That science, that science is going to be key. Because if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it's all about vegetation management, we're not going to succeed together protecting Californians. That was a clip from a number of years ago, I think it was 2020, where Donald Trump was talking to a panel discussing the wildfires that we're having at that point that were devastating communities within California. Sound
familiar? This is the problem with what's happening with wildfires. Climate change is causing things that we cannot control and the Santa Ana fire that's happening in LA right now due to the Santa Ana winds is out of control. And it's really difficult to fight, no matter how much water you have, no matter how many people you have, just because of the
speed of the winds and how dry things are. We're gonna talk today, on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, about why the fires happen, the blame and the myths that are going on, the fact that people are in a very vulnerable position, and what we can do about it. On this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, let's start the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to a somber episode of the How to Protect the Ocean
podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And this is an episode that I don't ever want to cover. This is something that is devastating to a number of people in L.A. County, and it's a really difficult pill to swallow for all of us. It's a perfect example, unfortunately, of the devastation that climate change
can cause, and we are in the thick of it. This is a problem where there's really not much we can do until these winds of the Santa Ana winds really stops. And it's scary. It is scary. Now, I would love to say that this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. but this has been predicted for quite some time. And we're gonna talk about it on today's
episode because I think it's something that we do need to talk about it. I've done a little bit of research and I wanna talk about a few things of why this happened, the blame and the myths that are going around the fire, as well as, people are in a very vulnerable position. They're getting hurt, they've lost their homes, they've lost their childhood memories, they've lost a lot, people have lost their
lives. You know, it is a difficult thing. This is not just a case where celebrities are losing their homes and they can buy new homes. That could be true. There's a lot of people who are suffering right now and a lot of the fire people that are out there doing their best to put this fire out and putting themselves in danger again in a vulnerable position to fires where they're just trying to contain. They know they can't put out right away until
these winds die down. So we're going to talk about What the heck happened? It goes back a couple of years. In 2023, there was a lot of precipitation in California. They had record snowfalls up in the mountains. They had a lot of water. In fact, in the spring, they had a lot of landslides, and they had a lot of disasters regarding water. There was a lot of floods. LA got flooded. But in that time, there was so much water that all this vegetation grew, and it was quite lush for
quite some time, for about a year. In comes 2024, super dry in LA. Very, very dry in California, drought conditions, all that vegetation just dried up. That just becomes an accelerant for any type of fire that could happen. It doesn't matter how it started, once that starts, if you get a bad wind, see where I'm going with this, if you get a bad wind, you're in trouble. And that is what really happened this year, a few weeks ago. The Santa Ana winds, which happen every
once in a while, were massive this year. They were 90 mile an hour winds, and they still haven't settled down. It's caused any type of ignition of vegetation to go widespread. There were reports of, you know, five football fields of area being covered within an hour. Just think about that. Think about how fast this fire can go. You've seen pictures, you've seen videos of the fires. You've seen
what's happened before, what happened during and what happened after. People had to leave just in the nick of time because they could not predict how fast this fire was going to spread. There are a number of different fires and you just never know. Once the winds change, you never know
where it's going to go. Scientists refer to this Scientists refer to this action of being super wet conditions to super dry conditions as a hydroclimate whiplash, where essentially it happens where it gets extremely wet for one year, extremely dry, and then they're intensified by global climate change. So the wetness is intensified by global climate change, and the dryness is intensified by global climate change. It's climate change, folks. It's what people have been saying all along.
