Apenas unos días después del comienzo de 2025, el área de Los Ángeles ha sido envuelta por incendios sin precedentes. Entre una sequía amplia y vientos con fuerza de huracán, algunas áreas que nunca habían tenido que ser evacuadas debido a los incendios han quedado completamente destruidas, con más de 100,000 personas ordenadas a evacuar la zona hasta ahora.

2024 fue, una vez más, el año más caluroso de la historia. Las temperaturas globales promedio cruzaron un umbral importante en 2024: 1.5° C (2.7° F) más cálidas que los niveles preindustriales. Esta fue la temperatura máxima establecida como meta por el Acuerdo de París sobre el cambio climático, el umbral a partir del cual se espera que los efectos peligrosos del cambio climático se vuelvan comunes.

Pero estos incendios no son simplemente un desastre natural, y el cambio climático no es una condición natural – el sistema capitalista tiene toda la culpa. El cambio climático está siendo acelerado por los magnates de los combustibles fósiles, los industriales multimillonarios y los políticos que están en la cama con ellos que controlan la economía de los Estados Unidos, y para quienes la destrucción del medio ambiente no tiene importancia en comparación con sus ganancias. Están cubriendo los Estados Unidos con una red de oleoductos de combustibles fósiles. Un pequeño número de monopolistas utilizan su poder e influencia para bloquear la legislación progresista sobre el clima, sembrar confusión sobre la ciencia climática en los medios, y estrangular la vida de las iniciativas verdes. Mientras tanto, es la gente común de la clase trabajadora – desde Maui hasta Asheville y Los Ángeles – la que está pagando el precio y recogiendo los pedazos.

El presidente electo Trump, un negador del cambio climático, intentó culpar a las políticas ambientales del norte de California por la falta de agua en Los Ángeles. Pero, en realidad, Los Ángeles no recibe agua del norte de California; toda su agua proviene de aguas subterráneas, de fuentes locales o del río Colorado al este. Tanto los republicanos como los demócratas continúan gastando más de $1 billón de dólares al año en guerras pasadas, presentes y futuras a nivel federal, mientras que los gobiernos estatales y municipales no tienen más opción que recortar los servicios vitales, como la lucha contra incendios, debido a la falta de dinero.

Les dicen a los residentes que abandonen su hogar, pero no les ofrecen opciones sobre adónde ir, y tienen pocos recursos para ayudar en su evacuación. Mientras tanto, cientos de personas encarceladas están arriesgando sus vidas en la primera línea de los incendios. Estas personas reciben alrededor de un dólar por hora por este trabajo agotador – y cuando son liberadas, sus antecedentes penales pueden impedirles acceso a carreras en la lucha contra incendios.

Mientras tanto, países socialistas como Cuba y China muestran un mejor modelo para combatir el cambio climático. Desde sus crecientes inversiones en tecnologías renovables y opciones de transporte público verde, hasta la priorización de la gente en la respuesta a los desastres naturales cuando ocurren. Podemos ver que el socialismo, sin la necesidad insaciable de ganancias a cualquier costo del capitalismo, es la única manera de salir de la crisis climática.

Necesitamos construir un movimiento contra el cambio climático que pueda combatir directamente las mentiras y el engaño de las industrias de los combustibles fósiles – industrias que todavía reciben subsidios gubernamentales. Necesitamos señalar la conexión entre el cambio climático y un complejo militar-industrial que frecuentemente está exento de la regulación ambiental. Y necesitamos que los pueblos trabajadores y oprimidos se unan y vean la lucha climática como parte de la lucha de la clase trabajadora por el poder en los Estados Unidos. ¡Construyamos un movimiento de lucha por la justicia climática que tome a las calles!

¡No a nuevos oleoductos!

¡La gente y el planeta sobre las ganancias!

#Environment #Climate #Wildfires #FRSO #OSCL #Statement #es

Just days into 2025, the Los Angeles area has been engulfed by record-breaking wildfires. Amidst widespread drought and hurricane-force winds, some areas which have never once needed to evacuate due to fires have been completely destroyed, with over a 100,000 people ordered to evacuate the area so far.

2024 was, yet again, the hottest year in history. Global average temperatures crossed an important threshold in 2024: 1.5° C (2.7° F) warmer than pre-industrial levels. This was the maximum temperature set as goal by the Paris Climate Accords, the threshold after which dangerous effects of climate change are expected to become commonplace.

