These ferocious fires in California are not something that anyone can simply write off because they don't affect you. To the contrary, this is catastrophic, impacting us all at some level, even if solely spiritually or psychologically. Despite what I feel is a severe lack of media attention to these fires—such as the North Complex fire described below that burned more than 269,000 acres, one of the largest fires in state history—we should see them as minimally on the scale as the environmental disaster that unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico back in the summer of 2019 not so very long ago. 

If we connect this to the cataclysmic Australian fires, as we should, that took place less than a year ago, we should further heed the warnings of extinction as in this piece titled, "Scientist warns of ‘extinction crisis’ as Australia wildfires wipe out a billion animals."

This is not science fiction. This is the real deal. Our Earth mother is on fire. 

What we are witnessing was predictable. Yet since the Nixon presidency, there has been precious little leadership either on climate change—more appropriately termed a "climate emergency," or in educating our children and communities about it though we are all impacted. Education can play a massively important role in all of this, yet where is the leadership? Like Nero, Trump tweets as our country burns.

To wit, fire season is hardly an abstraction here in Central Texas as you can learn about from this August 24, 2020 piece in the Austin American Statesman titled, "Bastrop County prays for rain as fire season heats up." I don't see this primarily as a policy issue that we "fix," but rather as a major shift that we have to undergo immediately in no uncertain terms if we are to survive as a human species.

To get a really good sense of the science behind all of this, consider reading this post featuring David Wallace-Wells titled, "The Uninhabitable Earth, Annotated Edition | New York Magazine"—whose book is worth listening to on Audible.com—together with Jess Goodell's piece in the Rolling Stone titled, "Hothouse Earth Is Merely the Beginning of the End." 

Earth is going to be fine, by the way. However, by the way things are going, it's humans that aren't, sadly and tragically as we see all of this play out before our eyes in living color.

The point here is not to trigger your "eco-anxiety," which is a real syndrome that so many are experiencing right now, but rather to encourage you to vote. We all have a vote and a voice in a democracy. We must insist that those in power lead on the climate crisis that we're currently in.

Below are several hashtags that I've come across that will allow you to track all of this on Twitter and other social media.

-Angela Valenzuela

#GreenNewDeal #ExtinctionRebellion #Vote2020 @algore #InconvenientTruth @EnvironmentTex @SierraClub @TexasSierraClub  @TXWaterFuture #OneWaterTexas #gogreen #sustainable #SustainabilityTexas @EnvDefenseFund #ClimateEmergency 

#climateaction #environment #nature #climatechange #ClimateDenial #sustainability #ecofriendly #savetheplanet #green #zerowaste #earth

15 fatalities confirmed. North Complex now among state’s top 5 deadliest fires

            Firefighters search a burned-out residence Tuesday in the Berry Creek neighborhood near Oroville, Calif.

            (Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty Images)

By LUKE MONEYSTAFF WRITER 

SEP. 15, 2020

11:35 AM

 

UPDATED1:16 PM | Los Angeles Times

The confirmed death toll from California’s unprecedented firestorm has risen to 25 as crews work to hem in some two dozen major blazes still burning statewide.

Another fatality was confirmed Monday in the area of the North Complex fire near Oroville — boosting that fire’s death toll to 15, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. In recorded state history, only four blazes have been deadlier.

Authorities have released the names of seven fire victims: John Butler, 79; Sandra Butler, 75; Jorge Hernandez-Juarez, 26; Philip Rubel, 68; Khawar Bhatti, 58; Millicent Catarancuic, 77; and Josiah Williams, 16.

All were residents of Berry Creek, a mountain town northeast of Oroville that was devastated by the fire.

As of Tuesday morning, officials said the North Complex was 39% contained. At more than 269,000 acres, it is now the eighth-largest fire in state history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

It also ranks among the most destructive fires California has ever seen, consuming or damaging 723 structures so far, officials said.

The North Complex is just one of several historically large conflagrations that have ignited over the past month. So far this year, fires have chewed through more than 3.2 million acres statewide — an area larger than the state of Connecticut.

The statewide firestorm has destroyed more than 4,200 structures and forced over 60,000 people from their homes, according to Cal Fire.

The breakout of blazes includes what is listed as easily the largest wildfire recorded in California: the August Complex in Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties.

The overall complex — which now includes two enormous fires, previously called the Doe and the Elkhorn, under its umbrella — has burned more than 794,000 acres and is 30% contained.

“Critically dry fuels” are continuing to challenge firefighting efforts on that complex, officials said Tuesday.

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

Seriously, instead of wars and rumors of war, the impending catastrophe that global warming and the present climate emergency represents, should be THE STORY of our times.  Check out these predictions for Viet Nam, Thailand, Iraq, Kuwait, the cities of Mumbai, Shanghai, and Alexandria. This an incomplete, but helpful rendering. 

