 It's very difficult to tie any specific weather event to climate change, but if you like to worry about things, this is a great time. We have this huge heat dome, extraordinary humidity, and southern US, and we have these very high winds in Hawaii. And then we have this enormous rainstorm. It came through here. I live in Los Angeles. I'm in Los Angeles right now. It came through here. Last night, it was raining hard. And the difficulty, everybody, of course, the roads get closed. Things fall down, but it's expensive. We've got to clean this stuff up. And of course, once in a while, there's a tragic event, but this may be the beginning of things and people like to throw around the expression, new normal. It's not going to be normal. It's just going to get worse and worse, probably. You just listened to Bill Nye's warning about climate change and what he said was really poignant. This is not the new normal because that suggests that things are only going to continue to be as bad as they currently are. But that's not the case. Things are going to get worse as we continue to ignore the climate crisis. Now, he was brought on to talk about Hurricane Hillary, which is a category for hurricane that caused record-breaking rain in Southern California. It led to mudslides and floods. And I think that this photo of the Dodger Stadium really puts things into perspective and shows you how bad it was. And yesterday, where I live in the Pacific Northwest, it was covered in haze, thanks to wildfires raging across the country. And also last week, Lance from the serfs shared this map of where he lives to showcase just how bad Canada's wildfire season has been. But I mean, this all pales in comparison obviously to the Maui wildfire, which is the deadliest in a century within the United States. And it killed over 100 people and 850 people are still missing as a result of the Maui wildfire. Now, there's no definitive evidence as to what the exact cause is. But it's probably a combination of things, possible corporate incompetence, but also climate change as well. NBC News explains, experts have said a possible cause of the fire was high winds that downed power lines. Some victims have sued Hawaiian Electric, the state's largest utility company accusing it of providing equipment that was not strong enough to withstand heavy winds. They have also accused the utility company of failing to turn off the power when high winds warnings were issued. And Maui resident Kaniyala Ng explains in a time article, the disturbing silence left by the missing and the mourn's soul tells of a disaster that's unnatural, shaped by the human hand, a byproduct of the dangerous dance between climate change and centuries of colonial greed. While West Maui is no stranger to wildfires, the magnitude of the blaze that tore through Lahaina is emblematic of the changing climate. Our once wetland haven has been transformed into a vulnerable tinderbox, compounding the problem was Hurricane Dora, made fiercer by the warming climate, which propelled the fire further. So there's a lot of compounding issues here, right? There's potential corporate incompetence that's exacerbating these climate crises, but on top of that, another compounding factor that Kaniyala Ng points out is colonialism. Because he goes on to explain that sugar barons drained Hawaii of natural resources, they disrupted the water supply, and they planted flammable grass that in part made those fires more difficult to put out. And the heirs of these sugar barons, they still control that land to this day. And indigenous Hawaiians, they don't benefit from the profits or the wealth. In fact, they're now bearing the brunt of these types of disasters that are in part due to these colonists. And if that wasn't outrageous enough, some of these indigenous Hawaiian farmers who have been marginalized and exploited on their own land are now being scapegoated over that fire. And this was covered in an excellent report from CNN, which we're going to watch a clip from. There's been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years. It's important that we're honest about this. People have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires. I'll leave that to you to explore. Okay, let's do it. And let's start with the American and European plantation owners who arrived in the mid-1800s to get rich growing sugar and over the generations diverted water from countless farms like this. These stone walls are built by our ancestors 500 years ago. Wow, really? Yeah, yeah. What people like our family and many other native Hawaiian families all throughout Hawaii saw wherever plantation was, is their water disappear nearly overnight. Water disappeared. Like turning off a tap. Yeah. Which is why like our family, like many other families in Lahaina and elsewhere, they were forced to leave their ancestral land. And maybe work for the same plantation owner who took your water, right? But even after the U.S. apologized in 93 for the overthrow of the kingdom of Hawaii, and even as once lush landscapes turned flammable, it wasn't until farmers like Hokua'u Pellegrino fought in court for over a decade that water rights were returned. Even in our oceans, you know, because fresh water feeds those near shore fisheries and grows the seaweed, the limo, you know, for the small fry, for our turtles, and other, you know, important fishes, that's all coming back now that the waters are flowing to the ocean. But then came the fire and written complaints from the powerful West Maui land company, insinuating that firefighting efforts were hampered because a single Hawaiian farmer couldn't be reached for permission to divert extra water. In this particular case, it absolutely would not have made any difference. You have to understand that the West Maui land company, Lawniapoko Irrigation, the company's system, is not tied whatsoever to the Maui fire department hydrant system. And helicopters weren't able to even fly anyway at that point. So, you know, to even insinuate that that could have made any difference is just a complete farce. But with an emergency declaration, Governor Green has rolled back Lahaina's water designation and told the New York Times that we tipped too far towards water rights for nature and natives. 