The devastating wave of wildfires that has reduced thousands of homes in Los Angeles to ashes could not have afflicted the US at a more telling moment. Figures released last week revealed that for the first time the world overshot the 1.5C limit in global temperature rises that had been set as a desired upper figure by the Paris climate accord of 2015.
It is clear that the floods that engulfed Valencia last year, along with the typhoons that ripped through the Philippines and the drought that afflicted the Amazon were all made more likely by this unwanted temperature rise, say scientists. From this perspective, Hollywood’s misery is just one of many examples of the destruction heaped upon the planet by our burning of fossil fuels and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases. Crucially, such disasters are only going to worsen until humanity abandons the widespread combustion of coal, gas and oil.
