Coastal Fire Shows Even the Rich ‘Are Not Safe From Earth Breakdown’

Coastal Fire Shows Even the Rich ‘Are Not Safe From Earth Breakdown’

 As a fast-moving brush fire near Laguna Beach, California destroyed well over a dozen homes on Thursday—including five multimillion-dollar mansions—a prominent environmental researcher and advocate warned that the wealthy are not immune from the disastrous effects of the climate emergency, even as the fossil fuel-driven crisis harms the poor disproportionately.
“No matter how rich you are, you are not safe from Earth breakdown,” tweeted Los Angeles-based climate scientist Peter Kalmus, a member of Scientist Rebellion.
Emphasizing that it is still May—months before the wildfire season typically reaches its peak—Kalmus said that “the only way out” of Southern California’s historic drought is to “fight side by side and to strip power away from the rich corporatists who are leading us deeper into catastrophe, even as their own homes burn.”