To the editor: As an environmental lawyer steeped within the fossil-fueled “climate whiplash” that unleashed the wildfires ripping via Los Angeles, I used to be nonetheless shocked to be packing up my household and cats to flee our Altadena residence Tuesday evening.
As I write this, my house is in danger, my household’s synagogue and youngsters’ elementary college have burned down, and plenty of associates have misplaced every part. My concern and grief are compounded by outrage on the failure to carry fossil-fuel polluters accountable for the devastation they’ve profited from inflicting.
At greater than $50 billion in estimated damages, the L.A. fires rank as one of many worst disasters in U.S. historical past. But, the oil firms that fueled the local weather chaos contributing to those fires get off scot-free.
One in every of my group’s prime priorities is a California local weather superfund invoice anticipated this legislative session. It could make company polluters pay a part of their large income to restore the injury they’ve triggered.
It’s time to take the multibillion-dollar local weather burden off Californians struggling catastrophic damages and put it on polluters, the place it belongs.
Maya Golden-Krasner, Altadena
The writer is deputy director of the Middle for Organic Range’s Local weather Regulation Institute.
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To the editor: The unprecedented fireplace emergency that has engulfed Los Angeles is a costume rehearsal for “the Large One” (earthquake) that can come in the end. Besides the Large One may even include collapsed buildings, mass casualties and near-total communications breakdowns (lifeless cellphones, no web and spotty or nonexistent TV and radio protection).
Take heed, people: The Large One will completely overwhelm first responders. You can be by yourself for days or perhaps weeks.
Right here’s my recommendation: Be a part of your native Neighborhood Emergency Response Workforce chapter. Get skilled on methods to struggle small fires, carry out gentle search and rescue, render first support and successfully talk with radios.
The cavalry received’t be coming that will help you instantly when the Large One hits.
Jon Rowe, Costa Mesa
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To the editor: We have already got an inadequate housing provide in Los Angeles. And now, hundreds of our neighbors have misplaced their houses in these catastrophic fires.
Native governments within the space ought to act instantly to finish all Airbnb-type short-term leases for vacationer guests and return these residences and homes to our housing market in order that the hearth victims may discover a place to reside of their residence metropolis and begin to decide up the items of their lives.
That is an emergency, and our elected leaders need to act now to offer housing to Angelenos of their time of want.
Kathy Reims, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Given the storm of fireside we’re experiencing within the Metropolis of Angels, when all of that is lastly over, the mayor and Metropolis Council ought to unanimously declare that day a municipal vacation, one which honors the extraordinary, historic efforts of our firefighters and first responders. They’re absolutely the angels of this technology’s Angelenos.
The day ought to be unforgettably marked with a citywide parade for our heroes, giving each one in every of us the chance to return out and cheer them with a unity and gratitude we didn’t know we had in us.
Moshe ben Asher and Khulda Bat Sarah, Encino
