If This Picture Doesn't Sum Up California...

Over the weekend, while fire raged in the Angeles National Forest, over in the San Fernando Valley they were inundated with water. A water main built in 1914 broke and flooded Ventura Boulevard in Studio City throughout the weekend. While it reopened on Monday, today a second break on the same water main hit another section of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and produced maybe the ultimate piece of imagery - a fire truck consumed by flood. I don't think the truck was headed to La Cañada, but the inference is made anyway.

You cannot write 1,000 words on our crumbling infrastructure that capture the subject better than this. A state without the revenue to heal itself becomes a state where fire trucks sink in a flood caused by unattended 100 year-old pipes. The layers of meaning just fall into one another. This is the picture of a state that cannot fix itself.

The Fires, The Budget, And Climate Change

I've been reading my Altadena blog and LA Now, and I see that firefighters are making progress on the spate of blazes, and apparently saved Mount Wilson, though it's still in some danger. This will continue for at least a week, at which point the firefighting emergency fund will be almost completely exhausted.

These are not "unpredictable" costs. We now have practically a year-round fire season, with damaging blazes cropping up in places where we never saw them before. And people die from bad budget choices relating to public safety.

There was a provision in the budget deal to have those living in areas most affected by fire hazards pay a fee on their homeowner's insurance to fund firefighting efforts that save their residences. Republicans blocked them, as they have been doing for years. As a result we all pay the price in the long term, somehow in the name of "fiscal responsibility." We're essentially offering welfare for those who choose to live in danger zones.

Which leads us to the reason why these fires have continued to occur, and in greater numbers, year after year. It's attributable to global warming, and as much as reactionaries and climate denialists hide their heads in the sand about it, the truth remains the same.

Roughly speaking, it turns out that land use issues are probably responsible for about half of the increase in western wildfire activity over the past few decades and climate change is responsible for the other half. The mechanism is pretty straightforward: higher temperatures lead to both reduced snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas and an earlier melt, which in turn produces a longer and drier fire season. Result: more and bigger fires. Plus there's this, from CAP's Tom Kenworthy:

In recent years, a widespread and so far unchecked epidemic of mountain pine beetles that has killed millions of acres of trees from Colorado north into Canada has laid the foundation for a potentially large increase in catastrophic fires. Climate change has played a role in that outbreak, too, as warmer winters spare the beetles from low temperatures that would normally kill them off, and drought stresses trees.

In the western United States, mountain pine beetles have killed some 6.5 million acres of forest, according to the Associated Press. As large as that path of destruction is, it’s dwarfed by the 35 million acres killed in British Columbia, which has experienced a rash of forest fires this summer that as of early this month had burned more than 155,000 acres. In the United States to date about 5.2 million acres — an area larger than Massachusetts —have burned this year.

Destruction of trees by the mountain pine beetle, combined with climate change and fire, makes for a dangerous feedback loop. Dead forests sequester less carbon dioxide. Burning forests release lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. More carbon dioxide adds to climate change, which raises temperatures, stresses forests, and makes more and bigger fires more likely.

Some would say that the possibility that forest fires like this are caused by human error contradicts this case, but actually, no. Dry forest areas are simply more susceptible to a lit cigarette or a spark from an electrical device, and that's due to hotter temperatures and less rain.

We can choose to find other factors for these events, and we can choose to charge everyone for living in places where nobody should. But that's a choice, made in budgets and made in lifestyle. It's a choice that's harming our planet, draining our budgets and killing our people.

Arnold: I Forgot, Am I Supposed To Scare People Or Reassure Them?

Jackfolsum alludes to it, but I wanted to highlight it as well. Arnold got tripped up a little bit today in front of the Jesusita Fire, caught in between telling Californians what they wanted to hear, or telling them they're all going to die. It's pretty amusing:

One of Schwarzenegger's strengths has been to respond to emergencies and assure local residents he will provide all support necessary. But that message clashes with his statements earlier this week that fire services would be jeopardized if voters reject the ballot measures on May 19.

Because he declared a state of emergency for the Santa Barbara fire, he said he was able to get the federal government to pay for 75 percent of the costs.

"This is very helpful for us because as you know, we have a financial crisis in California," Schwarzenegger said. "But I wanted to make sure you all know, even though we have this crisis, we will not be short of money when it comes to fighting these fires."

Oops! But Arnold's "strong leader/warrior/protector" shtick clashes with his "vote for my spending cap or you will BURN BURN BURN!!!" shtick. So he backpedaled.

