It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Plastics industry used disinformation to lobby against ban on ‘forever chemicals’
The estimated cost of cleaning up 'forever chemical' pollution in the UK and Europe will be £1.6 trillion over 20 years
Chemical and plastic companies orchestrated a disinformation campaign to water down an EU proposal to ban so-called ‘forever chemicals’, a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project has revealed.
The cost of cleaning up forever chemical pollution could now reach more than £1.6 trillion across the UK and Europe over the next 20 years.
Furthermore, the UK Environment Agency has identified up to 10,000 high-risk sites in the UK that are contaminated with PFAs and the estimated costs of clean up will reach £9.9 billion a year.
Manufactured by a handful of companies, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of over 10,000 man-made chemicals that do not break down in the environment and can lead to health problems including liver damage, thyroid disease, fertility issues and cancer.
In February 2023, five European member states pressed the European Commission to impose a ban on toxic PFAS.
The research, carried out by 46 journalists and 18 experts from 16 countries, found that industry players have used misleading and scaremongering arguments to keep their “chemical business as usual”.
The Forever Lobbying Project described lobbyists’ tactics as “straight out of the corporate disinformation playbook” and similar to those used to defend the tobacco and fossil fuel industries.
Lobbyists used dubious scientific arguments, including claims that fluoropolymers are too large to harm cells and warned against the generalisation of all PFAs.
In lobbying documents, Plastics Europe and Fluoropolymer Product Group (FPG), which is lobbying for exemptions under the PFAs restriction, cited two industry-backed studies over 900 times.
Both studies were co-authored either by industry consultants or employees of fluoropolymer manufacturers.
Gary Fooks, a professor at the University of Bristol, who carried out a stress test on objections to the proposed PFAs ban, said: “The scale of corporate lobbying around the proposed PFAS restriction is extraordinary.
“It makes the work of other politically active industries, like Big Tobacco, look small-time in comparison”.
Wind-blown embers leap ahead of the fire front to start new “spot” fires. Under these conditions, it is impossible to stop or control a blaze. Photo George Wuerthner
The fires in Los Angeles are still burning as I write this. The loss of property, the disruption and loss of lives, and the trauma these fires created are horrendous.
Nevertheless, there are lessons we can learn to change fire policies to mitigate (not prevent) such tragedies in the future.
Wildfires are a natural part of many Western landscapes. Extreme weather and climate are responsible for all large blazes. In 2024, I wrote a piece called “It’s the Wind Stupid,” emphasizing how critical wind is to the creation of large, unstoppable wildfires. In LA, Santa Ana winds up to 100 miles per hour, fanned the flames, and cast embers miles ahead of the fire front. In just 24 hours, the Palisades Fire grew more than 15,000 acres. That’s several football fields a minute!
This graph shows the difference in fire spread caused by wind speed.
It’s important to note that increases in wind speed are not linear in how they affect fires. They are exponential. A 20-mph wind gust doesn’t double a 10-mph wind; it quadruples it.
Santa Ana winds have been stoking fires for millions of years. The difference is that we now have sprawl and entire cities on the fire pathway. These are urban fires ignited by wildfire. Once enough homes are ignited, traditional fire-fighting capacities are overwhelmed.
LESSONS FROM THE FIRES
An important lesson from the LA fires and others is that extreme weather conditions negate fuel reductions. State and federal agencies’ mantra about “reducing fuels” fails to recognize that high winds invalidate the effectiveness of logging, thinning, or prescribed burns. The wind blows embers over, around, and through such “fuel reductions.”
Chaparral is the most widespread vegetation type in California. The majority of the landscape burning in the LA fires consists of chaparral. Photo George Wuerthner
Some of the misguided folks that think fuels are always the problem continue to suggest that if only California had done more ‘prescribed burning” like they assert the Indians did and this could have prevented these blazes. First, tribal burns were fairly localized and did not influence vegetation at the landscape scale. However, the majority of the landscape burning in LA is chaparrel. Burning chaparral is not necessary or effective.
Chaparral is a shrub vegetation type that dominates southern California, and it infrequently burns but at high severity when it does. Fire suppression has had little effect on chaparral communities. Photo George Wuerthner
The natural fire regime in chaparral is typically 30-100 years between blazes. Burning it more frequently eradicates chaparrel species from the landscape, and replaces it with even more flammable grasses.