The U.S. needs to stop isolating itself as a country, stop terrorizing our children and families in crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border, get about ending all wars, and address this impending climate crisis as a global community. All countries need to do this.  One can only imagine how much war itself has contributed to the heating, let alone destruction, of the Earth.  There is no "Planet B," my friends.

Consider reading David Wallace-Wells' book, “The Uninhabitable Earth” (here's the New York Magazine version; it's the most downloaded piece for the Magazine) to get informed and educated about the climate emergency that we're currently in.  

With the rising temperature of the Earth, many bad things are still yet to come even if we ended all carbon emissions today.  This doesn't mean that we still don't seek to end all carbon emissions, but rather that we try at this point as humanity to avert the worst of the foreseeable worst.

Now, it's a question of adaptation and preparing in ways suggested herein.  This is dire, but there is always hope and we must push our political leadership at local, state, and national levels to prioritize ours and others' survival as a global and international community.  After all, we ourselves may someday become "climate refugees."

-Angela Valenzuela

#ExtinctionRebellion #ClimateEmergency

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

By Denise Lu and Christopher Flavelle Oct. 29, 2019

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

The authors of a paper published Tuesday developed a more accurate way of calculating land elevation based on satellite readings, a standard way of estimating the effects of sea level rise over large areas, and found that the previous numbers were far too optimistic. The new research shows that some 150 million people are now living on land that will be below the high-tide line by midcentury.

Southern Vietnam could all but disappear.

The first map shows earlier expectations of submerged land by 2050. But the new outlook, the second map, indicates that the bottom part of the country will be underwater at high tide.

More than 20 million people in Vietnam, almost one-quarter of the population, live on land that will be inundated.

Much of Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s economic center, would disappear with it, according to the research, which was produced by Climate Central, a science organization based in New Jersey, and published in the journal Nature Communications. The projections don’t account for future population growth or land lost to coastal erosion.

Standard elevation measurements using satellites struggle to differentiate the true ground level from the tops of trees or buildings, said Scott A. Kulp, a researcher at Climate Central and one of the paper’s authors. So he and Benjamin Strauss, Climate Central’s chief executive, used artificial intelligence to determine the error rate and correct for it.

In Thailand, more than 10 percent of citizens now live on land that is likely to be inundated by 2050, compared with just 1 percent according to the earlier technique. The political and commercial capital, Bangkok, is particularly imperiled.

Climate change will put pressure on cities in multiple ways, said Loretta Hieber Girardet, a Bangkok resident and United Nations disaster risk-reduction official. Even as global warming floods more places, it will also push poor farmers off the land to seek work in cities.

“It is a dire formula,” she said.

Land underwater at high tide

Populated area

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

CHINA

Shanghai

East China

Sea

In Shanghai, one of Asia’s most important economic engines, water threatens to consume the heart of the city and many other cities around it.

The findings don’t have to spell the end of those areas. The new data shows that 110 million people already live in places that are below the high tide line, which Mr. Strauss attributes to protective measures like seawalls and other barriers. Cities must invest vastly greater sums in such defenses, Mr. Strauss said, and they must do it quickly.

But even if that investment happens, defensive measures can go only so far. Mr. Strauss offered the example of New Orleans, a city below sea level that was devastated in 2005 when its extensive levees and other protections failed during Hurricane Katrina. “How deep a bowl do we want to live in”? he asked.

Buildings

Land underwater at high tide

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

INDIA

Mumbai

Arabian

Sea

The new projections suggest that much of Mumbai, India’s financial capital and one of the largest cities in the world, is at risk of being wiped out. Built on what was once a series of islands, the city’s historic downtown core is particularly vulnerable.

Over all, the research shows that countries should start preparing now for more citizens to relocate internally, according to Dina Ionesco of the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental group that coordinates action on migrants and development.

“We’ve been trying to ring the alarm bells,” Ms. Ionesco said. “We know that it’s coming.” There is little modern precedent for this scale of population movement, she added.

Land underwater at high tide

Populated area

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

Mediterranean

Sea

Alexandria

EGYPT

The disappearance of cultural heritage could bring its own kind of devastation. Alexandria, Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great around 330 B.C., could be lost to rising waters.

In other places, the migration caused by rising seas could trigger or exacerbate regional conflicts.

Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, could be mostly underwater by 2050. If that happens, the effects could be felt well beyond Iraq’s borders, according to John Castellaw, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general who was chief of staff for United States Central Command during the Iraq War.

Land underwater at high tide

Populated area

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

IRAQ

Basra

Persian

Gulf

KUWAIT

Further loss of land to rising waters there “threatens to drive further social and political instability in the region, which could reignite armed conflict and increase the likelihood of terrorism,” said General Castellaw, who is now on the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, a research and advocacy group in Washington.

“So this is far more than an environmental problem,” he said. “It’s a humanitarian, security and possibly military problem too.”

Population data from WorldPop and building footprints from OpenStreetMap.