"First of all, let me just make it clear, because there's always the question that comes up, what happens to the fire departments and to the budget if those initiatives don't pass," Schwarzenegger said. "The first thing you should know is, I will always fight and get every dollar I can for public safety, that is the important thing you should know."

"No. 2, it is very clear that when the initiatives fail there will be $6 billion less that will be available, so therefore there will have to be additional cuts made, if it is in law enforcement, fire, education," he added. "...But I will fight for every dollar, and will always make sure we have enough manpower and enough engines and helicopters ready to fight those fires."

Interesting use of "when the initiatives fail," not "if" there. Arnold reads the polls, I guess.

He really has no idea what he's doing. He wants to scare and please at the same time, so it comes out like mush.

Come to think of it, Arnold sounds a lot like the Californians seduced by the Two Santa Claus Theory, who want to cut services in general but protect services in particular. So maybe he's just giving the people what they want.

Wildfires And The Urgency Of Combating Climate Change

While this recent spate of wildfires have been put relatively under control today, the devastation is pretty severe. The number of houses destroyed in Yorba Linda shot up yesterday, the fire in Montecito claimed several dozen more homes, and the mobile home park in Sylmar is a near-total loss.

Even without getting back to his home, Mr. Grieb is fairly certain that all is lost.

He and his neighbors have seen aerial photos of the devastated development and, in stark black and white, a chalkboard at an evacuation center lists the homes, by lot numbers, that were spared. About 124 out of 600 homes are on the list, and Mr. Grieb’s home is not among them.

For the park’s residents, it was as if an entire village had vanished in the flames.

“I used to refer to it as our little Mayberry,” said Tracey Burns, 47. She and her partner, Wendy Dannenberg, 46, lived in Oakridge for 15 years. Ms. Burns’s parents lived nearby in a part of the complex that was spared by the fire.

“It was just a very nice community,” Ms. Burns said. “Someplace safe with a lot to offer from the pool to the tennis courts to bingo on Tuesday nights. It was a very nice way of living. People waved not because they had to but because they wanted to. We always took offense to people calling it a trailer park because you had a yard, a porch, a garage, a garden. It was a home, not a trailer.”

While some scientists are dismissing the idea that climate change has something to do with the increasing frequency of fires in the region, clearly the reduction of the snowpack in the Sierras, combined with the extended drought conditions, have extended the fire season to the point where it is year-round and unsustainable. And that is expecteed to only worsen in the future.

The current drought in the Southwest may simply be part of the normal cycle of wet and dry spells. But looking over the next century, Cayan said, regions with a Mediterranean climate such as Southern California are expected to get drier.

"I have to believe that is going to make us more vulnerable to some of these more intense fire episodes."

While the relief efforts of the local communities are admirable, it's simply not sustainable to have major parts of the region go up in smoke at regular intervals. We have barely enough money in the kitty to provide basic services, let alone a year-round fire season.

Through global warming, we have now fire season all year round. We used to have fire seasons only in the fall, but now the fire seasons start in February already, so this means that we have to really upgrade, have more resources, more fire engines, more manpower and all of this, which does cost extra money.

The scientists may want to be circumspect, but this is global boiling, a consequence of rising temperatures and a drier climate. And while myopic conservatives like Dan Walters don't realize it, a massive shift to green technologies is essential for financial reasons as well as environmental ones. Fighting massive fires costs lots and lots of money that can be avoided if we reduce emissions and protect the planet. Backwards-looking folks like Walters always examine the up-front costs while paying no attention to the externalities. Burning the earth has severe monetary consequences, and on the flip side, creating greener ways to power our lives and transport our people is exportable technology that can make California a global economic leader.

Of course, it's going to take more than one state, and fortunately we have a new President-elect who understands the need for immediate action. Not only is he raising money for relief organizations helping with the current wildfires, but today he made a surprise appearance at the Bi-Partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, calling for "a new chapter of American leadership on climate change." I've put the video and transcript below. We finally have leadership to heal the planet, which is as beneficial for California as it is for anywhere in the country.

Let me begin by thanking the bipartisan group of U.S. governors who convened this meeting.

Few challenges facing America - and the world - are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.

Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.

I know many of you are working to confront this challenge. In particular, I want to commend Governor Sebelius, Governor Doyle, Governor Crist, Governor Blagojevich and your host, Governor Schwarzenegger -all of you have shown true leadership in the fight to combat global warming. And we've also seen a number of businesses doing their part by investing in clean energy technologies.

