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#lafires

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NEW: For IJNet, our Engagement Editor Aorui Pi looks into how a withering information ecosystem, AI-generated photos, and manipulated videos contributed to misinformation about the Los Angeles Wildfires spreading rampantly across Chinese-language media.

thexylom.com/post/how-unverifi

The Xylom · How Unverified Claims About the LA Wildfires Spread Across Chinese-Language Media “People were confused. It was almost as if both the fire and misinformation were too big to contain.”
Continued thread

Another example of good, relevant reporting by AP apnews.com/article/southern-ca

Sounds like the heavy rains (up to 100mm) over the hilly burnt areas in #LAfires did cause the expected mud slides but mud only went up 20cm in the roads - while remaining buildings were protected by sand bags and temporary concrete walls.

With the top soil now washed away, will new plants be able to take root at all? 🤔 I guess so. Because this mediterranean biome, called Chaparal biome, consists of shallow root grasses, shrubs and low trees. Not like in the Rockies in the article above.
And could the precious mud in the roads now be hauled back uphill ?🤔 I guess not. Because it also contains the toxins from all the burnt buildings, I reckon.

A resident and their dog walk past a vehicle partially submerged in mud after a storm Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, in Sierra Madre, Calif. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)
AP News · After heavy rains, debris flows hit Southern California community scarred by fireBy CHRISTOPHER WEBER

It's snowing heavily. Pretty swirling going on beneath the streetlights.

First time since the #LAfires when one of Daniel Swain's live explainer youtube sessions included footage from burning suburbs and how a blizzard of billions of glowing embers swirled around the firefighters in the streets.

Replied in thread

@andrewdessler

Getting all the new small and big electricity producers and new consumers safely into existing grids requires upscaling the capacity at least for the "last mile" in most societies.
Germany's heating in apartment houses used to be electric with nightly heat storage in the olden days, so these old local grids can take on new consumers like heatpumps and eVespas or ebikes without additional hardware.

But for most countries or even most German local grids this will not be the case – and the population will have to pay one way or another for the necessary grid extension.

And #copper prices will soar because of the still prevailing neoliberal commodity speculation and because of mining companies not reacting according to Paris Agreement, ie not expanding their operations on time, while every country now races toward electrifying everything at the same time.

Reducing #energy demand is a necessary consequence in light of the fact that every 3 years at current emissions we add another 0.1C to global warming.
Reducing energy demand immediately means, less raw and manufactured material is needed to get the remaining energy use carbon-free. It also means, less time is needed – which translates to less CO2.

The discussion around #LAFires needs to include the boundary of sustainable furnished and heated/cooled living space: 35sqm per person plus 15 per additional person.

See for example boell.de/en/2020/12/09/societa and cited literature therein.

Why am I pointing this out when my post is about electrifying and raw material shortages and price hikes at dwindling #CO2budget?
Because heeding #sustainability guidelines saves raw material. And it lowers material and energy demand. It even gets rid of cars because it reduces distance between home and work place.

We need to include the guidelines in the debate. And what better moment than when emotions are high due to a horrible disaster? It's the moment when memories are formed. Let the memories be how we managed to get where we are today, and how we might be able to stabilise climate and mass extinction at a manageable level.

This side of the story has to be told by scientists we trust. Politicians won't be tabling it – before these 35sqm become public knowledge.

#renewables #degrowth

Heinrich Böll StiftungA Societal Transformation Scenario for Staying Below 1.5°C | Heinrich Böll StiftungThe „Societal Transfomation Scenario“ is a global 1.5°C mitigation scenario, which challenges  the notion of perpetual global economic growth and its compatibility with ambitious climate goals like the 1.5°C limit. It shows how through a reduction of production and consumption in the Global North, we can stay below 1.5°C without resorting to high-risk technologies like CCS, geoengineering and nuclear, while also avoiding temperature overshoot.

Good interview with @gianluca_grimalda youtube.com/watch?v=rYE-s5Oh85 Nick Breeze is my favourite climate journalist because he never dumbs things down and rarely follows the mainstream climate [journalists'] talking points that, in my view, just keep the debate at kindergarden level instead of progressing it to where the debate needs to go.

Gian's idea is nice: go on strike in academia to
* make use of the population's trust in scientists
* in order to make it into the news cycle
* with a message regarding
* which actions must be taken to bring consumption down to the civilisation-saving level.

Gets me thinking how to make the most of that single news cycle each scientist strike would dominate:
* plan for a loose chain of several general strikes. Each one repeats the messageS from the previous strikeS, and adds a new point with explanations and examples.
* the first if the "strike lectures" should start with

"sustainable furnished and heated/cooled living space per person". Let's follow the figures from here which are based on cited research within boell.de/en/2020/12/09/societa with 35m2 per person and 15m2 per additional person.
Why should lectures begin with it? Because the rebuilding process after a wildfire, hurricane heavy rain disaster has to be informed by these sustainability strategies. And all scientists who're asked by journalists for a reaction to such a disaster must start including this particular information to educate the population about how far beyond the planet's carrying capacity each of them is living - which is directly driving the dynamics in the present disaster.

