Trump and CA Wildfires

Forest fires in CA

Its not just about "acknowledging climate change" but about understanding the processes which helped make this fire and others so devastating.

Trump does not want to admit that the threat of climate change is real. Lack of rain, high winds, and other factors which contributed to the fire are also affected by climate change.

Instead he says that we can prevent forest fires if we only raked more:

“I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different—we're a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation, and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things,” Trump said, making a moving motion with his hand. “And they don't have any problem.” - It's True

Forest fires

So how exactly is he going to help prevent future catastrophic wildfires if he refuses to acknowledge what the actual problem is? Understanding how these things work will enlighten us to how to best respond.

Here is the sad part. This is a community which when you look at the map most likely helped vote Trump into office.

Its sad irony.

After it was declared a state of emergency, which is a request for federal funding, Trump bashed everyone first, especially California, and did not open up the federal funding needed to assist the firefighters who needed help. In the early stages of the fire this would have turned the course of events tremendously.

Once it became obvious many lives were going to be lost and it was turning out to be an especially horrible disaster, he then opened up federal funding way after most of the damage was done.

Paradise was destroyed 8 hours after the fire started. He could have saved lives and instead took the opportunity to blame and denigrate. His tweets came long after that. Unless he has a time machine how the hell is he going to save those lives from being lost?

Given the realities of climate change these types of fires are going to be the new normal. We need to adapt to them.