But too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.

That will start with a federal cap and trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.

Further, we will invest $15 billion each year to catalyze private sector efforts to build a clean energy future. We will invest in solar power, wind power, and next generation biofuels. We will tap nuclear power, while making sure it's safe. And we will develop clean coal technologies.

This investment will not only help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil, making the United States more secure. And it will not only help us bring about a clean energy future, saving our planet. It will also help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating five million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced.

But the truth is, the United States cannot meet this challenge alone. Solving this problem will require all of us working together. I understand that your meeting is being attended by government officials from over a dozen countries, including the UK, Canada and Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Poland and Australia, India and Indonesia. And I look forward to working with all nations to meet this challenge in the coming years.

Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather at Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet. While I won't be President at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one President at a time, I've asked Members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.

And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.

Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious.

Stopping climate change won't be easy. It won't happen overnight. But I promise you this: When I am President, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America. Thank you.

The Fires

Here in Southern California, if you sit outside for more than half a minute you're bound to see some pieces of ash falling on your head. The entire region is bathed in a film, the air quality is miserable, and the horizon is barely discernible. Two fires - one in the northern San Fernando Valley in Sylmar, another south in Orange and Riverside counties in the Chino Hills area - have devastated local communities, burning hundreds of homes to the ground, including an entire trailer park. Today, despite more favorable conditions, hundreds more homes have been burned and thousands evacuated.

More residents of Southern California were urged to leave their homes Sunday despite calming winds that allowed a major aerial attack on wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and blanketed the region in smoke.

Fires burned in Los Angeles County, to the east in Riverside and Orange counties, and to the northwest in Santa Barbara County. More than 800 houses, mobile homes and apartments were destroyed by fires that have burned areas more than 34 square miles since breaking out Thursday.

No deaths have been reported, but police brought in trained dogs Sunday morning to search the rubble of a mobile home park where nearly 500 homes were destroyed. No bodies had been found by midday.

"This has been a very tough few days for the people of Southern California," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said after touring damage.

Our best to the firefighters on the front lines.

Fires Head South

The latest on the California wildfires is that Goleta has been saved for the moment. Firefighters are diverting their resources to protecting the much larger city of Santa Barbara.

Fire crews, backed by 10 airtankers, will now concentrate on rugged terrain near Goleta to block a potential advance toward Santa Barbara, said Rolf Larsen, another spokesman for the multi-agency effort.

"The priority is to put a lot of resources in and order where there are homes and specifically to the east ... where it could move toward Santa Barbara," Larsen said.

The area's steep slopes and canyons are filled with dry brush that in some spots has not burned for a half a century.

Weather is aiding the effort to protect Big Sur as moist air has rolled in for a day, but already 20 homes have been lost.

The real problem is that we have so many fires and scant resources to deal with them. We need money, not just for more firefighters and planes, but to deal with the public health threat that arises from weeks' worth of smoke Over time we're going to need to find a way, with the increasing year-round fire season, to provide more equipment and staff to attack what will probably grow as a problem. It's yet another constraint on the budget that conservatives in the Yacht Party will dismiss as unimportant.

The Latest On Darcy Burner

So Blue America is raising moneyfor Darcy Burner in her time of need. This money will go toward her campaign; it's a FEC nightmare to give her direct donations for her house and possessions, and the campaign contributions will help because it gives her time to stay off the campaign trail and get her life back in shape instead of attending fundraisers and bugging people for money. David Goldstein writes:

We’ve asked a lot of Darcy, and I’ve never known a politician who has worked harder to deliver. It was a grueling race in 2006, and after briefly pausing to digest her narrow loss, she got right back to work. But now she needs to take a few days off to tend to her family and herself… to literally get her house in order. And that’s where we all can help.

Darcy needs to raise about $150,000 this July to keep pace with Dave Reichert and her own 2006 fundraising, and everyday she takes off makes her campaign budget that much harder to hit. That’s about $5,000 a day.

And that’s why I’m joining with bloggers nationwide to ask our readers to contribute what they can today, to help give Darcy the breathing room she needs to tend to her own affairs without worrying about neglecting her campaign. Every $5,000 increment we raise represents a day that Darcy won’t have to dedicate to her own fundraising efforts. It is a gift more precious than money; it is a gift of time.