And this is the problem that we have. These abrupt climate variations contribute to the increased vegetation growth during wet periods and followed by the drying of that vegetation during droughts, creating an abundant fuel for wildfires. This pattern has been observed in California, exacerbating the frequency and intensity of wildfires. This has been happening for a long time, but it's getting worse and
worse. And once you get those bad winds, those Sandana winds, you get what we have right now, an absolute disaster, $250 billion worth of damage, 250 billion with a B. It's the cost of climate change. Unfortunately, it's putting people at risk. It doesn't matter where you are in your 1% or a 99%, it doesn't matter. It's coming for us. And if you're put in vulnerable positions, if you live in an area that is vulnerable to wildfires or drought or flooding, eventually
it's gonna catch up. And if we continue to ignore climate change, these are the things that are gonna happen. We saw it out in Hawaii, in Maui, and now we're seeing it here in California. And it's devastating. It's absolutely devastating. I feel so bad for the people who had to go through that. I have friends who lost their childhood homes and their childhood friends have lost their homes. Parents just barely getting out, 11 dead so far. It's
absolutely devastating. And we continue to have people like the next president that's coming in in a couple of weeks to talk that, hey, it's gonna get cooler in a couple of years. This is what he said in 2020. It's gonna get cooler in a couple of years. You just watch. We've had record heat every single year, including last year in 2024. And there are arguments all the time. I always see it. It's, you know, it's, It's it's wet. So why is it the things now? Everything's not warming. It's
wet outside. We're getting rain. We're getting all this stuff. It's not snowing or it's snowed too much. How's this global warming? It's always the same thing. People believe in conspiracy theories. You know, it's government trying to control people. It's climate change. The scientists have been saying it for years for decades. And we continue to just ignore the people in charge that we elect to be in charge, continue to ignore the signs, continue to
ignore what people are going through. It's like they don't even care. All they care about is the money that they're paid to get in to power. And it's really interesting because when you see these disasters happen, the blame game starts to show up and all the myths start to show up. you know, the blame first going on the fire department, which why are you blaming the fire department when the fire department is the one that is out there trying to stop
these fires from happening, which is virtually impossible. And you have like, you know, the chief firefighter. was a woman criticized because she came out one time and said, yes, there will be, you know, the fire department will be focusing on making a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace. That's all that she that's all she said one time. And now it's like, oh, well, it's because she's not hiring white men, that this is the problem that
we're in. They can't put out the fire. That's not the case. That was debunked. And that's not the case. It does not matter how many firefighters we have. It does not matter how much water is available. The fact that these winds are picking up the fire in such dry conditions due to climate change, we're in trouble. That's why these fires are happening. And it is insane. People are even saying there's not enough water in, you know, the hydrants are like drying up. The chief came out
and said, hey, you know, we have the right amount of water. It's just, there's not enough. They have a million gallon tanks of water waiting. to be used in the hydrants. It's just not enough. It's very difficult to predict this extent of fire, the intensity, the speed at which this fire is going. It is almost impossible to stop. And they just have to wait till the fires die down. And then unfortunately, people are in a vulnerable position because of climate change. This is what
we've been saying. This is why scientists are so frustrated. There's data that comes out. We tell the people, the people who are making money because that are causing climate change say, you know what? We want to continue to make money. So we're just going to pay off the decision makers and we're going to start putting out misinformation out there. And we're going to say, Hey, you know what? Let's, let's not worry about climate change. It's not even real. Don't even worry about all this stuff.
The scientists are saying they're just elitist. They just want to control you. It's not, it's nothing. It's insane. It's insane to even think. that we're at a position like this. I find it funny that the next president is blaming the governor for saying, hey, there's not enough water because you diverted some water for smelt, which is a conservation project way north of where the fires are. And then there's also a situation where, well, they got rid of a dam. And they could use the
water from the dam for an indigenous reconciliation project. And that's the reason. That's not the reason. It's the decades of federal government ignoring climate change and not doing anything about it. And to be honest, anybody who has been in power, whether it be Democrats or Republicans, who have been the president over the last like three, four decades are responsible because they did not move at
all, or they did not move fast enough to help climate change. Or they reversed all the actions that were done in climate change, AKA Donald Trump, getting out of the Paris Accord. We continue to fall within these traps. It's continuous. We try and blame all of these people, blame the mayor for cutting the budget of the fire department, which they never really did. It was debunked. And here we are, we have people who are living in areas that
are vulnerable to fire. They are spending millions on their homes and they are losing out because the insurance companies are getting out of dodge. They're getting out of California because it's so difficult. Their insurance claims canceled. or their insurance canceled, or they're not renewed because they live in a fire hazard. If you want to know about climate change and where the most vulnerable spots are, you watch where insurance companies will not cover