When emotions are high the brain forms memories. When are emotions the highest? Directly in/after a disaster. Which memories are really worth forming? Memories on how we got here and how to stop making it worse: heeding guidelines for sustainable lifestyles.

Just imagine this one bit of information getting stressed by @weatherwest and @MichaelEMann and @rahmstorf after the #LAFires . All media attention in the industrialised nations was on them.
Had only one of these three men had the bravery to explain the reasoning behind 35+15m2 , the fact that rich, "famous" people got hit in this disaster could really have had a positive impact on progressing the public debate to where it should have been since Greta entered the world stage 2019: #EatTheRich , including yourself 😁

#USpolitics #WaterPolitics #LAfires #California

"Trump says he’s sending water to LA. It’s actually going to megafarms."
by Jake Bittle for Grist [Jan 28, 2025] [Audio available]

grist.org/politics/trump-calif

Quotes:
"The president’s executive orders on California water will help irrigate Central Valley farms. They won’t do anything to fight wildfires."

"While President Donald Trump"../\...the president’s ire and attention: California water policy. That might make sense if the remedies he’s pursuing could help stem deadly fires like those that have killed at least 29 people in the Los Angeles area in recent weeks."

"But unfortunately for future fire victims, the sole apparent aim of the president’s new policies is to deliver more water to farmers hundreds of miles away from the state’s fire zones."

"Trump issued an executive order that directed his Interior Department to “route more water” to the southern part of the state. Then, issued another order that directed the department to immediately “override” the state’s management of its water, even if it meant overruling California law."

"But the new measures wouldn’t deliver any more water to Los Angeles at all. Instead, his attempt to relax water restrictions would move more water to large farms in the state’s sparsely populated Central Valley, a longtime pet issue for the president."

"This time he’s going further, proposing to gut endangered species rules and overrule state policy to deliver a win for the influential farmers who backed all three of his campaigns."

"None of this has any relation to wildfires in Los Angeles.
For one thing, the city isn’t experiencing a water shortage.
Even if Los Angeles were low on water, Trump’s executive orders wouldn’t help with that, because the federal government’s canal system doesn’t actually deliver any water to the Los Angeles area."

"[Alex Biering, California Farm Bureau Federation JdeB] It’s an attempt to tie water supply to a natural disaster, but those connections don’t exist in reality.”

"Environmental groups, meanwhile, have blasted Trump’s attempt to strongarm California water policy, saying his most recent order would be devastating for the state’s vulnerable fish species — and the integrity of the federal Endangered Species Act as a whole."

"California’s water system has been the subject of heated political debate for decades. Over the course of the 20th century, the federal government and the state of California built a complex series of dams and canals designed to move water from the northern parts of the state../\..down to the agriculture-rich Central Valley and the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The federal government operates dams, canals, and pumping stations."

"The crux of this transport system is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a sensitive marshland region where two of the state’s largest rivers converge and flow out into the San Francisco Bay. This area is also the point where endangered fish species like Chinook salmon enter from the Pacific and swim upstream to spawn."

"It’s California’s own state-run canal system that actually delivers water to Los Angeles and numerous other cities in Southern California — and the federal government has no jurisdiction over this."

"Despite his East Coast upbringing, Donald Trump has fixated on Central Valley water issues for years. He chose David Bernhardt, who has lobbied for the influential Westlands Water District, to lead the Department of the Interior during his first administration."

“We’re driving up, and I had never seen it before,” he [Trump on the Joe Rogan podcast] said. “I said, ‘Do you have a drought? They said, ‘No … in order to protect a tiny little fish, the water gets routed into the Pacific.’ So I see this, and I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’”

"Trump may go much further this time. His most recent executive order calls for another wholesale rewrite of the pumping rules, proposes building new dams around the state, and even suggests that his administration could declare the Delta smelt [that pesky little fish JdeB] functionally extinct."

"Some of California’s most powerful water districts, which are typically run by large agricultural landowners, have praised the executive order.
For instance, the Westlands Water District, which covers more than half a million acres on the west side of the Central Valley, said in a statement that they “welcomed” Trump’s “leadership in addressing the barriers to water delivery.”

"“They can try a lot of this stuff,” said Biering, the California Farm Bureau advocate. “It’s just about: How many times do you want to get sued?”

#TakeCareForLife #TakeCareForEarth
#StopBurningThings #StopEcoside
#ClimateBreakDown #StopRapingNature

Grist · Trump says he’s sending water to LA. It’s actually going to megafarms.By Jake Bittle