Donate here to Darcy Burner's campaign. And check out this news report from local Seattle news:



Let's pitch in and help our progressive friends. I just gave her a hundred bucks.

Help Darcy

Activists in the Northwest have set up HelpDarcy.com to provide assistance and support to Darcy Burner and her family in the wake of the tragic fire that consumed their home yesterday.

Here are some things you can do to help:

Leave a message of support here at HelpDarcy.com. We’ll build a message board featuring your comments and deliver it to the Burner family to let them know we’re thinking about them.

Ask the campaign what you can do to help out around the office. Darcy plans to continue running for Congress, but she’s taking time off to get her life back in order. Your help can keep her going strong.

Upload any pictures you have of the Burners to help them replace the recorded memories they lost. Original JPGs are preferred. (Images will not be displayed publicly, however, they will be given to the family).

The Burners are not looking for donations right now, but if that happens I'll let you know. I wouldn't even know how to begin to put my life back together if I lost everything to a fire, so I really feel for her situation. Please visit HelpDarcy.com and show your support.

UPDATE: This is the shirt Darcy was wearing when the fire hit:



She's not going to be able to raise money for a while, so give at Act Blue if you can.

Terrible News

The other day Digby invited you to give donations to Darcy Burner's campaign. I'm sad to report that Darcy's house burned down in a fire early this morning. The family was in the house at the time and they all made it out OK, including the pets. Of course that's the important thing. But the house appears to be a total loss. The pictures at the above link and here are heartbreaking.

I consider Darcy a friend as much as an ally, and I feel awful for her and her family today. If there are any ways to help them further or just express your condolences, I'll let you all know. For now, feel free to add something in the comments.

Happy New Year, But Take a Long Look And Savor Your Soon-To-Be-Altered Landscape

Not to be completely depressing on New Year's Eve, but this article about the impact of climate change on the California landscape is a must-read.

Where celebrities, surfers and wannabes mingle on Malibu's world-famous beaches, there may be only sea walls defending fading mansions from the encroaching Pacific. In Northern California, tourists could have to drive farther north or to the cool edge of the Pacific to find what is left of the region's signature wine country.

Abandoned ski lifts might dangle above snowless trails more suitable for mountain biking even during much of the winter. In the deserts, Joshua trees that once extended their tangled, shaggy arms into the sky by the thousands may have all but disappeared.

"We need to be attentive to the fact that changes are going to occur, whether it's sea level rising or increased temperatures, droughts and potentially increased fires," said Lisa Sloan, a scientist who directs the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "These things are going to be happening."

We could be talking about the end of ski season as we know it (at least with real snow), less rainfall in the south and the attendant issues with water supplies and wildfires, the potential for 10-year drought cycles, a wiping out of the Joshua trees that line the high desert, the death of both giant sequoias and untold amounts of marine life, and resource skirmishes, particularly between farmers in the Central Valley and the more populous cities.

Oh yeah, and rising sea levels of up to 20 feet.

Will the rising sea swamp the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the nation's busiest harbor complex, turning them into a series of saltwater lakes? Will funky Ocean Beach, an island of liberalism in conservative San Diego County, become, literally, its own island [...]

The changing sea will present trouble for much of the state's land-dwelling population, too. A sea level rise of 3 to 6 feet would inundate the airports in San Francisco and Oakland. Many of the state's beaches would shrink.

"If you raise sea level by a foot, you push a cliff back 100 feet," said Jeff Severinghaus, professor of geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. "There will be a lot of houses that will fall into the ocean."

We can pass laws and write regulations and pat ourselves on the back, and we can encourage new technologies that may reduce carbon output, but we'd better also prepare for the inevitability of the changes the world's population has already put into motion. They're particularly acute in this state.

Now that you're completely depressed, happy new year!

CA-42: Caught In The Wildfires

My column at Capitol Weekly about Ron Shepston's experiences during the Southern California wildfires is up here. It's really a pretty amazing story.

As the flames closed in, and evacuation was recommended, Ron and his family packed up. One of his neighbors, a 37-year retired battalion chief with the Orange County Fire Authority named Mike, had plenty of experience with fighting fires, and with the limited official resources, he thought he could help protect the community if the fire engulfed the canyon. The problem was that his body was beaten from years of service. After escorting his family to safer ground, Ron told Mike he was willing to help. “I’ll be your legs,” he said.