But these fires are not simply a natural disaster, and climate change is not a natural condition – the capitalist system is to blame. Climate change is being accelerated by fossil fuel tycoons, billionaire industrialists and the politicians in bed with them who command the United States’ economy, and for whom the destruction of the environment is of no importance compared to their profits. They are covering the U.S with a web of fossil fuel pipelines. A tiny number of monopolists use their power and influence to block progressive climate legislation, sow confusion about climate science in the media, and strangle the life out of green initiatives. Meanwhile, it is everyday working-class people – from Maui, to Asheville, to Los Angeles – who are paying the price and picking up the pieces.

President-elect Trump, a climate change denier, tried to blame northern California environmental policies for the lack of water in Los Angeles. But in fact, Los Angeles gets no water from northern California; all of their water is groundwater, local sources, or the Colorado River to their east. Both Republicans and Democrats continue to spend more than $1 trillion a year on past, present, and future wars at the federal level, while state and local governments are forced to cut needed services, such as firefighting, due to lack of money.

Residents are told to leave their home but not given any options on where to go, and few resources to aid their evacuation. All the while, hundreds of incarcerated individuals are risking their lives on the front lines of the fires. These individuals are being paid about a dollar an hour for this grueling work – and when they are released, their criminal records can bar from careers in firefighting

Meanwhile, socialist countries like Cuba and China show a better model for combating climate change. From their increasing investments in renewable technologies and green public transport options, to prioritizing people in responding to natural disasters as they happen. We can see that socialism, without capitalism’s insatiable need for profit at any cost, is the only way out of the climate crisis.

We need to build a movement against climate change that can directly combat the lies and deceit of the fossil fuel industries – industries that still receive government subsidies. We need to point out the connection between climate change and a military industrial complex that is often exempt from environmental regulation. And we need working and oppressed peoples to unite and see the climate struggle as part of the working class struggle for power in the United States. Let’s build a fighting climate justice movement that takes to the streets!

No new pipelines!

People and the planet over profits!

#Environment #LosAngelesCA #CA #Wildfires #Climate #FRSO #Statement

Los Angeles, CA – Major ongoing brush fires have burned land and structures in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena and Sylmar. The wildfires have affected the air quality of Los Angeles County. Some towns and neighborhoods have lost power and internet, and the working people of the city are being impacted as the fires rage on.

As of Tuesday, January 7, brush fires started to appear around Los Angeles County, fanned by the Santa Ana high winds. So far, the fires have burned over 15,000 acres and 1000 structures in the Pacific Palisades. The Eaton fire near Altadena has burned down over 10,000 acres, while the Hurst fire near Sylmar has burned about 500 acres.

Five have been killed in the fires and several have suffered injuries due to the fires. Over 80,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes. The air quality currently has a level of 163 AQI which is considered unhealthy. In Lincoln Heights and in El Sereno, the traffic lights don't work. Interstate Highway 5 heading south and Interstate 110 south are jammed with traffic, making the roads unsafe. Dozens of public schools in the Los Angeles area have also closed due to hazardous smoke and ash.

The fires and the smoke filling out the sky in LA are affecting the working-class people who live in the city and worry about their safety. Hannah Keith, a shop steward and preloader working at the UPS Olympic Hub facility in downtown Los Angeles said, “UPS is forcing inside employees like me to work in terrible conditions in poorly ventilated buildings. The fires fill our work areas so much with smoke we can’t breathe. It highlights how much they really don’t care about our health and safety and how the company will stop at nothing to profit off our lives.”

This sentiment echoes reaction to event five years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine were in effect while many workers were forced to work with little to no hazard pay.

“I got up this morning and my four-year-old daughter asked me, ‘Papa, why is the sky orange?’” says UPS driver and Teamster Jared Hamil. “I had to break it down for her why fires and smoke affect the sky, without sounding scary. In reality it is scary. As climate change happens, we’re going to see more freak windstorms, wildfires, more frequent and stronger hurricanes, and natural disasters. But who is most affected by these occurrences? The working class. We are the ones who have to work under these hazardous conditions. We go home after spending an overtime shift with ash in our eyes and breathing in smoke all day.”