certain disasters. They're starting to get out of Florida because of hurricanes, and the Southeast because of hurricanes, and they're getting out of California and other places because of fire. Because they can't, they don't have the reserves, they don't have the money to cover the amount of money that's required to cover all these disasters. They're not built for that. So
they get out of there. They know way ahead of time. And whether they may not renew your insurance for that coverage, or they don't offer it to you at all anymore on new houses or new bills. They know exactly what's happening. And they just get out. And then we're stuck with the bill. The people are stuck with the bill. And look, I get it. We see celebrities on TV because it's
in LA, it's in Hollywood. And people are like, oh, well, you know, these celebrities, they make millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. Why should we care? They're going to be able to buy a nice house. Yes. I mean, obviously it sucks to lose a house. You lose pictures. I can't even imagine. It is devastating. But yes, many of them, of the celebrities, probably either have homes somewhere else or they can afford to pay for another home. They
lose all their, their memories. They lose all of, you know, any kind of memorabilia that they have, any type of ancestry things that they have, which is awful for anybody. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how poor you are. It's awful. But yes, they could probably move and buy another house. And although it affect their income, they'd still be able to have a house. It's the people who can't afford to move. That's where it becomes really devastating. They
have no homes. They can't afford, they have to move out of the state, because it's really expensive to live, and they have no place to go. Nobody's gonna buy their house. Why would you buy in a place that is so vulnerable to wildfires that took out entire neighborhoods? Not just one, entire neighborhoods. Not to mention all the air quality hazards that are out there for people for years
to come. It is brutal the way people continue to get treated Yet we listen to politicians who deny climate change, who want to drill baby drill, and these things continue to happen. It's awful. Now what can we do about it? The first thing is put decision makers in place that agree that climate change is happening and we need to do something about it, like three decades ago. That's what we need to do. Put people into place who are capable of understanding the complexities of climate change and
what need to happen. It's really it. That's all you have to do is use your vote. Climate change, back when Obama was president, the Navy said that climate change was the biggest threat to the United States, to the world, to the planet. Yet all of a sudden we've forgotten that. No, no, they're just blowing up promotion. It wasn't even a big topic in the US presidential election. It won't be a big topic in the next election for Canada, other than taking the carbon tax away,
which is a measure to combat climate change. It's unreal. Yet we continue to just fall into these traps. This disaster will happen. We'll follow it for a few months. We'll forget about it, just like we did to Hawaii. And then we'll continue with our way. And then we'll continue to vote people in who don't do anything about climate change when they're in power. We do it to ourselves. And I'm frustrated. I'm so sick of it. We just continue to do it to
ourselves. And until we realize that climate change is affecting all aspects of our life, including the economy, we're going to run out of money. We can't always pay for these natural disasters. $250 billion. We have to, we have to change something. Things have to change. And if we keep ignoring it, we're going to keep having these happen. And there's going to be areas in the United States, as well as around the world where we cannot live because it's too unsafe for people to
live. And that's going to continue that, that area is going to continue to grow. And we're going to continue to have problems as
people are trying to figure out where they can live and where they can't. So it's a, it's a, an awakener, although we've, we've had these problems before, but people need to like, as people are, are, you know, donating money to the red cross and donating money to people to help them survive, maybe they should realize like, maybe I should donate to campaigns of politicians who are actually going to do something about climate change.
Cause those are the ones we need. The scientists are all, they're pretty much on board. They're like climate change is happening, but the decision makers refuse to do anything about it or do anything about fast enough. Like there's even criticism with the Biden administration that they're not working fast enough, including and with the Trudeau government as well. We just aren't doing it fast enough because we don't want to pay for it, but we're going to
have to pay for it in one way or another. And it could be with our homes. It could be with our lives. It could be with just our countries and it's not discriminating against any country. It's going after everything. So it's a rude awakening. I hate to start off the week like this, but something I thought I had to cover. I feel so, so bad for the people who are, who have been devastated by these fires. And I'll put links now where people can donate to help people out
in these fires as they continue to burn. And hopefully people can recover and find a way to live on, but it's going to forever change them. That's it for today's episode. If you have any comments or anywhere that people can donate, please let me know. You can hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. You can also and I hope everyone is safe out there, especially our fans and our audience in the L.A. region. And I just I hope that everybody is just able
to recover and get to a safe spot. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo, and have a good day. I'll