Ignoring a mandatory evacuation, Ron and Mike went to work, setting up hoses, hooking into hydrants, watering down wood structures, and clearing fuel away from danger. They also provided assistance to federal, state and local firefighters about prime lookout spots to view the progress of the fire, and the local terrain. This lasted for 10 days, a non-stop firefighting effort in an attempt to protect the community. “I could hear the roar of the flames on the ridge,” Ron said, “There were flames rising 100 feet.”

Go throw me a bone and read the whole thing. There's some discussion of Orange County's failure to protect its residents by gutting firefighting operations, as well as the stark contrast between a leader like Shepston and Gary Miller, who has yet to make even one public statement about the fires. This will be an issue in the campaign.

Our "Opposition Party" Senator

Here's something to make your eyes bleed next time you think about our great victory in 2006. One of those winners was Dianne Feinstein (D-Establishment). And here's what she had to say about the President after sharing a plane with him to California to survey wildfire damage, apparently a reward for shepherding through the confirmation of Leslie Southwick to the federal bench.

With a 7:40 a.m. Thursday departure from Andrews Air Force Base, Feinstein found herself seated in the rear of the plane with a handful of Southern California congressional representatives. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage and French toast, Bush popped back for what the senator described as a frank two-hour conversation, mostly about foreign policy [...]

“I found the discussion extraordinarily positive,” Feinstein said. “I came away with a very different view about him.” [...]

As for the president’s performance on the ground?

“It was a wonderful thing to see, to be candid,” Feinstein said. “I saw a warm, caring human being.”

As the link above shows, during the 2006 election Feinstein was talking about removing all US forces from Iraq and serious Constitutional crises. But when allowing a far-right loon to serve on the federal bench gets you all the Presidential mints and fluffy pillows you want, why bother being anything but gracious? After all, everyone in Washington is so nice and personable!

Fire Update

While many of the fires are starting to be contained, or at least are blazing away from population centers, the real issue is the Santiago Fire, which is approaching the Silverado Canyon residential areas, forcing some to evacuate for the second time in a week.

Even as thousands of residents joyously returned to neighborhoods throughout the region, 100-foot-tall flames from the Santiago fire burned into the eastern end of Silverado Canyon [...]

"It's an extremely active fire in Silverado Canyon right now," Rich Phelps, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman, said of the community, which was spared in several previous fires. "Things are pretty rough."

Exhausted and on edge, some of the evacuees who gathered in a nearby strip mall wept when authorities couldn't reassure them about whether they could stop the latest threat.

"It's sickening. We thought yesterday we had dodged the bullet. We heard the fire was 50% contained and away from Silverado Canyon," said Ray Verdugo, 55. "Now we're hearing that within the hour it could rip through here and take our homes."

Nine fires continued to burn Friday night, at the end of a weeklong siege that has included nearly three dozen separate blazes. The total acreage burned topped 500,000, only 12,000 acres more than had been reported a day earlier but more than double the size of all of New York City's five boroughs. The number of homes reported destroyed increased from 1,775 to 1,889. The death toll remained at seven.

This is the area we're going to have to watch today. And it's also the hometown of our friend and Congressional candidate Ron Shepston, who at last count was volunteering with firefighting efforts, in a amazing expression of leadership, battling to save the homes there. Best of luck to him, and let's hope he stays safe. Check in with us if you can.

Meanwhile, in Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino Counties, the problem is air quality. You might want to stay indoors today.

UPDATE: As much as people want to make their stereotypical comparisons between this and the Hurricane Katrina efforts, there were significant problems here. Bureaucratic red tape hampered firefighting efforts from the sky, and all of the evacuations were forced by a lack of equipment for battling the blazes. It's ignorant to even suggest a similarity; dead bodies in waterlogged streets is no comparison to an inviting Qualcomm Stadium parking lot.

How's That Cruz Bustamante Pick Look Right About Now?

The greatest concern in the post-wildfire landscape of California is the insurance situation. Obviously there are going to be thousands of claims, and how the insurance companies handle them will deserve great scrutiny. John Garamendi, the former Insurance Commissioner and current Lieutenant Governor who has been all over the media this week (building a profile for an attempted 2010 Governor's run - hint hint), has talked a lot about the insurance industry's desire to limit payouts to their customers after the 2003 Cedar Fire.

LT. GOV. GARAMENDI: The first commandment of the insurance industry is, "Thou shalt pay as little, as late, as possible." And then you get the reward. You go to financial heaven if you can carry out that commandment.

