In 2001, now-Mises Institute President Tom DiLorenzo wrote about California being a “La-La Land” where rolling electrical blackouts were reminiscent of what happens in Third World countries. While keeping the lights on is now a bit easier in the Bear Republic than it was two decades ago, the recent Los Angeles wildfires have exposed the follies of never-ending progressive governance there.
California voters ended the career of the governor responsible for the blackouts in the early 2000s, but since then the state has become a one-party entity where progressive Democrats dominate statewide elections despite the disasters they unleash, thus proving F.A. Hayek’s point made in The Road to Serfdom, that in politics, the “worst get on top.” Despite the huge amount of wealth created by businesses in the state, California still “enjoys” the nation’s highest poverty rate, thanks to its progressive governments, thanks to the state and local government policies that have pushed millions of people into destitution.
But the latest onslaught of wildfires has brought a political response that demonstrates just how detached California’s ruling class is from reality. Moreover, instead of discrediting their brand of progressive governance, these crises actually further empower California’s progressive politicians. For those that doubt the truthfulness of Robert Higgs’ theme in Crisis and Leviathan that government-caused crises further empower those failed government leaders, California provides proof.
While progressives claim that only “deniers” don’t see climate change as a doomsday challenge that can be fixed only by rejecting oil, gas, and coal energy, California progressivism has produced another kind of denialism: wildfire denial. This denialism comes in many forms, all of them destructive and all a product of the current political climate in the state. I will list and explain them below.
California wildfires are a new phenomenon: Anyone familiar with the history of the American West knows that it has a dry climate where wildfires have been common, especially in California. History.org notes:
The archaeological and ecological record in California reveals a long history of wildfires in the state of California. In a study looking at pre-1800 wildfires, almost 1.8 million hectares were estimated to burn annually in California. This is about the level that has burned as of early October 2020 in California. Scientists estimate that the summer and autumn seasons were often filled with smokey skies of burning forests. This could be because forest cover was generally more widespread in the past, resulting in larger fires. Fires were also seen as mostly healthy for forests, as newer growth would sprout more easily after fires.
The big difference between the historical wildfires and the modern ones is that a lot of people in California now live in fire-prone areas. The 2018 Camp Fire was so deadly because it destroyed most of the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. The recent LA fires are significant because they destroyed entire blocks of houses that were built close to “environmentally protected” areas. Because so many people live in those areas, we have more deaths from wildfires, which then brings them more attention.
Fire suppression policies generally began in the West following the infamous 1910 Big Burn, which consumed more than three million acres of timberland and killed 86 people. The US Forest Service played a major role in setting the new policy of immediate suppression of any new fires and blocking attempts by local farmers and ranchers to engage in controlled burns. (Not surprisingly, the Forest Service, led by Teddy Roosevelt appointee, Gifford Pinchot, appealed to “science” for its disastrous fire suppression policies.) Like so many other things progressives have done in the name of “science,” the actual results were the polar opposite of what was supposed to happen.
Because of fire suppression policies of the past (and present), wildfires in California have much more fuel than would have been the case had state and federal officials permitted common sense forestry practices. Even the New York Times admitted that past policies have been harmful:
But after generations of suppressing fire, many millions of acres of brush and tree fuels have built up, increasing the risk of large, dangerous wildfires.
Long before the Forest Service inflicted progressive policies upon western natural areas, the Indians had engaged in large-scale controlled burns to lessen the danger of conflagrations:
Before 1800, several million acres burned every year in California due to both Indigenous burning and lightning-caused fires, far more than even the worst wildfire years today. Tribes used low-grade fires to shape the landscape, encouraging certain plants to grow both for tribal use and to attract game.
Between the federal bureaucrats at the Forest Service and the California state bureaucrats, however, the state’s forests and wild areas have been poorly managed. Even today with all of the evidence that natural lands must have some human management, California’s regulators are reluctant to grant permits for burn management and brush clearance.
California authorities now are actively engaged in control burns and brush removal: In the wake of criticism from President Donald Trump about the state’s preventative measures, including controlled burns and brush removal, CNN declared that California authorities had undertaken major projects. However, as California journalist Steven Greenhut recently noted:
First, the Newsom administration has talked on occasion about the need to step up brush clearance to remove the tinder. True to form, he hasn’t done much about it other than earmark some dollars. The state clears maybe 125,000 acres of brush from its 19 million acres of forest (plus another 14 million that are federally owned). The state requires multiple lengthy approvals for forest-clearing projects and impedes property owners who want to fire-harden their homes.
Second, the state shrugs at its water problems. Water is only tangentially related to the fires, but had it built additional reservoirs to trap more water during storm years it might have kept the hydrants from running dry. The California Coastal Commission rejected a privately funded desalination plant in Orange County. Newsom continues to delay on water-infrastructure projects. His anti-fossil-fuel campaign makes it tough for water districts to get generator permits to help move water around.
In other words, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California officials give lip service to the kind of things that need to be done to prevent the huge loss of homes and lives. Yet, even though the evidence is piling up, California’s progressive government agencies still resist doing what must be done. Not surprisingly, they blame other people.
The oil companies are entirely to blame for these fires: Dave Jones, who was California’s insurance commissioner from 2011 to 2018, wrote in the New York Times that the nation’s oil and gas companies should foot the bill for damages and for rebuilding:
While much of the ire over the devastating fires is aimed at elected officials, there has been little attention given to the coal, oil and gas companies that have contributed substantially to the conditions fueling this and other climate disasters.
Major oil and gas companies have known for decades that burning their products could lead to “potentially catastrophic events,” like the higher temperatures and abnormally dry conditions that fed the fires still being battled in Los Angeles. Exxon scientists warned about this internally starting in the 1970s. Instead of disclosing these risks, big oil companies deliberately misled the public, policymakers and investors. According to a yearslong congressional investigation, even as these companies publicly pledged to meaningfully contribute to a transition away from fossil fuels, they were privately working to continue production for decades to come.
We should require these highly profitable companies to compensate communities, homeowners, businesses and even insurers for the losses. And while this might sound like a big lift, there are ways that states and local governments can start taking action today.
As if on cue, two San Francisco area legislators have introduced a bill claiming the oil companies “deceived” Americans as to the “dangers” of burning oil and gas, warming the planet, and causing fire damage. Even if average temperatures in California have slightly risen, however, the historical record demonstrates that the state has always been a place where wildfires (like earthquakes) occur often.
Of course, given the history of modern progressive governance in California, one would expect officials to be deflecting blame and trying to bankrupt the most important industry in California as the “magic bullet” needed to “fight” these inevitable fires. This latest move makes no sense economically, but it seems that the state’s politicians are up to the task of preserving the Bear Republic’s designation as La-La Land.
Unfortunately, there is little that intelligent and sane people can do in this situation. California’s politicians are not satisfied with their destructive handiwork and seek to find even more creative ways to destroy the state.
