This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
If you want to be convinced that we now live on a different planet, just focus for a moment on those Canadian wildfires. Yep, them! You remember, right? Back in early June, more than 400 of them were burning out of control across that country and their smoke had drifted over significant parts of the continent, turning the skies of my own city, New York, a violent orange. By mid-August, they were still raging and had devoured an area of Canada equivalent in size to nine Connecticuts or a little more than 838 Washington, D.C.s. There had never been anything like it and, by then, scientists had already concluded that climate change made such a burning season twice as likely as it otherwise might have been.
It was quite a summer, all in all, and quite a story, so is it now something to look back on with a certain dread? Unfortunately, no. There's no looking back yet because, sadly enough, nearly 500 fires are still burning out of control and in an historically unprecedented fashion in Canada. Thanks to them, less than two weeks ago, New York (and other U.S. cities) once again experienced smoky skies, even if less dramatically than in June. In fact, in a single late September week, enough fires were burning (and, of course, pouring carbon into the atmosphere) to equal a typical Canadian fire season.
Worse yet, some experts believe that, though any fire season should be ending by now, some of those fires may continue to burn deep into the winter. And of course, Canada isn't alone in experiencing a new version of fire season. As TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, who also runs the must-read Informed Commen t website, points out today, California, too, has been experiencing fire seasons unlike any previously known. Partially in response, in a striking new twist, that state's attorney general has decided to put some of the blame for our changing world exactly where it lies by suing the big five oil companies. If only we could truly fire them. Tom
Getting Mad and Getting Even
Is California's Climate Lawsuit against Big Oil a Gamechanger?
By Juan Cole
The depths of depravity into which unvarnished capitalism can plunge mortal souls is incalculable. It should come as no surprise then that oil company executives and the officials of petrostates like Saudi Arabia have so assiduously lied to us about the catastrophic effects of climate change. After all, the executives of tobacco firms have been perfectly content to sell consumers a product long known and virtually guaranteed to cut their lives short, while about its harmful effects for decades. Likewise, the courts have now made the pharmaceutical industry's responsibility for and grasp of the opioid crisis that killed half a million people all too clear.
In both instances, state attorneys-general played an important role in seeking redress. Now, Rob Bonta, California's attorney general, has filed a 135-page lawsuit against five major oil companies ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP which could prove an inflection point in the battle against human-caused climate change.
On announcing the lawsuit, Bonta said, "Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment. Enough is enough."
Born in the Philippines to an American father and a Filipina mother, Bonta spent his early years near Keene, California, where the United Farm Workers had established its headquarters. There, both his father Warren and his mother Cynthia helped organize Filipino-American and Mexican-American laborers. Bonta went on to get a Yale law degree and ultimately entered politics, being elected to the California State Assembly in 2012.
His background clearly impressed upon him the special vulnerability of working-class groups to climate change. "We will meet the moment and fight tirelessly on behalf of all Californians," he pledged, "in particular those who live in environmental justice communities." As he explained in a footnote in his brief for that lawsuit: "'Frontline communities' are those that are and will continue to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. In many cases, the most harmed are the same communities that have historically experienced racial, social, health, and economic inequities."
The destructive impact of human-caused climate change on California has, in fact, unfolded before our eyes. Eleven of the 20 largest California wildfires have taken place since 2018. Unusually frequent, wide-ranging, and ever fiercer wildfires have even chased from their homes some of the Golden State's most famous celebrities, leaving behind just glowing cinders. The now-seemingly annual rampages of those increasingly massive conflagrations can cause us to forget how remarkable the damage has been in these years.
In 2018, pop singer Miley Cyrus announced that the Malibu home she shared with her then-fiance' Chris Hemsworth had been devoured by flames, writing on social media, "Completely devastated by the fires affecting my community. I am one of the lucky ones. My animals and LOVE OF MY LIFE made it out safely & that's all that matters right now. My house no longer stands but the memories shared with family & friends stand strong . . . I love you more than ever, Miley." That year, Orlando Bloom, Bella Hadid, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, and Gerard Butler suffered similar losses.
Well-heeled celebrities, however, have the resources to get through such crises. Farm laborers who must harvest crops while breathing soot-filled air risk adverse health effects, including respiratory and heart disease. Others have lost their jobs and incomes entirely when wildfires encroached on fields and orchards. Not getting paychecks thanks to raging fires at their worksites can, in turn, cause such workers to miss mortgage payments and lose their homes. And sometimes, of course, their own homes, like those of the stars, have been torched.
Connecting the Dots
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
