The Biggest Lie
Climate change is undeniable. But so is government incompetence. Are you open to seeing both in the LA fires? Or are you a Lemming?
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“The Big Lie.” Mark me among those who’ve called Donald Trump’s blasphemies about the U.S. voting system the biggest lie on earth.
But there’s a bigger lie — and it’s about the earth.
The New York Times today published yet another irrefutable, fact- based, science-based reminder that God’s greatest gift to humankind is being destroyed by humankind.
As Los Angeles burned for days on end, horrifying the nation, scientists made an announcement on Friday that could help explain the deadly conflagration: 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history.
With temperatures rising around the globe and the oceans unusually warm, scientists are warning that the world has entered a dangerous new era of chaotic floods, storms and fires made worse by human-caused climate change.
Because they care about the truth, reporters David Gelles and Austyn Gaffney said it was impossible to link any specific weather event — in this case, the Los Angeles wildfires — to climate change. They stuck to the facts.
The firestorms ravaging the country’s second-largest city are just the latest spasm of extreme weather that is growing more furious as well as more unpredictable. Wildfires are highly unusual in Southern California in January, which is supposed to be the rainy season. The same is true for cyclones in Appalachia, where Hurricanes Helene and Milton shocked the country when they tore through mountain communities in October.
Wildfires are burning hotter and moving faster. Storms are getting bigger and carrying more moisture. And soaring temperatures worldwide are leading to heat waves and drought, which can be devastating on their own and leave communities vulnerable to dangers like mudslides when heavy rains return.
Around the globe, extreme weather and searing heat killed thousands of people last year and displaced millions, with pilgrims dying as temperatures soared in Saudi Arabia. In Europe, extreme heat contributed to at least 47,000 deaths in 2023. In the United States, heat-related deaths have doubled in recent decades.
Trigger warning: The Times then quoted a man who educated Americans a generation ago about the dangers of climate change.
“We’re in a new era now,” said former Vice President Al Gore, who has warned of the threats of global warming for decades. “These climate related extreme events are increasing, both in frequency and intensity, quite rapidly.”
Two things can be true:
Historically hot and dry weather coupled with unusually high winds are fueling the Los Angeles fires.
Local and state officials were not prepared to fight the fires. The Times story gives fleeting voice to this possibility.
President-elect Donald J. Trump blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, for the disaster. Mr. Trump inaccurately claimed that state and federal protections for a threatened fish had hampered firefighting efforts by leading to water shortages.
And on Thursday, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and an ally of Mr. Trump, inserted himself into the debate over the role climate change plays in wildfires.
“Climate change risk is real, just much slower than alarmists claim,” Mr. Musk wrote to his 211 million followers on X, the social media site he owns. He said the loss of homes was primarily the result of “nonsensical overregulation” and “bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water.”
Those claims were rebutted by scientists, who noted that, as humans continue to warm the planet with emissions, extreme weather is becoming more common.
An independent-minded, curious person would be open to possibility that the Los Angeles fires are the latest example of an existential threat to the globe AND the latest example of government incompetence. Such a person would embrace the warnings of scientists AND raise questions about governments’ response.
But too many of us are lemmings — coconspirators in a truth-killing trend I wrote at length about here.
A lemming denies or mitigates climate change.
A lemming gives California politicians a free pass on their response.
Are you a lemming?
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100%. The government is us, and in a lot of way, we are getting what we ask for
This both excellent and very true!