guardian was reporting a death toll of 24 and more “than 1,800 structures destroyed as Eaton and Palisades fires still less than 30% contained.”
Channel Four also interviewed Malibu Resident Jon Turteltaub, who is a film director. Turtletaub stated that however bad outsider thought it was, the situation was actually worse. He’d been lucky; his house had been saved. However, in total only about four dwellings had been spared. He was not sure he’d want to continue to live in a neighbourhood with only four houses. He also seemed very reluctant to admit that the fire was due to climate breakdown.
Over on Democracy Now, the climate scientist Peter Kalmus described how he had fled LA two years previously because of his fears of wildfires. He was on because he’d just written an opinion piece in the New York Times explaining why. Almost breaking down to camera, he warned that “This is going to get worse” and that “Everything has changed.”
Predictably, the terrible situation in LA has been weaponised by Trump, who blamed Gavin Newsome, the Governor of California. Bizarre conspiracy theories blame the LA fires on diversity efforts. A Republican congressman has called for a halt to the disaster relief in California because apparently the fire is the fault of the forestry service. Meanwhile, Jane Gardner at Women’s Agenda reported a systematic and deliberate omission of climate breakdown in the reportage of the fires. In short, anything and evereything is being blamed except climate breakdown. This seems to be a fairly Baroque level of denial.
These fires have also prompted some apocalyptic thoughts from commentators who are appalled by the damage and the toxic political reactions to it. Michael Moore suggested that the end of California as we know it “also means the end of us”. He also re-posted an article on the fires by Steve Schmidt. Schmidt is a former Republican and “anti-trump” warrior. In the article, Schmidt suggested that Trump was gloating over the plight of California: “Trump despises California. He has made that clear enough.” Trump is, Schmidt suggests, solely focussed on the political opportunity the fires offer. Trump “sees an opportunity to attack and weaken the enemy, which in his sick mind, is California”. And yet this is also self-destructive and stupid because what is bad for California is bad for the US.
But so it currently goes.
Mutual Aid
Biden has assigned the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agency to help, although this agency is likely to be overwhelmed. On January 12th, FEMA’s administrator reported that 24,000 people had already applied for emergency assistance. And a big question marks hangs over this aid continuing with the new Trump administration being sworn in on the 20th. Some have suggested that Trump might just let California burn. But we will see.
Fortunately, on the ground, a number of community groups have emerged to help with the emergency. These groups have emerged in response to shortfalls in state and federal assistance, and I think that it is here that the individual bystander’s focus should rest. This Guardian article has links to a number of fundraising efforts for disaster relief. Where governments fail, or fall short, the best hope is spontaneous, cooperative grassroots organisation. We can’t do very much about Trump’s toxic rhetoric, or about the widespread denial of climate breakdown. We can provide assistance for people on the ground. That seems to me the most helpful priority at present. Mourning the losses can come later.