Climate Fires and Anger as Fierce as the Santa Anna Winds
Image by Marc Szeglat.
Berkeley Earth, a non-profit climate change organization, concluded that climate chaos was at its worst in the last decade. Its Global Temperature Report for 2024 said that “2024 was the warmest year on Earth since 1850, exceeding the previous record just set in 2023 by a clear and definitive margin. This period, since 1850, is the time when sufficient direct measurements from thermometers exist to create a purely instrumental estimate of changes in global mean temperature. The last ten years have included all ten of the warmest years observed in the instrumental record.”
A climate scientist associated with Berkeley Earth, Zeke Housefather, said in 2023, “global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years rather than continued at a gradual, steady pace. That acceleration means that the effects of climate change we are already seeing — extreme heat waves, wildfires, rainfall and sea level rise — will only grow more severe in the coming years…. Until recently, climate change was framed as an issue that would affect our children. Today it is nearly omnipresent, and it is impossible to ignore. And very soon, with the acceleration, we will experience even more of its effects: Ice sheets and glaciers will melt faster, extreme weather events will become more frequent, and even more plants and animals will be put at risk of extinction.”
The UN reached similar conclusions. “UN weather experts from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed… that 2024 was the hottest year on record, at 1.55 degrees Celsius (C) above pre-industrial temperatures…. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo insisted that “climate history is playing out before our eyes. We’ve had not just one or two record-breaking years, but a full ten-year series. “It is essential to recognize that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Whether it is at a level below or above 1.5C of warming, every additional increment of global warming increases the impacts on our lives, economies and our planet.”
These dismal conclusions about the anthropogenic climate chaos exploded in Southern California in destruction and gigantic tragedy. The theater for the fire infernos covered some 36,000 acres, a large section of Los Angeles.
The anger of Peter Kalmus
“I am utterly devastated by the Los Angeles wildfires,” said (on January 10, 2025) Peter Kalmus, a young climate scientist who left Los Angeles on time just before the January 2025 catastrophic fires. He explained: “[I am] shaking with rage and grief. The Altadena community near Pasadena, where the Eaton fire has damaged or destroyed at least 5,000 structures, was my home for 14 years.”
The disaster was much larger. Eleven people died and more than 12,000 “structures” (homes, apartment buildings, hotels, schools, businesses, churches, libraries, bridges) were damaged or burned to the ground. Altadena looks like a second Hiroshima. About 150,000 people received orders to abandon their homes and businesses. The cost will be huge.
Kalmus could see the disaster coming. He lived in Altadena for 14 years. He described the city as a small paradise in Los Angeles. He biked, walked, and made friends and gave speeches on climate change. He enjoyed working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But as a trained climate scientist, he could see and foresee changes in the atmosphere. The ceaseless rising of heat, the area becoming dry, and heat waves affected him. He said he was like a madman on rooftops screaming that climate disaster was next door, that time had arrived for action against the burning of fossil fuels that cause climate chaos. And what made him livid was the knowledge that fossil fuel companies had known of the horrific climate effects of their products for about half a century. Yet they did nothing to prevent climate chaos, much less telling the truth. Instead, they funded disinformation to confuse people and convince politicians to do nothing about the coming climate catastrophe.
“Nothing will change,” he said, “until our anger gets powerful enough. But once you accept the truth of loss, and the truth of who perpetrated and profited from that loss, the anger comes rushing in, as fierce as the Santa Ana winds.”
The Santa Ana winds
Yes, indeed, the Santa Ana winds are strong. I appreciate Kalmus. I have also tried to scream from rooftops, articles, zoom presentations, in person lectures, teaching college students and books. I keep citing the sometimes fiery rhetoric of Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General who speaks the truth about the origins and the consequences of climate chaos. He has been denouncing presidents and prime ministers, calling them liars. These politicians have been doing the bidding of fossil fuel company executives. Guterres spoke about the rulers of the planet on April 2022. He gave a timely and precise summary of the enveloping chaos from the burning of fossil fuels. He said:
“The jury has reached a verdict. And it is damning. This [2022] report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a litany of broken climate promises.
It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast track to climate disaster:
Major cities under water. Unprecedented heatwaves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals.
This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies. We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree limit agreed in Paris [in 2015].
Some government and business leaders are saying one thing — but doing another.
Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic. This is a climate emergency. Climate scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts.
But high-emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye; they are adding fuel to the flames. They are choking our planet, based on their vested interests and historic investments in fossil fuels, when cheaper, renewable solutions provide green jobs, energy security, and greater price stability….
The science is clear. To keep the 1.5-degree limit agreed in Paris within reach, we need to cut global emissions by 45 percent this decade.
But current climate pledges would mean a 14 percent increase in emissions.And most major emitters are not taking the steps needed to fulfil even these inadequate promises. Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness…. Demand that renewable energy is introduced now — at speed and at scale.
Demand an end to coal-fired power. Demand an end to all fossil fuel subsidies…. A shift to renewables will mend our broken global energy mix and offer hope to millions of people suffering climate impacts today.
Climate promises and plans must be turned into reality and action, now.
It is time to stop burning our planet and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us.”
Unfortunately, world leaders dismissed the angry and virtuous advice of Guterres and funded business as usual – and wars.
These truths are always in my mind. But as a historian, I know that previous ages faced deadly crises. My advice to my students was to study environmental science and politics – and join those who, like Peter Kalmus, are outraged by the injustice and cruelty of leaders and corporations burning the Earth.
The struggle is extremely difficult. Millions of people follow the very billionaires who profit from the burning of fossil fuels. Like the followers of superstitious religious dogmas, those who claim climate change is a hoax are steeped in misinformation and ignorance. The educated classes that should know better are not as active as the climate emergency demands. As Guterres described, the destructive effects of heat waves, hurricanes, flooding, drought, and fires are spreading all over the planet.
Now that climate fires gutted communities in Los Angeles, and thousands of people lost everything, will this catastrophe spark the intelligence and the anger in the hearts and minds of millions with the fierceness of the Santa Ana winds?
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