For a couple of decades climate deniers said climate change wasn’t happening at all. Then they said it was, but it wasn’t human caused, just a natural cycle. Now they say it’s real, but it’s too late to do anything about it — never mind we didn’t do something when we could have, mostly because of them.
Now that the future that climate scientists predicted has arrived, the deniers have taken a different tack. Instead of stepping up, recognizing the reality that is burning them in the face and taking responsibility for what their denial has wrought, they’re blaming liberals — yes, the very same liberals that were right about climate change when they were so stubbornly and stupidly wrong.
Regular readers of YSDA will note that we take our share of swipes at liberals ourselves around here, having been one once ourselves. But in this case you didn’t have to be a liberal to see this coming. You did have to be an idiot and/or a stubborn hard-right ideologue not to.
The voice of mainstream climate denial is the Wall Street Journal. The Journal’s editorial board consistently refers to those of us who can see the obvious as “climate alarmists.” Now, instead of admitting that they’ve been so wrong for so long, the Journal accuses California officials of not being alarmed enough. They’ve scoured the record for every excuse they can think of to deflect blame from themselves and their delusional readers.
No, the problem isn’t climate change according to the Journal. LA is burning down because of DEI programs and endangered species laws. I kid you not. They’ve actually written just that.
Oh, and it’s really no big deal anyway and something that Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, in office all of two years, should have seen coming. The Journal points out that droughts and Santa Ana winds are ancient. They fail to point out that climate change exaggerates everything. Hurricanes and tornadoes have been around forever, but not at this strength and frequency. (And they’ve never criticized Republican officials in Florida or Oklahoma for not being prepared enough.)
I’m no particular fan of either Newsom or Bass. They’re not the moderate kind of Democrats I favor. As for DEI programs, I’ve been highly critical of them, but the notion that they’ve contributed to the disaster in LA is just beyond ludicrous. And I have often written in this space and others that the preachiness and finger-wagging of liberals on climate change has hurt the cause. I’ve even referred to climate activist Greta Thunberg as the “grim teenager of death.” But being self-righteous and politically clueless does not make them wrong.
It’s not just the idiocy of the deniers that bothers me. It’s their cowardice. By now it’s clear to anybody with half a brain that they’ve been wrong. But they don’t have the courage or the character to admit it.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
California has, for all intents, banned gasoline. Kitchen gas ranges are next. They’re throwing money at the high-speed train to nowhere. The fire department is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. L.A. is a sanctuary city; it spends a third more on homelessness than fire protection, with the result that 100,000 more Angelenos are homeless today. Maybe they and my polluting lawn mower here in Madison WI can reverse “climate change” (snotty air & print quotes). When might that be? (Someone tell China and India.) In the meantime, instead of Trump-proofing California, how about a little fire-proofing, Governor Gavin?
If you don’t mind a little cross pollination, Mayor Dave; I explicate here: https://davidblaska.com/2025/01/12/good-luck-los-angeles/
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Follow the money on who is paying for denying the effect of human activity on climate change. Oil and gas interests. Very similar to how the tobacco companies knew health risks, but denied it anyway. Jimmy Carter was prescient on this issue – and I always thought it infuriating that the Reagan people reversed the Carter people’s White House modifications to reduce energy usage. Doing something about climate change is difficult because it requires so much individual effort and responsibility.
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Would preventing fires from burning down cities help the climate?
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Not nearly as much as reducing intentional greenhouse gas emissions from our transportation, industrial, and other economic sectors would. Wildfires account for less than 5% of global emissions.And it’s pretty dishonest you don’t even acknowledge that (largely human induced) climate change is almost certainly one of the main reasons for the severity of the current LA fires, which would have burned plenty of acres regardless of whether or not there were homes in the vicinity.
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