AMY GOODMAN: I want to also bring in Leah Stokes, associate professor of environmental politics at University of California, Santa Barbara, author of Short Circuiting Policy, co-host of the podcast A Matter of Degrees. Professor Stokes, talk about climate change and what we’re seeing today. There’s a lot of discussion about individuals responsible for these fires, almost no discussion — yes, we hear about the Santa Ana winds, the fierce winds. We hear about the very dry weather. But, I mean, what one one-hundredth of an inch of rain since beginning of October, when it’s usually four-and-a-half to five inches? Can you talk about how climate change contributes to the catastrophe we’re seeing in your state?

LEAH STOKES: Absolutely, Amy. You really hit it on the nose there. Who is responsible? It’s fossil fuel companies and electric utilities, who lied about climate science for decades. And, you know, that’s why laws, for example, in Vermont and New York, where they’ve just passed these Superfund laws to basically hold big polluters accountable, to make them pay for these disasters. I can only imagine that California will be thinking about that, too.

We know that climate change is the main driver here. The fact is that L.A. County, more than 80% of it is under extreme drought. And we’re looking at the driest 20-year period in 1,200 years. And there have been papers, academic, scientific, peer-reviewed papers, that are almost 10 years old now, which showed that more than twice the amount of area is burning in California than would have otherwise because of climate change, and that climate change is the main driver of all of this dryness.

And the other thing that climate change is doing is it’s leading to more extreme precipitation in some times, and then more extreme dryness, right? And so, last year, last sort of wet season, there was an enormous amount of water that fell in Southern California. That led to a lot of new fuel being built up. You know, all the chaparral, the bushes, they grow. And then, the next year, which we’re in right now, the October period starts that rainy season. When no rain is falling, all of that new fuel it builds up, it dies. And then, when these massive hurricane-force winds hit during January and you have this period of dryness, that overlap of these extreme winds and that dry landscape, that parched drought landscape, that’s what creates this tinderbox situation. And in the past, you know, we wouldn’t have had this same overlap, where you would have had such extreme drought and these winds at the same time. And so, that’s what’s really creating such a dangerous situation for people.

AMY GOODMAN: And the Santa Ana winds, if you can explain more? Because, of course, they are well known, these fierce winds, but this, what is called — I mean, the media will talk about the perfect storm, but not the climate catastrophe and what it would mean to change the way we live.

LEAH STOKES: Yeah, you know, the ultimate driver here is climate change. There’s been a lot of reporting that, you know, people can do things to try to protect their homes, things like metal roofs or reducing the amount of vegetation that’s close to a building. But how are you supposed to do that in a hurricane-force wind when there are embers flying everywhere? You know, if one neighbor, the home lights on fire, that just creates a massive fuel source for all the other areas. There are things we can be doing in terms of urban planning, how closely we’re building these homes together and whether or not we’re building them in this wildland-urban interface, in places that are more likely to burn. But again, I don’t think it’s about blaming individual homeowners here or thinking that there is some magical solution for how we can harden infrastructure during red flag warnings, you know, where such extreme confluence of dryness and wind comes together. You know, we’re about to go into another one of those experiences just tonight in L.A. in Ventura County.

The fact is that the number one thing we have to do to really get at the root cause of this disease is to stop burning fossil fuels. And people have been saying that for decades, including Octavia Butler, who wrote that extremely prescient book, you know, that didn’t just talk about climate change, but also she had forecast that a fascist president came to power in her story on a slogan, a campaign slogan, of “Make America great again.” So, in these horrible disasters, people can turn away from facts and reality, and that can create even more danger. But what we really need to do is reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. We need to electrify all the buildings that we can, including our infrastructure, our transportation. And that will also make us safer next time. You know, when we’re building back these communities, we need to be building them back electric. And we need to be making sure that our infrastructure, like water pumping stations, have backup energy through things like battery and solar backups. That can make sure that we’re safer for the next fires.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let me ask you something, Professor Stokes. Governor Newsom has been saying, you know, I mean, when you consider the scale of the horror, they’re going to deregulate so people can build quickly. But what about the problem with this, deregulating what the requirements are? For example, Los Angeles County identified 70% of its burned areas this year as being in very high-risk zones. Do you think that development continuing in these areas is a problem, and the idea that everything has to be even more regulated, considering the causes of climate change?

LEAH STOKES: Yeah, it’s really tragic. You know, these communities go back decades, a century, and people have really long-term relationships with the landscape. But the fact is that the places where they were living, they’re becoming less and less safe. And what I can imagine might happen, given what happened in Santa Barbara and Montecito, you know, my community, after the Thomas Fire, is after this horrible monthslong fire that affected so many people, we then had half an inch of rainfall in five minutes in Montecito. And this is one of the richest ZIP codes in America. It led to horrible mudslides, which killed people, some, you know, lower-income, Hispanic communities, but also very, very wealthy people died in those mudslides. And that is what we will see if we have extreme rainfall, you know, in February and March on these hills that have been burned out, because there’s nothing to hold back — there’s no vegetation left. There’s no roots to hold back mudslides.

And so, I think that will cause some really hard questions about: Are these places where people really want to be building back, at that same density, with that same risk? I feel really terrible for the people who are going through this, especially lower-income communities who don’t necessarily have the resources to just up and move somewhere else, or who are living in these tight-knit communities that go back decades. And I think it’s really tragic. But we do have to be asking tough questions because of the climate crisis, because we have not stop burning fossil fuels, about where it is safer and less safe to be building back.

AMY GOODMAN: Leah Stokes, I want to thank you so much for being with us, associate professor of environmental politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, climate researcher. And I also want to thank Sonali Kolhatkar, the well-known TV and radio broadcaster, who does the show YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali.

Coming up next, we go to Gaza. We’ll speak with journalist Abubaker Abed.