I’m scared that we’re going to rebuild LA more or less the same way, without using this as an opportunity to rethink how LA is built and reinvest in important public infrastructure like better water supply systems, as well as coming up with a strategy to force a retreat from building in the most risky areas.
This is an opportunity to reimagine the urban landscape and its relationship with nature in Southern California, and if history shows us anything, it’s not going to happen. We have to stop and think, “Okay, we have to do this differently now. We have to use this tragedy as an opportunity to really learn, really think this and rebuild in a way that acknowledges the dangers of the world that we live in right now.”
[…] GOODELL: There is a much more widespread understanding that something is happening; everybody is noticing it. I live in Austin, Texas. In the summer of 2023, we had 45 days above 100 degrees. If you’re a human being living on planet Earth, you see what’s going on. But a lot of people say, “Well, you know, there’s always been variability, and it was hotter in previous times, and this is just natural variability.” They understand that it’s changing, but what exactly is changing is still up for dispute among many people.
It’s not up for dispute at all among scientists. It hasn’t been up for dispute among scientists for 40 years. But in those 40 years, the fossil fuel industry has ramped up a campaign of misinformation and disinformation and has deliberately clouded the communication around the consequences of burning fossil fuels.
So, our understanding of the risks of climate change in the public sphere is still not an accepted relationship, the way it is among scientists. The straightforward relationship between higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, mostly from burning fossil fuels and these extreme weather events is as solid as the science of gravity.