If you have vulnerable structures on the landscape, they will ignite. Embers land in gutters, roofs, and wooden decks or are pushed by high winds through unscreened vents to ignite homes.
Wind-driven fires are impossible to stop. Highway 101 did not stop the Thomas Fire, which charred the Santa Barbara area in 2017-2018. The only firebreak that held was the Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific Ocean was the only “fuel reduction” that prevented the Pacific Palisades’ blaze from continuing westward.
Furthermore, like those in Los Angeles, most acreage charred annually is in non-forested landscapes. The LA fires are burning through chaparral. Over the past few decades, many larger fires have been in grasslands or shrubs, not forests. Indeed, approximately 80% of destroyed buildings in the West were lost in grassland and shrubland fires.
Nearly 80% of the structures destroyed in the West occur in grassland-shrub ecosystems, not forests. Yet, federal agencies continue to emphasize forest logging and thinning projects as the solution for wildfire prevention. Wallowa Whitman NF, Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner
Yet federal and state agencies have continued to emphasize logging forests as if this will safeguard communities, which is delusional under extreme weather conditions but also doesn’t apply to many western landscapes.
This was a typical scene at Paradise, California, where the Camp Fire destroyed 19,000 structures, while green trees surrounding the buildings survived. Photo George Wuerthner
In the aftermath of the LA fires, like others, such as the Camp Fire that overran Paradise, California, you frequently see green trees surrounding the foundations of homes that were annihilated. This indicates that the fire front did not move through the area; instead, ember showers ignited homes.
This home burnt to the ground during the 2007 Grass Valley Fire near Lake Arrowhead. The presence of green trees surrounding this burnt out foundation demonstrates that the fire front never touched the home. Rather a wind-driven embers ignited the fire that destroyed this structure. Photo George Wuerthner
There is an explanation. Most homes are built of wood, drywall, and plastics that are more flammable and burn at lower temperatures than trees. These materials can burn completely, whereas most of a tree, even if burnt, remains as a snag because the boles have higher water content and resist combustion.
Wildfires generate a lot of radiant heat that can ignite a home even if a flame never touches it. Wooden walls can ignite, and materials like vinyl, common in windows, can melt and provide entry for embers into the home.
Due to the heavy metals, plastics, and other materials used in the construction of urban structures, in the aftermath of a blaze, the site is considered a toxic waste site that must be cleaned up before any reconstruction occurs. This adds significantly to rebuilding costs. Photo George Wuerthner
Once ignited, a burning building generates far more heat than the thermal pulse from wildfire. When you have homes nearby, there is a domino effect whereby one burning structure generates enough heat to ignite adjacent homes. This is why entire blocks can be turned to ashes.
Given that traditional measures like thinning the forest or prescribed burns are ineffective during extreme fire weather (and all large blazes only occur during extreme weather), how can communities protect themselves?
Humans are responsible for the majority of igntitions in California and much of the West. Rural sprawl has increased the likelihood of wildfire. Roads are pathways for flammable weeds and human ignitions. Powerlines strung through the landscape can also be a source of ignition if they are knocked over. Zoning to preclude such “human disasters” is one means of reducing wildfire. Photo George Wuerthner
First, land use zoning can limit construction in fire-prone areas where geographical features like canyons and ridges enhance fire spread. As homes spread into the hinterland, power lines knocked down by falling trees or wind events become a major ignition source. Hence, the less sprawl, the less chance there is for such ignitions.
A new logging road was created to “thin” or “log” the forest ostensively to reduce wildfire, even though roads are a major area for wildfire ignitions. Photo George Wuerthner
Second, most human ignitions (the majority of all fire starts) occur near roads. Road closures and not building roads into the hinterlands are potential defenses against fire starts.
Third, it’s critical to reduce flammable materials near homes. A wood pile adjacent to a house, a wooden fence, shrubs planted adjacent to the structure are all potential ignition points.
Annual clearance of debris like these pine needles is necessary to reduce the flammability of the home. Photo George Wuerthner
Fourth, working from the home outward reduce the flammability of the home itself. A metal roof or one made of a non-flammable material can withstand burning embers. Windows with vinyl frames easily melt from radiant heat and fall apart, allowing embers to enter the home. Construction with metal, brick, adobe, or other non-flammable materials can sometimes help a home to survive a blaze.
