Contextualizing California: Climate catastrophe is here
The year 2020 has not been kind to California — for one, it was among the first states in which the novelty coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was introduced into the country and has recently reported more than 600,000 cases, ranking first in confirmed cases on the national scale and third globally, behind Maharashtra, India, and São Paulo, Brazil.
Then, just days after reporting the state’s record-breaking COVID cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) announced that California was battling approximately 400 known wildfires, exacerbated by intense heat waves, and weeks later, the Diablo and Santa Ana winds.
California is not alone. Both Washington and Oregon have reported disastrous wildfires in their respective states. Along the West Coast, fires have ravaged great swaths of land, forced mass evacuations (which were complicated by the precautions put in place by in response to the COVID-19 pandemic) and killed 35 people so far.
Although wildfires are common in these states, scientists and climate change activists have pointed toward climate change as the critical actor responsible for their increasing frequency and danger.
President Donald J. Trump appeared in California to attend a briefing on the forest fires sweeping the West Coast, although many concerned scientists and activists do not believe any meaningful action will come out of the meeting. After all, the Trump administration’s posture toward climate change has been consistently dismissive.
Even before he was sworn into office, then-candidate Trump referred to the phenomenon as a “hoax invented by the Chinese,” a comment he later clarified — albeit unconvincingly to his opponents — as a mere joke.
More specifically, he recently responded to claims that climate change. In July, The New York Times published an article addressing Trump’s reversal of 100 environmental rules and regulations, reflecting a very clear demonstration of the administration’s priorities.
More specifically, in response to the forest fires raging in California, Trump cited Californians’ failure to “clean (their) floors” of “leaves” as the cause behind the pressing crisis, and that they would “pay” for their neglect — signaling a lack of responsibility on the federal government’s behalf.
But it's important to note that a lack of action toward addressing and preventing climate change is not exclusively characteristic of the Trump administration or, more broadly, the GOP: Democrats have also been on the receiving end of harsh criticism with respect to their inaction on the climate change front.
In a tweet posted on Sept. 9, former President Barack Obama said the fires across the West Coast serve as an alarming example of climate change at work and urged his followers to vote. His call to action, while met with more than half a million likes, was met with criticism by many activists.
Obama was criticized for taking little action to protect the environment, according to a Vox article published in 2017. The Obama administration’s “climate policy in his first term was largely indistinguishable from (former President) George W. Bush’s,” and by the time he had introduced more ambitious measures in his second term, it was “too late” and would be easy to repeal if the next administration would not be interested in pursuing them, which is precisely what happened, according to The New York Times.
Recent reports have found that climate change has become an increasingly important issue among voters, but many climate change activists argue that voting and electoral politics are not enough. They have pointed to current and past administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, and cite the distressing lack of action toward addressing climate change that ruling politicians have demonstrated on both sides of the political spectrum.
More meaningful action can be achieved, they insist, through organizing protests and boycotts, education and various other means that need not necessarily involve the work of elected officials in high politics. Others insist that voting should not be completely abandoned and that perhaps a combination of both approaches would help to affect the change they hope to see.