As of now the fires are 0% contained, the quality of the air is hazardous, and there are currently 1.5 million people who have no power or have been affected by blackouts.

#LosAngelesCA #Environment #Wildfires

Los Angeles, CA – Fires in Los Angeles caught many neighborhoods completely off guard, despite forecasts predicting life threatening winds reaching up to 100 mph in the mountain and valley areas. Late at night on Tuesday, January 7, residents watched flames engulf the Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon. Many residents within the city lost power and internet service, and power lines and traffic lights collapsed as wind gusts grew intense.

In the morning of January 8, residents in all of LA awoke to ash covering vehicles, homes, streets and buildings. The intense stench of smoke filled the air and turned the sunrise sky a deep orange. Still, no alert went out to Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) students about school closures. So, the bus drivers picked the students up and took them to school.

“The district was slow to act!” said Luis Sifuentes, an LAUSD school bus driver, “My eyes stung in the morning as I checked out my bus. Students arrived at school in the morning only for them to be in the auditorium until parents came and picked them up. It was a chaotic situation; they should’ve shut down the schools when the fires started.”

It wasn’t until about 10 a.m. that schoolteachers were notified that parents should pick up their students immediately from school. Panic set in and parents rushed to pick up their children.

“I actually didn’t send them to school at all,” says Jazmine Moreno, single mother of two LAUSD students. “I knew since this morning that it was going to end up happening this way. LAUSD is notorious for trying to push for a regular school day and then deciding halfway through the day that they want to dismiss the kids. They have no consideration for the health or wellbeing of the students or single, working parents who would have to leave work to pick kids up at the drop of a dime.”

LAUSD has notified parents that schools will remain closed for all of January 9 and to continue checking the school alerts for when classes will resume.

The fires have caused over 27,000 acres of devastation, over 70,000 to vacate and abandon their homes, and five known casualties. Fire departments from all over California and other states have trekked to southern California, in an attempt to help contain the wildfires. Unfortunately, 0% have been contained.

#LosAngelesLA #LA #PeoplesStruggles #Environment #Wildfires #Feature

Freedom Road Socialist Organization stands with working people on the West Coast who are threatened by the massive wildfires that have taken scores of lives. Dozens more are missing and feared dead and thousands of homes were destroyed. We encourage FRSO members in California, Oregon and Washington to assist in whatever way possible in efforts that ensure the safety of your neighbors and contribute to pro-people recovery efforts. It is important to combat the fear mongering around the fires that is happening in the service of a cynical right-wing political agenda.

There is nothing natural about the disaster that is engulfing the West Coast, it is the product of climate change, which in turn has been created by capitalism. A decade of hotter and drier summers, lower levels of winter precipitation and rapid spring melt outs has created fuel for the fires. Large, extremely hot fires are in turn reshaping the ecosystems that they ravage. In some areas even jack pine seeds, which normally thrive on fire, are being killed by the intensity of the infernos. In some places, what was once a forest is being replaced by grassland. That means that the trees that are so necessary to clean carbon dioxide from the air will not be coming back, leaving more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to fuel warming.

Big business, in particular the fossil fuel industry, have economic interest in blunting measures that would slow or roll back climate change. Capitalism rewards a greedy few and encourages short-term thinking in order to maximize profits today. The result is a world that is growing hotter, has more extreme weather events, and is posing an existential threat to life as we know it and possibly even to humanity.

In the White House, the main political representative of monopoly capitalism is steadfast in his opposition to science, and blabbers about “raking the forest.” That kind of ridiculous commentary and denial of science is not funny when whole towns are being burned to the ground.

Every progressive person should support government assistance to help the people of the West Coast battle this disaster and rebuild their lives. The wealthy that run this country have plenty of money; they can be taxed and made to pay for this crisis.

Our movements need to insist that the government needs to get serious about addressing climate change. Trump has no intention of doing that and that is one of the many reasons he needs to go. That said, we will need to stay in the streets no matter who is elected to force a serious battle against climate change.

Capitalism is a failed system. It is destroying our planet for the profits of a few. There is no hope to stop climate change in the context of the chaotic market-driven forces of capitalism. The sooner the powerful and privileged are overthrown, and socialism – a system where everything is done to improve people’s lives – replaces it, the better it will be.

#WestCoast #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #Capitalism #EnvironmentalJustice #Washington #California #Oregon #WildFires