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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2007 - January 2008California fires and our futureThe wildfires that raged across Southern California in October and November killed nine people, most believed to be Latin American immigrants. They destroyed 1,500 homes and caused the nation's largest evacuation ever--700,000 people. Spread across 200 miles north to south, the 35 fires burned nearly 500,000 acres. This is a taste of our future of global warming, warned some scientists. A study last year by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that large wildfire activity has already increased "suddenly and dramatically" in recent years. 'HAPPENING NOW' "Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it's not 50 to 100 years away--it's happening now in forest ecosystems through fire," said Thomas Swetnam, one of the study's authors. It's not just California. Record droughts are occurring around the world. Both the southeastern and southwestern U.S. are in extreme drought, with Atlanta and surrounding areas facing a serious water shortage, while over one million acres burned in Florida and Georgia this year. Across the Atlantic, Greece faced record deadly fires, in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave in southeastern Europe. This has been a year of extreme weather, including South Asia's worst monsoon flooding in recent memory which affected 30 million in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, killing 2,000 and driving 20 million from their homes. EXISTENCE IN THE BALANCE Africa, Asia, Europe, Mexico, Texas, and the Midwestern U.S. were all hit with exceptional flooding, as was the small island nation of the Maldives whose very existence is threatened by the potential sea-level rise from global warming. Diverting attention from his sabotage of efforts to fight climate change by moving away from fossil fuels, President Bush flew into Escondido, Calif., to make a show of helping out the affluent white Anglos hurt by the fires--while La Migra and police harassed Latinos, whether they were citizens or not. FEMA has learned so much from its experience with Hurricane Katrina, we were told. Indignant voices of Katrina survivors spoke up: If that's so, why are we still scattered across the country in trailers, why are so many of us unable to rebuild and move back into our homes, why do so many of our communities still look like battlefields? This is the future if the capitalists are left in charge: lots of middle-class people will be hurt and then get some help from the government; lots of poor people will be hurt as much or more, and left to twist in the wind. Corporations will continue to exploit natural resources and people, consequences be damned. Let's join together to put an end to this inhuman way of life! --Franklin Dmitryev |
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