It seems like everyone I’ve ever known— family, old school chums, ex-girlfriends, friends from my time living abroad, friend who worked with me at Warner Bros, political friends— has called, e-mailed or texted in the last couple of days to check up on me because of the L.A. fires. That’s so nice of people. Jean is someone I don’t know well. She was Sandy Pearlman’s tenant in Suffolk County, who I met once but corresponded with since Sandy passed away 8 years ago. I think this is the way this kind of correspondence should go:
But I’ve noticed something else— people wanting to make the disaster unfolding on screens nationwide, even worldwide, about themselves. I was with a friend the other night when, for no reason that I could understand, decided he had to evacuate. He packed his things and drove away. As he was packing and driving he called or texted everyone he knew— even a little— to tell them he was evacuating. In other words, making this horrible tragedy about him. Wow! That hit me like a ton of bricks. I guess he knows people want to savor a story.
Trump knows it too— which is why he lied and said homes were burning in Beverly Hills. Not a single home was burned or threatened in Beverly Hills. But among the MAGA base… they never heard of Pacific Palisades or Altadena. Every Hills they know. And, as always, Trump had to make this all about himself and politicize it. Yesterday, Greg Sargent noted that Trump’s hateful politicalization fits into the right’s broader project of degrading public life. Ever the asshole, Trump attacked Gavin Newsom with a vile slur, blamed the fires on him and President Biden, and even scapegoated environmental protections, which Newsom’s office dismissed as pure fiction. We think this is best seen as another example of how the MAGA right wing seeks to thoroughly degrade public life at every conceivable opportunity.
His guest, historian Nicole Hemmer, told him that “there is something that is a combination of the malignancy of Donald Trump himself, who is constantly seeking ways to be in the headlines, the media environment in which we live that really favors this outrage and negative emotion, and a conservative media ecosystem that takes that revved up let’s-make-everybody-angry dynamic and applies it directly to electoral politics. All those things come together in order to turn everything that happens into an opportunity for a fight and into an opportunity to make everyone feel worse than they already felt… It is an erosion that’s been happening over time. I really would root this in the 1990s when the lines between politics and entertainment began to erode, and also when Republican politicians really began to take their cues from right-wing media. I think about the suicide events, Vince Foster in 1993, and the conspiracy theories around his suicide, this idea that the Clintons had him murdered. This was extremely popular in right-wing media, but it very quickly jumps over into Republican politicians.”
Hemmer continued that “There are two ways that conservatives got to natural disasters as political opportunities. Certainly, it comes up through the religious right. Pat Robertson is saying that everything, from hurricanes to earthquakes to tornadoes, these are all God’s punishment. And even in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina happened, there was a pastor, John Hagee, who said, Well, have you been to New Orleans? You see the way that they are. You see what sinful people they are. God has sent this as punishment against them. So you have that history and that rhetoric. I also think that Hurricane Katrina is a really important moment here because Hurricane Katrina was badly mismanaged by the Bush administration. That was something that benefited Democrats, because Americans hated the way that Bush responded to Katrina, and Republicans took from that. Not that they should be better at responding to natural disasters, but that you could seize on a natural disaster to injure the Democrats... That is the ethos behind MAGA. You have to have somebody who you’re fighting against, somebody who you’re railing against… We put aside our differences, we come together, we recognize our common humanity, and we want to get back to that kind of feeling. And that is a danger to a divisive movement. People look at one another and they see that they’re not actually all that different, that they are devoted to a common project. That common project could just be keeping their communities safe and whole, and making sure people have a place to sleep and that they’re safe from the storm— and that is probably the biggest threat to the MAGA project. It’s why these moments have to be turned into moments of division.”
Philip Bump wrote in his column yesterday that “There’s no real question that climate change contributed to what’s happening in Los Angeles. Over the past two decades, though, climate change has gone from a peripheral concern of scientists to a global problem to an issue that’s viewed through the lens of political partisanship. Taking action to combat climate change enjoyed a brief moment of bipartisan support, a unity that collapsed as Republican politicians leaned into rhetoric (stoked by fossil fuel companies) that downplayed the risk and accused the left of seeking to restrict American freedom rather than carbon dioxide emissions. The result by this point is that any declaration that the various examples of climate-change-linked disasters as being climate-change-linked is seen as a left-wing talking point. So the right, across its mouthpiece television channels and social media bubble, lines up for partisan warfare.”
The wildfires in L.A. may or may not be a wakeup call— I guess not— but they are certainly not unique (except that they’re having more of an initial impact on rich people than poor people). We’d better start realizing that the planet is burning, seas are rising and people are dying— not in abstract numbers but in real, heartbreaking ways. S we just saw with Pacific Palisades, entire communities are being erased as part of the Climate Crisis that remains largely unaddressed because of corporate influence on corrupt government. These horrors are not accidents of nature; they are the deliberate consequences of decisions made by powerful individuals and corporations who knew the truth, lied about it and profited while the world suffered.
For decades, fossil fuel executives, their political enablers, and their media mouthpieces have knowingly obstructed action on the climate crisis. They didn't just deny the science; they weaponized it, running disinformation campaigns to sow doubt, manipulate the public, and paralyze governments. They leveraged their profits to buy politicians, kill regulations, and prolong their exploitation of the planet. The result? Millions of lives lost or displaced, and, clearly, a climate spiraling toward catastrophe.
These aren’t policy debates we’re talking about here. These are nothing less than crimes against humanity. The harm inflicted by climate denial dwarfs most atrocities in scale and consequence. And yet, the perpetrators remain untouched, comfortably insulated by their wealth and influence. It's time for that to change— and in a big way.
Justice demands more than fines or slaps on the wrist. It demands that these actions be treated with the gravity they deserve. Those who knowingly sacrificed the planet's future for short-term profit must face legal consequences on par with the enormity of their crimes. We need international tribunals akin to the Nuremberg Trials to hold these individuals accountable. The evidence is overwhelming: internal documents from oil companies prove they understood the devastating effects of their actions decades ago. Their deliberate choice to suppress the truth for profit makes them complicit in one of the greatest injustices in human history. These are crimes not only against the present but also against future generations who will inherit an unlivable world.
Justice also demands reparations. Fossil fuel billionaires and their accomplices should not only lose their freedom but also all their ill-gotten wealth. Every dollar they earned from sowing destruction must be seized and redirected to the communities and ecosystems they devastated. This is not punishment for its own sake; it is a necessary step toward healing and survival. They should be— at best— in prison and their families should be beggared— forced to live in tents under a bridge. And we must ensure that these crimes cannot be repeated. Laws must be enacted to criminalize climate denial and obstruction. Corporate lobbying that undermines environmental policies should be met with frighteningly severe penalties. Those who harm the planet for profit must be dealt with so harshly that no one would ever contemplate doing what they did. This isn’t radical; it’s rational. History shows us the dangers of appeasement. When crimes of this magnitude go unanswered, the perps only grow bolder. By holding climate criminals— including the politicians they bought— accountable, we send an unequivocal message: the future of humanity is not for sale.
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