Climate Scientist Peter Kalmus Fled L.A. Fearing Wildfires. His Old Neighborhood Is Now a Hellscape

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at the devastating fires in Los Angeles, where at least 10 people have died. More than 10,000 homes and offices have been damaged or destroyed. Entire neighborhoods have burned down. The death toll is expected to rise. More than 35,000 acres have already burned. The fires continue to burn due to high winds and dry conditions. The largest blaze, the Palisades fire, is just 6% contained. The Eaton fire near Pasadena remains 0% contained. Analysts project the costs of the fires may reach a record $150 billion. The climate-fueled fires come as scientists at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service have confirmed last year was by far the hottest year on record, with global temperatures exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times for the first time.

We’re joined now by Peter Kalmus, climate activist, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He’s speaking on his own behalf, not on behalf of NASA. He’s just written an opinion essay for The New York Times headlined “I’m a Climate Scientist. I Fled Los Angeles Two Years Ago.” He joins us now from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Peter, thanks so much for joining us today. Explain why you fled Los Angeles two years ago.

PETER KALMUS: Well, Amy, I just have to take a moment to — I don’t know what to say anymore. I’ll get to that in a second, but I just want to make sure — the reason I wrote the piece was because we have to acknowledge that this is caused by the fossil fuel industry, which has been lying for almost half a century, blocking action. They’re on the record saying that they will continue to spread disinformation and continue to attempt to block action. They’ve known the whole time that the planet would get hotter like this and that impacts like this fire would happen.

And then, something I really wanted — a point I really wanted to make in the piece, which they wouldn’t let me make, is that this is still just the beginning. It’s going to get way worse than this. Two years ago — well, 2020, when the Bobcat Fire happened, the whole time I was living in Altadena, it was getting hotter and more fiery and drier and smokier. And it just didn’t feel like I could stay there. Like, I could — you know, when you have a trendline, things getting worse every year — right? — like, where’s the point where something — where it breaks? You know, like, you keep going, keep pushing the system, getting hotter and hotter, getting drier and drier — right? — like, emitting more and more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, eventually things break. I didn’t expect my neighborhood to burn this soon.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what’s happened, Peter, in Altadena, in the town that you left.

PETER KALMUS: It’s complete devastation. I mean, your audience probably has seen some of the images. The neighborhood I lived is gone. I would say the majority of my friends have lost their homes there. Every now and then, there’s a home that’s still standing amidst the ashes and the devastation. I don’t even know what kind of rebuilding after this is going to look like and feel like. I don’t know how this is going to affect the housing market, the insurance industry going forward.

The thing, again, you know, I think everyone needs to understand, and I wish The New York Times would have let me make this point, that this is going to get worse. I can see that today just as clearly as I could see how hotter and drier and more fiery Los Angeles was getting. I mean, I think, in the future, if we don’t change course very quickly — and maybe it’s even too late to avoid some of these much more catastrophic impacts, but I am fully expecting heat waves to start appearing where 100,000 people die, and then maybe a million people die, and then maybe more after that, as things get hotter and hotter, because there’s no — there’s no upper limit, right? Like, we keep burning these fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry keeps lying. The planet just keeps getting hotter. These impacts just keep getting worse.

It’s not a new normal. A lot of climate messaging centers around this idea that it’s a new normal. It’s a staircase to a hotter, more hellish Earth. And, you know, a lot of climate impact predictions have erred on the side of least drama. It’s hard for even scientists to wrap our heads around how everything is changing right now on planet Earth. No matter where you look, the indicators — you know, when spring comes, how hot the winter is, habitats that are moving, ice that’s melting — everywhere you look in the Earth system, including, of course, ocean temperatures and land surface temperatures, you’re just on this trend towards a hotter planet and all of the impacts that are associated with it. And I don’t know what it’s going to take for us to stop all these stupid wars and come together and actually deal with the emergency that our planet is in the process of becoming less and less habitable and everything that means. We, humanity, we’ve got a real crisis here, and we’re ignoring it.

You know, another paragraph they took out of the piece, both the Democratic presidents, Obama, President Obama, and President Biden, they were very proud to expand fossil fuels. President Obama said, you know, “All that oil and gas expansion, that was me, people” — right? — right after he was done being president, at a lecture he gave at Rice University. And now, of course, we have a Republican president coming into office who says this is a hoax, who’s gaslighting the people who are following him. Like, I don’t know how long it’s going to take for conservative working-class people to believe what’s right in front of their eyes, that the planet is getting hotter, and that we have to come together and stop listening to these clowns who say it’s a hoax. I mean, look at — it’s all around us. Why do I have to be on Democracy Now! saying this? Right? It’s very obvious what’s happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Peter, we thank you for being with us. We’re so sorry about what’s happening there in your community and all over Los Angeles. And, of course, we’re talking about a heating world, so around the world. And we hope to have you on next week.

PETER KALMUS: My heart —

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus is a —

PETER KALMUS: My heart breaks for all the victims, too. It’s just — I can’t wrap my head around what’s happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, speaking on his own behalf, not on behalf of NASA. We will link to your piece in The New York Times, “I’m a Climate Scientist. I Fled Los Angeles Two Years Ago.” And just reading his last sentence of his op-ed, “Nothing will change 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 is the Santa Ana winds.” Peter Kalmus, the NASA scientist, has been arrested numerous times for his climate change activism.

Coming up next, consumer advocate, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the life and legacy of the late President Jimmy Carter. And then we’ll go internationally to his legacy in East Asia, as well as the Middle East. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Leonard Peltier’s Song” by Iriebellion. Many, at the end of Biden’s term, are calling for Leonard Peltier, the Native American leader, to be pardoned. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with another man that many are calling on to be pardoned.