Woke governance, not climate change, caused the California wildfires

Trump Derangement Syndrome is such that, even before the US president-elect is sworn into office, the California wildfires was his fault. For some reason. And for some reason, that included the fact that the California wildfires is because of climate change.

So the fact-checkers, not the most intelligent people ever, all uniformly blamed Trump for politicizing the tragedy, while simultaneously urging people to believe that the fires — a regular occurrence in California — were caused by climate change. CNN in one recent broadcast even expressed disappointment that Google searches on wildfires went up 2,400% but searches on climate change went down 9%, thus — as the CNN hosts ruefully said — people are not wont to connect the wildfires to climate change.

The people are right.

Wildfires have been happening since time immemorial. And as far as the climate goes, “a study by MIT researchers in Science Advances confirms that the planet harbors a ‘stabilizing feedback’ mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to pull the climate back from the brink, keeping global temperatures within a steady, habitable range.”

Thus, “‘we know that today’s global warming will eventually be canceled out through this stabilizing feedback,’ says Constantin Arnscheidt, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.” (“Earth can regulate its own temperature over millennia, new study finds,” MIT News, November 2022; see also “Scientists have captured Earth’s climate over the last 485 million years. Here’s the surprising place we stand now,” Washington Post, September 2024, which pointed out that: “Even under the worst-case scenarios, human-caused warming will not push the Earth beyond the bounds of habitability.”)

As for charges that conservatives, particularly Trump, has politicized the fires, it has to be remembered that Trump has been warning California Governor Gavin Newsom for years:

“‘The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must ‘clean’ his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers’, the former and upcoming president posted to X in 2019.”

And then, “just roughly two weeks before Trump will be inaugurated as the nation’s 47th president, he again took aim at Newsom’s wildfire prevention leadership in the state, pinning blame for the LA County fires on Newsom and his environmental policies.” (“Trump repeatedly warned Gov. Newsom about ‘terrible’ wildfire prevention in wake of deadly Palisades fire,” Fox News, January 2025).

No. It’s not climate change that caused the wildfires or what gave it its present ferocity. It’s bad governance:

“Though the cause of the current blaze has yet to be established, commentators are already making familiar claims that climate change is igniting more wildfires in California — a thesis with no basis in fact. Some state and local officials even argue that high winds themselves caused the wildfires. Not so: Wind, by itself, doesn’t create sparks that trigger wildfires, though it certainly worsens them once they’ve started, as is happening here.

“The most common causes of recent wildfires in the Golden State have been human activities (including arson) and poorly maintained power lines, such as those belonging to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which caused the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people.

“Another likely culprit: bad forest management.” (“Bad Leaders — Not Climate Change — Are the Reason the LA Fires Are Burning California,” Manhattan Institute, January 2025).

That would include Gavin Newsom’s utter incompetence, diverting water flows to support endangered delta smelt (a species of small fish), thus lowering water supply for fire hydrants and others needed for firefighting.1 Terminating the jobs of hundreds of firefighters for refusing to take the COVID vaccines obviously didn’t help as well.2

The prioritization by Kristin Crowley, LA’s fire chief, of DIE (diversity, inclusion, and equity) rather than competent firefighting hiring, training, and policies, plus the incompetence of Karen Bass, LA’s Democrat mayor, who was on a trip to Ghana while the fires raged, all fueled the tragedy (“Trump blames Democrats for protecting ‘useless fish’ over water for LA fires,” The Telegraph, January 2025).

A Daily Caller report even found that LA spent money on “trans cafes and social justice art” while substantially slashing its firefighting budget.3

Ultimately, it’s incompetence and woke progressive hubris that did California in. Comedian Nikki Glaser noted that the recent the Golden Globes acceptance speeches were “on fire” and then declared that almost everybody got thanked but “God, Creator of the universe” had “zero mentions.” She joked that the absence of God from acceptance speeches is “no surprise in this Godless town.”

Which leads then to the liberal or progressive complaint that finger-pointing at this time is inappropriate. But such is not true. If the problem cannot be identified, then how can an effective solution be reached so as to prevent a similar tragedy in the future?

To point out therefore that the California fires were caused by DEI hires’ incompetence, environmentalist’s prioritizing small fishes, the job termination of hundreds of competent firefighters due to their valid refusal to be vaccinated, is not inappropriate gloating.

It is expressing the fact that actions have consequences, that good intentions are nothing if not hinged on reality and rooted in competence, all the foregoing so as to hopefully avoid similar mistakes being made in the future.

Finally, to NOT point out that blasphemy could be connected to the California fires is actually irresponsible. Blasphemy accepted by a population signals hubris, which in turn leads to bad governance, and bad governance is simply what California has by the buttload.

So yes, we should, we must, continue to point out the disastrous effect of woke policies. Because what else is there to do? Emergency powers are with the elected and appointed officials of California. Nobody competent — Trump, Musk, DeSantis, etc. — has the power to intervene.

One can donate money or even efforts for California but with those donations essentially at the mercy of California’s incompetent officials, even such well-meaning gestures become futile.

The views expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of the institutions to which he belongs.

1 Trump Says Newsom’s ‘Refusal’ To Sign ‘Water Restoration Declaration’ Led to Shortage in LA Fires | Snopes.com

2 LA City Council ends COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city workers; fired workers say decision comes too late — ABC7 Los Angeles

3 Rumors About LA Fire Department Budget Cuts Are Missing Context | Snopes.com

Jemy Gatdula is the dean of the Institute of Law of the University of Asia and the Pacific and is a Philippine Judicial Academy lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.