BRANCACCIO: California lieutenant governor John Garamendi, a democrat, served twice as the state's insurance commissioner. A total of eight years battling with the industry over the many ways he says it tries to avoid high payouts where there's been a total loss.

LT. GOV. GARAMENDI: I'm telling you, the insurance industry, prior to the fire and probably even to this day, is purposely misleading their customers.

Garamendi was actually pretty relentless in forcing insurers to honor their commitments. Now we have a Republican in the Insurance Commissioner's position. While Sara Nichols wants Steve Poizner to honor his supposed environmental credentials, I'm worried that he will let too many insurers off the hook. Plus, with fires wrecking the landscape around homes and making them more vulnerable to mudslides, the ability of those homeowners to get insurance for those potential disasters is a major concern.

All of this is mad possible by the revolving-door manner in which top Democrats have shuffled statewide positions in recent years, leaving us with maybe the worst Democratic candidate possible for Insurance Commissioner in 2006, Cruz Bustamante. He was crushed, not only because Poizner outspent him, but because he was a horrible, ethically compromised candidate. But Insurance Commissioner was available to him, so that's were he went. This musical chairs in these top seats ends up having a major impact in times like this.

The Most Trusted Name In Fake News

This is really unbelievable.

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing [...]

Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.

He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly [...]

Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Asked about this, Widomski said: "We had been getting mobbed with phone calls from reporters, and this was thrown together at the last minute."

It's hard to even snarkily comment on this. We know that most press conferences like this are jokes, but this one was an actual joke - a new low in propaganda, literally a Potemkin press conference. And we're the ones that laughed at Baghdad Bob.

I just don't have a lot to say. Is it worse that they did this, or that the cable nets RAN it, when they had to know that there weren't any actual reporters there.

I Think "Fires" And "Warming" Correlate

You can talk all you want about the terrible California wildfires not being the cause of global warming, but saying instead that the conditions that allowed the fires to sustain themselves and grow have an antecedent in the changing climate is a distinction without a difference. We just went through a series of major fires in Greece a couple months ago. Their Mediterrenean climate and the California climate, particularly in the mountains and the foothills where the fire is raging, are largely the same. In both cases, the desert conditions on the outer edge are moving up into these more habitable areas, creating the optimal conditions for the fires to spread.

And we're going to see a lot more of this in the coming years.

PARIS, Oct. 25 — The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage to the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report being issued today by the United Nations.

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, according to the United Nations Environment Program in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

“The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns,” Achim Steiner, the executive director of the Environment Program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are “among the greatest challenges at the beginning in of 21st century,” he said.

Through innovation and proper sustainability we can combat this growing concern on all fronts. What we need are the political guts from all countries on the globe to enact what needs to be enacted. This week the head of the CDC, Julie Gerberding, was muzzled in testimony to the Senate Environmental Committee, with the White House heavily editing her comments about climate change and public health. We have a White House that, when it isn't asleep at the switch about the environment, is actively seeking to stop any prospects for combating the environmental challenges we face.

Let me mention one good thing this government has done: they levied the largest fine in the history of the Clean Air Act against British Petroleum for manipulating prices and a refinery explosion. But this was a plea bargain, and if the money collected doesn't go into research and development for sustainable resources, the effect is negligible. There is no doubt that the climate crisis is real, and requires specific steps to solve it. We need leadership willing to do the job.

UPDATE: This is not leadership:

Rancho Bernardo residents began their journey back home with a surprise today.

They were stuck in traffic for two to three hours sitting in their cars at a standstill because of President Bush's visit to their community.

Police and the CHP had blocked off Interstate 15 ramps to West Bernardo Drive, which leads to the recovery center that was opened yesterday. Cars lined up for miles on the freeway.

"I'm glad he's coming but it's unfortunate to keep us all waiting," said Joy Fleming, who lives in North Oaks.

Fed up with waiting, Barbara Gandre said she needed to drive her 87-year-old mother home to pick up medication for her 89-year-old husband.

Her mother just recovered from pneumonia in September and the family did not have masks to wear over their faces. They sat in their car with the windows rolled down because they only had a quarter tank of gas left.

"I cannot run the air conditioning or I'll run out of gas," Gandre said. "I am sick of this," she said.

If I never see another photo-op again, I don't think I'd miss them.

Presidentials on the California Wildfires

Gov. Richardson, Sen. Dodd, and Sen. Edwards have offered both statements and resources for those suffering in our state this week.