Additional measures, such as installing a rooftop sprinkler system, can save a house. A wet structure won’t burn.
However, even if you take all the right precautions to reduce your home’s flammability, if your neighbor does not, the heat from their burning home can ignite your structures. So, community-wide hazard reduction programs, such as restrictions on burning yard waste or periodic checks to make sure flammable materials are moved away from house foundations.
Here is a home that is highly flammable. Pine needles are on the roof, brush is growing right to the fence and building foundation, and tree branches overhang the roof. Modification of this home would be relatively inexpensive, and could significantly increase its ability to resist a wildfire. Photo George Wuerthner
The wake-up call of the LA fires is the recent announcement that 2024 was the warmest temperature across the planet in thousands of years. With increasing heat, drought, and high winds, we can expect more fires like those southern Californians are experiencing.
LA-based socialist Clare Fester say the fires are not a ‘natural disaster', but are fuelled by climate change—and cuts mean fire departments can't respond properly
LA wildfires have destroyed homes and killed 24 people
By Camilla Royle Monday 13 January 2025
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2938 As Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration as United States president, wildfires are ripping through Los Angeles. They are among the worst disasters the city has seen.
The fires have killed at least 24 people and many more have been seriously injured. There are multiple uncontrollable fires that have burned more than 40,000 acres in total. More than 12,000 homes and other buildings have been engulfed by flames and tens of thousands of people ordered to evacuate.
LA-based socialist Clare Fester, said, “This unfolding catastrophe is anything but a ‘natural’ disaster.
“Not only have climate scientists warned for decades about exactly this kind of destruction, the people in power have systematically undermined the social services necessary to get the fires like these under control.”
Many of the dead are older and disabled people who were not able to leave their homes. Victor Shaw, who was 66 years old, was found dead with a hose in his hand after telling his sister he wanted to try to save his home of 55 years.
“When I went back in and yelled out his name, he didn’t reply back, and I had to get out because the embers were so big and flying like a firestorm—I had to save myself,” his sister Shari said.
LA is known for property developments for the mega rich—alongside one of the highest rates of homelessness anywhere in the US. People living outside are especially at risk from choking on smoke caused by the wildfires.
Clare explained that the city’s mayor, Democrat Karen Bass, had made nearly £15 million worth of cuts to the LA Fire Department. The fire department warned that this would affect helicopter coordination and pilot training.
At the same time, funding for the Los Angeles Police Department has gone up—they need more money to support their violence. Much of the increase in their funding is for liability payouts, such as £15 million spent compensating the family of a disabled man murdered by an off duty cop.
The LAPD paid £10 million to a man left with a brain injury after a car crash—caused by a police detective running a red light. And nearly a third of those sent out to fight the fires are incarcerated people. Prison labour helps compensate for the shortage of funding in the fire service.
They do dangerous work on the frontlines with minimal training and for the equivalent of £2.40 a day.
The fires have been whipped up by the strong Santa Ana winds, which blow dry air from the desert towards California. But high temperatures due to climate change are also making fires like these a regular occurrence.
Clare said, “Mutual aid networks are doing stellar jobs taking care of evacuated people and providing essential services.
“But we need more than distribution systems for aid, we need a society run for the planet and the people who live on it, not the wealthy few who are hellbent on destroying it.” The wealthy buy protection and leave neighbours to burn
The Marxist writer Mike Davis showed in his 1998 book Ecology of Fear how the mega-rich of the City of Dreams had built their properties higher and higher into the mountains. The property development boom provided more fuel for the fires.
This time fires have reached the glamorous residents of the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood. Millionaire Keith Wasserman provoked outrage by offering in a post on X to pay “any amount” for private firefighters to protect his home.
Real estate developer Rick Caruso hired a fire engine and a dozen private firefighters as a preventative measure—while the state fire department struggled to contain the blaze.
One of them told the LA Times that he had a full time job for the Los Alamitos Fire Department but had contracted his services to Caruso while off duty. Some private firms are contracted by insurance companies. They increase class divisions by letting the rich hang on to their assets.
