"Too much of the coverage has simply ignored the climate crisis altogether, an inexcusable failure when the scientific link between such megafires and a hotter, dryer planet is unequivocal," wrote the founders of Covering Climate Now.
An aerial view of repair vehicles at sunset passing near beachfront homes that burned in the Palisades Fire on January 15, 2025 in Malibu, California.
(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Eloise Goldsmith
Jan 16, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Covering the who, what, when, where, and why is journalism 101. So why are too few media outlets explaining the role that the climate crisis plays in the "why" behind the fires ravaging the Los Angeles region?
That's the central question posed in an opinion piece published in The Guardian and elsewhere on Thursday authored by Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope, the founders of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of over 500 news outlets aimed at improving climate coverage, of which Common Dreams is a part.
Hertsgaard and Pope wrote that "too much of the coverage has simply ignored the climate crisis altogether, an inexcusable failure when the scientific link between such megafires and a hotter, dryer planet is unequivocal."
They added: "Too many stories have framed the fires as a political spat between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and California elected officials instead of a horrifying preview of what lies ahead if humans don't rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Too often, bad-faith disinformation has been repeated instead of debunked."
Misinformation, in many instances stemming from right-leaning sources, have proliferated since the blazes broke out last week. Trump in a social media post appeared to point the finger at California's statewide water management plans for fire hydrants running dry as firefighters fought the blazes last week. Southern California does have plenty water stored, but the city's infrastructure was not designed to respond to a fire as the large as the ones that broke out, experts toldPBS. Another user on the platform X falsely claimed that California turned away fire trucks from Oregon because of their emission levels, according to KQED.
Hertsgaard and Pope also called for outlets to name names. "Rarely have stories named the ultimate authors of this disaster: ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other fossil fuel companies that have made gargantuan amounts of money even as they knowingly lied about their products dangerously overheating the planet," they wrote.
While the fires are still burning, researchers are already drawing the links between climate change and the blazes. In a thread on Bluesky, the climate scientist Daniel Swain explained the concept of climate "hydroclimate whiplash"—which southern California experienced in 2024—and how this can create ideal conditions for fires to spread.
The authors of the opinion piece noted that there have been bright spots when it comes to covering the fires with an eye toward the climate emergency and debunking false and misleading claims about the fires. The duo highlight a Timestory that is titled "The LA fires show the reality of living in a world with 1.5C of warming" and a column written by the Los Angeles Times' Sammy Roth, which began: "Los Angeles is burning. Fossil fuel companies laid the kindling."
Hertsgaard and Pope wrote, "When a house is on fire, by all means let journalism show us the flames."
"But tell us why the house is burning, too," they added.
How Big Oil Lobbied Its Way Out of Accountability for the LA Fires
"Accountability is an existential threat to their business model, and their business model is an existential threat to all of us, and that’s the bottom line," said Meghan Sahli-Wells, the former mayor of Culver City.
The death toll has risen to 25, according to the Los Angeles medical examiners in Los Angeles, California, United States on January 14, 2025. The latest victim, the 25th, died in the Eaton Fire, which has already claimed 17 lives.
(Photo: Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Eloise Goldsmith
Jan 15, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
As devastating wildfires continue to burn in the Los Angeles region on Wednesday—placing tens of thousand of Californians under evacuation orders and causing over $250 billion in economic damages by one estimate—a pair of new reports highlight how fossil fuel companies have dodged responsibility for their role in the destruction and hampered the state's ability to fight back by depriving it of funds.
Two new reports highlight how fossil fuel companies hampered the state's ability to fight back by depriving it of funds.
California's fossil fuel industry deployed lobbying muscle to kill legislation that would compel polluters to pay into a fund that would help prevent disasters and aid cleanup efforts, and has taken advantage of a tax loophole to deprives the state of corporate tax revenue, thereby "putting climate and social programs in peril." In the case of the former, California's biggest fossil fuel trade group, the Western States Petroleum Association, recently launched a digital campaign that appears aimed at throwing cold water on any such legislative efforts.
According to The Guardian, the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act of 2024 appeared on 76% of the 74 lobby filings submitted in 2024 by the oil company Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association.
The legislation—which didn't make it out of the state senate in 2024—would, if enacted, create a recovery program forcing fossil fuel polluters to pay their "fair share of the damage caused by the sale of their products" during the period of 2000 to 2020, according to the nonprofit newsroom CalMatters.
According to The Guardian, the filings from those two firms that included this specific bill totaled over $30 million—though lobbying laws do not require a breakdown that would make clear how much was spent specifically on the "polluter pay" law.
With Los Angeles burning, there's renewed interest in passing the bill, The Guardian reports, citing supporters of the legislation. But Western States Petroleum Association isn't sitting idly by. On January 8, the group launched ads that suggest measures like the "polluter pay" bill would force them to increase oil prices. The ads, which appear to have been taken down, do "not specifically mention the polluter pay bill, it echoes the 2024 campaign that did," wrote The Guardian.