John Edwards: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the more than 300,000 families who have been forced to flee their homes to escape the wildfires spreading across southern California. Those affected by this tragedy should take comfort in the fact that their fellow Americans are standing with them and will do whatever it takes to fight the fires and rebuild the homes and businesses that were destroyed."

Edwards is calling on his One Corps volunteers to assist in local projects in and around San Diego. You can sign up here.

Bill Richardson: "Today, we all extend our sympathies and prayers to those devastated by the wildfires in California. Millions of Americans are impacted by this natural disaster.

Neighbors should help neighbors in their time of need. As Governor of New Mexico, I ordered two fire crews (strike teams, with 5 engines and 21 crew members each) to California. As a candidate for President, I donated to the American Red Cross and I encourage you to do so as well, click here to do so.

But as someone who believes the war in Iraq is a complete disaster and that we need to get our troops out now (www.getourtroopsout.com), I look at the natural disaster in California and feel compelled to also ask President Bush and every candidate who thinks it is okay for our troops to remain in Iraq until 2013 or longer - where is our National Guard?

It is a sad irony that yesterday, the very day I sent fire crews to California, 300 more New Mexico National Guard members were sent to Iraq. Just when we need them most at home, more of our brave men and women, true public servants, are sent away to a war we cannot win."

Chris Dodd: "As you know, Governor Schwarzenegger has had to ask other states for help because so many of California's National Guard, who provide critical support to the citizens while you are fighting the fires, were deployed to Iraq. In a Dodd Administration, never again will our houses be on fire because our troops are taking fire in Iraq. Never again will our first responders be left without the support they need because our President failed to do what it took to keep our communities safe. That is why in 2008, nothing will be more important than leadership that can get results that make us stronger and more secure. That's the first responsibility of an American President."

And, he's asking for volunteers at California Volunteers.com.

How are the Republicans handling this, you ask? In case you were wondering:

Rudy Giuliani: Nothing.
John McCain: Nothing.
Mitt Romney: Nothing.
Fred Thompson: Nothing.
Mike Huckabee: Nothing. A 30-minute interview with Glenn Beck on his front page.
Duncan Hunter: It's his frickin' district and it's hard to find anything outside of this news article.
Tom Tancredo: Nothing.
Ron Paul: Nothing. And he's doing a "Hollywood fundraiser" tonight.

They just don't care.

Into The Fire

The Associated Press is reporting that one million people have now been evacuated throughout California. 1,300 homes have been consumed in the fire, and efforts have moved from putting out the blazes to just saving buildings. Until the winds subside tomorrow, that's going to be the bulk of the efforts.

I'm very proud to be a part of the continuing coverage at Calitics, check there for updates.

UPDATE: Someone tell me what Rush Limbaugh's on about here. It's actually unreadable. It's just a mish-mosh of every bugaboo tangentially related to California and nature just drizzled on top of one another. I honestly can't find the unifying thread. There's class envy, global warming denialism, anti-government screeds, all squished together with a cherry on top.

I've been looking at these fires from my California town (which is near the beach so I'm not supposed to live here, according to Rush, even though humans have organized around bodies of water for 10,000 years, and Rush himself lives - wait for it - by the beach), and a lot of things have gone through my head about the fires, but never once did I think to BLAME somebody for them. What a case of Angry White Man syndrome. Glenn Beck's was just stupid; Big Pharma is incoherent.

Oh, and also, Rushbo: droughts do cause fire.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. The fires in Southern California and global warming, is there a connection?

BILL McKIBBEN: I'm afraid that there is. This is the kind of disaster that we see more and more of as we begin to change the basic physics and chemistry of the planet we live on. One of the people leading the really brave rescue effort out there yesterday said, one of the San Diego authorities said, this is the driest it's been in at least ninety years. It's dry because they've had terrific heat and not much rain. And those are just the conditions for that part of the world that all the modeling suggests come about when you begin to raise the temperature.

UPDATE II: If Rush is at all trying to say that people shouldn't live in canyons, or at lest should be prepared to face fire if they do, then I agree. That's not what he's saying, of course, he's just lashing out at anyone who he deems an enemy.

The Burn

This set of fires in Southern California is a personal and environmental disaster. Burns like this cause the release of tons of carbon into the atmosphere (as well as particulate matter, which isn't positive either). The dryness that has plagued us down here all year, combined with fierce Santa Ana winds, have proven to be a deadly combination. Calitics is giving updates.