{"id":4969,"date":"2023-08-17T14:55:13","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T19:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/?p=4969"},"modified":"2023-08-17T14:55:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T19:55:13","slug":"deadly-hawaii-fires-are-result-of-political-and-policy-failures-not-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/?p=4969","title":{"rendered":"Deadly Hawaii Fires Are Result of Political and Policy Failures\u2014Not Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20370%20247'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-86.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"zeen-lazy-load-base zeen-lazy-load wp-image-4970\"\/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"452\" src=\"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-86.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4970\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-86.png 696w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-86-300x195.png 300w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-86-293x190.png 293w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-86-390x253.png 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hawaii has suffered through one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent American history.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Predictably, the left-wing political and media narrative-making machine has sought to turn the Hawaii fires into another lesson about climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The facts draw a drastically different picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The extent of the damage on the island of Maui isn\u2019t fully known yet, but it looks horrific. As of this writing, the death toll stands at 99. It\u2019s the<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/maui-wildfire-now-ranks-deadliest-us-history\/story?id=102249625\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;fifth-deadliest fire<\/a>&nbsp;in American history and the deadliest in a century. Property-<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/10\/us\/maui-wildfires-hawaii.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">damage dollar estimates<\/a>&nbsp;have been estimated at just under $6 billion, but they will likely rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The oceanside town of Lahaina appears to have been completely devastated, much like how several California towns were<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2018\/11\/13\/trump-is-right-poor-land-management-is-leading-to-bigger-california-fires\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;devastated by fires<\/a>&nbsp;in 2018 and 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As with all disasters\u2014man-made or natural\u2014the Left never lets a crisis go to waste. In this case, you guessed it, the message from Democrats and their media allies is that the fires are a result of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think that we very much need to acknowledge that climate change is upon us,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/mazie-hirono-blames-maui-fire-on-climate-change-there-are-whole-states-where-you-cant-talk-about-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;Sen. Mazie Hirono,&nbsp;<\/a>D-Hawaii, said in a Sunday interview with CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper. \u201cThere are whole states, by the way, Jake, where you can\u2019t even use the words \u2018climate change\u2019 because they still have a head-in-the-sand attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kaniela Ing, a native Hawaiian and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/8\/11\/maui_fires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;national director of the Green New Deal<\/a>&nbsp;Network, of course leaned hard into that same message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnyone in power who denies climate change, to me, are the arsonists here,\u201d Ing said. \u201cWe\u2019re living the climate emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, said that it was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/hawaii-gov-josh-green-says-very-real-global-warming-caused-conditions-deadly-wildfire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;\u201cvery real\u201d climate change<\/a>&nbsp;that caused the conditions for the fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amazingly, President&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/tag\/joe-biden\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Joe Biden&nbsp;<\/a>has said almost nothing about the fire. When asked by a Bloomberg reporter what he thought of the situation in Hawaii, Biden<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/hawaii-democrat-says-bidens-no-comment-wildfires-shocking-i-expect-more\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;said only, \u201cNo comment.\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;Apparently, he is on vacation again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But since Biden\u2019s a Democrat, he won\u2019t be<a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2005\/09\/how-race-shaped-bush-s-response-to-katrina.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;called a racist<\/a>&nbsp;for his callousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This may come as a shock, but members of the far-left \u201cSquad\u201d in Congress want to use this moment to declare a \u201cclimate emergency\u201d so they can start imposing their will on the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But is there any truth to those claims?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reality is that the increased prevalence of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2021\/08\/24\/california-and-the-west-burn-again\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;huge, destructive fires<\/a>&nbsp;has been largely the product of poor forest management. In the U.S. and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2023\/06\/08\/lesson-from-canadian-fires-we-need-better-forest-management-not-utopian-fantasies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;Canada<\/a>, a combination of environmentalism, general neglect, and government incompetence has put many regions in an increased state of fire danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fires are going to happen. Huge, towering infernos that engulf whole regions are much more preventable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Elise McCue wrote in an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2023\/08\/11\/climate-activists-warm-up-as-wildfires-burn-in-hawaii\/\">excel<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2023\/08\/11\/climate-activists-warm-up-as-wildfires-burn-in-hawaii\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lent report&nbsp;<\/a>for The Daily Signal, Maui has been at high risk for big fires due to many factors. The disappearance of Hawaii\u2019s sugar cane and agricultural industry is a big one. Many former sugar cane fields have been taken over by large stretches of dry, flammable grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Anthony Watts, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/why-maui-wildfires-hawaii-devastating-84651f12?