"Accountability is an existential threat to their business model, and their business model is an existential threat to all of us, and that’s the bottom line," said Meghan Sahli-Wells, the former mayor of Culver City who currently works for the environmental advocacy group Elected Officials To Protect America, told the paper.
Meanwhile, another report from The Climate Center—a think tank and "do-tank" focused on curbing pollution—has thrust a tax loophole long used by multinational oil and gas companies, into the spotlight.
The report released last week details how "years of litigation and lobbying by oil and gas majors like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell Oil" are responsible for a large corporate tax avoidance policy that is known as the "Water's Edge election" that became law in 1986.
The law allows multinational corporations to "elect" avoid taxes on earnings they designate as beyond the "water's edge" of the borders of states in which they operate, according to The Climate Center.
"Closing the loophole as it applies to the oil and gas industry could put anywhere between $75 to $146 million per year back into the state’s budget," the report states.
For context, California closed a $46 billion budget shortfall last year, including by enacting cuts to climate and clean air programs.
"The water's edge tax loophole allows multinational fossil fuel corporations to dodge paying their fair share of taxes that can help fund vital environmental projects, which could include wildfire preparedness," California Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-12) told the progressive outlet The Lever, the first outlet to report on the findings.
California lawmakers last year passed a bill that took aim at some aspects of the loophole, but an advocacy group whose board of directors includes representative from the oil and gas industry has filed lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the reform, according to the The Climate Center.
"Accountability is an existential threat to their business model, and their business model is an existential threat to all of us, and that’s the bottom line," said Meghan Sahli-Wells, the former mayor of Culver City.
The death toll has risen to 25, according to the Los Angeles medical examiners in Los Angeles, California, United States on January 14, 2025. The latest victim, the 25th, died in the Eaton Fire, which has already claimed 17 lives.
(Photo: Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Eloise Goldsmith
Jan 15, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
As devastating wildfires continue to burn in the Los Angeles region on Wednesday—placing tens of thousand of Californians under evacuation orders and causing over $250 billion in economic damages by one estimate—a pair of new reports highlight how fossil fuel companies have dodged responsibility for their role in the destruction and hampered the state's ability to fight back by depriving it of funds.
Two new reports highlight how fossil fuel companies hampered the state's ability to fight back by depriving it of funds.
California's fossil fuel industry deployed lobbying muscle to kill legislation that would compel polluters to pay into a fund that would help prevent disasters and aid cleanup efforts, and has taken advantage of a tax loophole to deprives the state of corporate tax revenue, thereby "putting climate and social programs in peril." In the case of the former, California's biggest fossil fuel trade group, the Western States Petroleum Association, recently launched a digital campaign that appears aimed at throwing cold water on any such legislative efforts.
According to The Guardian, the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act of 2024 appeared on 76% of the 74 lobby filings submitted in 2024 by the oil company Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association.
The legislation—which didn't make it out of the state senate in 2024—would, if enacted, create a recovery program forcing fossil fuel polluters to pay their "fair share of the damage caused by the sale of their products" during the period of 2000 to 2020, according to the nonprofit newsroom CalMatters.
According to The Guardian, the filings from those two firms that included this specific bill totaled over $30 million—though lobbying laws do not require a breakdown that would make clear how much was spent specifically on the "polluter pay" law.
With Los Angeles burning, there's renewed interest in passing the bill, The Guardian reports, citing supporters of the legislation. But Western States Petroleum Association isn't sitting idly by. On January 8, the group launched ads that suggest measures like the "polluter pay" bill would force them to increase oil prices. The ads, which appear to have been taken down, do "not specifically mention the polluter pay bill, it echoes the 2024 campaign that did," wrote The Guardian.
"Accountability is an existential threat to their business model, and their business model is an existential threat to all of us, and that’s the bottom line," said Meghan Sahli-Wells, the former mayor of Culver City who currently works for the environmental advocacy group Elected Officials To Protect America, told the paper.
Meanwhile, another report from The Climate Center—a think tank and "do-tank" focused on curbing pollution—has thrust a tax loophole long used by multinational oil and gas companies, into the spotlight.
The report released last week details how "years of litigation and lobbying by oil and gas majors like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell Oil" are responsible for a large corporate tax avoidance policy that is known as the "Water's Edge election" that became law in 1986.
The law allows multinational corporations to "elect" avoid taxes on earnings they designate as beyond the "water's edge" of the borders of states in which they operate, according to The Climate Center.
"Closing the loophole as it applies to the oil and gas industry could put anywhere between $75 to $146 million per year back into the state’s budget," the report states.
For context, California closed a $46 billion budget shortfall last year, including by enacting cuts to climate and clean air programs.
"The water's edge tax loophole allows multinational fossil fuel corporations to dodge paying their fair share of taxes that can help fund vital environmental projects, which could include wildfire preparedness," California Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-12) told the progressive outlet The Lever, the first outlet to report on the findings.
California lawmakers last year passed a bill that took aim at some aspects of the loophole, but an advocacy group whose board of directors includes representative from the oil and gas industry has filed lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the reform, according to the The Climate Center.
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