&amp;mod=article_inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;topography of Maui<\/a>&nbsp;creates particularly dry conditions on large parts of the island and high winds. So, you have an enormous amount of fuel and dry conditions in a region that\u2014global warming or not\u2014gets quite hot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was a tinderbox\u2014and a huge catastrophe waiting to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s infuriating in the case of Hawaii is that state officials had been warned about this problem for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn 2014, a wildfire-protection plan for the area was written by the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a nonprofit that works with government agencies,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/hawaii-maui-fire-risks-plans-government-e883f3a3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;according to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>. \u201cIt warned that Lahaina was among Maui\u2019s most fire-prone areas because of its proximity to parched grasslands, steep terrain and frequent winds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the Journal, the plan\u2014which included state officials\u2014laid out clear measures to protect Lahaina from fire. It recommended \u201cthinning vegetation near populated areas, improving wildfire-response capabilities, and working with landowners and utilities to help reduce fire risk on their property.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These recommendations were more than reasonable, but they appear to have been half-completed, at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s important to note that Hawaii has been<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hawaii-cesspools-corruption-lawmaker-bribes-cullen-f5f3cf6817b4bb08dee736c974c91f78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;beset by public corruption<\/a>&nbsp;for a long time, and there are plenty of signs that the state wasn\u2019t exactly prepared to meet the challenge of a predictable big fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2018,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaiinewsnow.com\/2023\/01\/13\/its-been-5-years-since-hawaiis-false-missile-alert-that-caused-panic-statewide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;a missile alert went out<\/a>&nbsp;to residents of the state that said, \u201cBALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It created a panic on the island and made national news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One man was blamed for<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/01\/30\/us\/hawaii-false-alarm-investigation\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;the incident and fired<\/a>. But now it seems like there might have been a bigger issue than just a single government worker not doing his job correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Five years later and the warning sirens that were supposed to alert residents of Lahaina about the fire<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/live-blog\/maui-fires-live-updates-lahaina-rcna99396\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;never went off<\/a>. Instead, the warning system \u201crelied on a series of sometimes confusing social media posts,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/deadly-maui-wildfires-communication-failed-chaos-overtook-lahaina-102218399\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;according to The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSome survivors have reported receiving no warning messages before the fire reached them, while others said messages appeared and then disappeared from their mobile phones, and they couldn\u2019t find instructions,\u201d The Wall Street Journal reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just as with the fake missile alert, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency oversaw the fire emergency system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNobody at the state and nobody at the county attempted to activate those sirens based on our records,\u201d Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/08\/12\/us\/hawaii-emergency-warning-system-maui-wildfires\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;Adam Weintraub acknowledged<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What exactly went wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The answer so far has been that the fires were burning too fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was largely a function of how fast the flames were moving,\u201d Weintraub said, referring to the failure of emergency management officials to trigger the sirens. \u201cThey were trying to coordinate response on the ground, and they had already issued these other alert systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn\u2019t exactly a satisfying answer for why a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/hawaii-emergency-siren-warning-system-maui-wildfires\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;massively expensive alert system<\/a>&nbsp;designed to warn residents of a huge fire or other emergency completely failed in a serious emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It seems the problems in Hawaii have little to do with climate change and a whole lot more to do with human error and bad policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A responsible national and local press would be digging more into those issues than leaning into the usual climate change propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Original Article: <a href=\"https:\/\/heartlanddailynews.com\/2023\/08\/deadly-hawaii-fires-are-result-of-political-and-policy-failures-not-climate-change\/\">https:\/\/heartlanddailynews.com\/2023\/08\/deadly-hawaii-fires-are-result-of-political-and-policy-failures-not-climate-change\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hawaii has suffered through one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent American history. Predictably, the left-wing political and media narrative-making machine has sought to turn the Hawaii fires into another lesson about climate change. The facts draw a drastically different picture. The extent of the damage on the island of Maui isn\u2019t fully known yet, but it looks horrific. As of this writing, the death toll stands at 99. It\u2019s the&nbsp;fifth-deadliest fire&nbsp;in American history and the deadliest in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-woke-agenda"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4971,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions\/4971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}