75% of the water resource in Lahaina is controlled by private entities. Only 25% is controlled by the county government. It's like just colonization to repeating itself all over again just in a different format, you know. It's disaster capitalism at its finest. You're throwing spears to the people of Lahaina when they're already down. Yeah, and this is going to continue to happen as crises like this become more common, right? Marginalized people who have been exploited are not only going to bear the brunt of these crises, but they're going to be the scapegoats too, as we've seen with regard to Maui. And each climate-induced disaster that we're all currently experiencing is the result of many things, right? It's a confluence of factors, colonialism, capitalism, corporate capture of our governments, etc. It's a plethora of interrelated problems that requires political solutions because we can't solve this problem at the individual level. It's too complex for any one person to actually solve this, right? If you choose to reduce your carbon footprint, that is not going to mitigate climate change. If we all choose to try to cut back on our individual greenhouse gas emissions, that's not going to solve the crisis. This is a political problem, and political problems require political solutions, but political leaders around the world have completely and utterly failed us. And that includes the current administration, because despite Biden's meager investments in renewable technology and tax credits for people who make more sustainable consumer choices, his administration has approved more drilling projects than Donald Trump's. And he's still refused to declare a climate emergency. But despite all of that, all of his catastrophic failures on this particular issue, the alternative is even worse, because 2024 Republican candidates would almost certainly destroy the tiny little bit of progress that Biden has made, even as he continues to do more drilling, right? These investments in renewable technology are still vital to maybe planting the seed that will one day grow to a change in our total economy, but they won't even allow that to stand, right? Trump got us out of the Paris climate accord when he was president, even though that was a small, small thing that barely made a difference. It was insufficient, but they won't even let us have the small victories that we've gained, which brings us to Bill Nye's request for the upcoming GOP primary debate. Let's listen. What I would like you all to do as hard-hitting investigative reporters at the place for politics is get somebody, probably a young person, during this debate this week to ask any of these guys and gal running for president what they're going to do about climate change. So we all know how bad Republicans are. I think everyone who's watching this knows that they don't care about climate change. And when I first heard Bill Nye say that, I kind of just shrugged and thought, what the fuck is the point? Because they're not going to do anything about climate change. So why even pretend like they are? Why even waste our breath asking the question? But then I thought about this more, and he is absolutely right. They should still be asked, regardless if we already know the answer, because this is no longer just hypothetical, right? And their denial gets more absurd with each passing day. We can all see the effects of climate change around us. So these candidates on national television should be forced to either A, deny what we're all seeing, piss on our legs and tell us it's raining, or B, accept the reality of climate change, but then tell us that they're not going to do jack fucking shit about it as the planet cooks us. Americans need to see. They need to see that, right? Because these Republicans are effectively going to tell us if they're asked that they're going to let our species die for short term profits. None of us will be surprised to hear them say that. We know that that's their stance, right? But we still need to hear them say it. We do. I think it's important. Young people in particular need to see it, and they need to be pissed off. And this was the point that Bill and I made at the end of the interview. Watch out for young people. They're going to demand change. They're going to demand climate change. It reminds me of a certain age of the Vietnam War, where people just, we've had enough. We're going to demonstrate. You watch out. Young people are going to, they're going to demand change. He's right. But young people are not going to assert themselves unless they're mad, unless they get angry, which is why I think it's important to ask Republicans about climate change at these debates, regardless if this issue isn't salient to them or their base. Because young people need to see that these candidates don't care about them. They're willing to let them die. Young people need to know that these are the types of candidates that their parents and grandparents are supporting. And they know that their votes are dooming us to an apocalyptic hellscape that we're all going to experience when we're their age. But they're voting for this party regardless because they feel like them screwing over immigrants and trans people. It's just more important than, I don't know, the habitability of our planet, right? It's just despicable. Like these politicians are killing us. So we shouldn't just accept that and move on. We should be pissed off. Why aren't we pissed off at these politicians and just letting them get away with not accepting the reality of anthropogenic climate change? Why isn't every Republican voter who supports this death cold not disowned by their grandchildren? I mean, again, it's not like the Democratic Party is our saviors, right? But when it comes to choosing between a bus driver who is drunk or suicidal, I'm going to choose the drunk bus driver 10 times out of 10. At least the drunk bus driver might try to steer us away from the cliff whereas the suicidal bus driver is headed straight for the cliff at 100 miles an hour, right? And with Democrats, the mere recognition that climate change is real at least creates an opportunity for young people to feel like their demands can be heard, thus making them more likely to make said demands. But when it comes to Republicans, I mean, if the thought of just asking them about climate change seems pointless, as it did to me at first, then I mean, what point is there in even making the demand in the first place? This is how we all just get apathetic and resort to demeritism and feel hopeless. And to be clear, again, the Democratic Party's unwillingness to sufficiently address this issue is totally unacceptable, right? We shouldn't accept that that is the best that we can get when it comes to this existential issue. But the Republican Party's dismissal of this as an issue altogether should make them unelectable as a party. They should be destroyed. Nobody should support this party that is effectively a death cult. But this is how they are, and we shouldn't excuse it, right? They shouldn't get a pass because we know that they don't give a shit. If they're going to send its humanity to death, they should be forced to remind us of the stance every single time they talk to the media. Every single young person should know that their grandparents might be voting for a candidate who laughs off their concerns as the planet cooks all of us alive. So I mean, I am with Bill Nye on this. Even though Republicans pretend like climate change isn't a real issue, we shouldn't just go along with their charade because we know they don't care. The fact that these Republicans are bold enough to tell us all that they don't care if we die means that we've allowed them to behave in this way with impunity for far too long. They need to be held accountable, but that's not going to happen until voters wake up and realize what's at stake. But that isn't going to happen unless we get pissed off, and we should be pissed off because the situation is absolutely dire. And I can't think of anything more enraging than a bunch of politicians backed by corporate donors telling us that corporate profits are more important than the planet that we all share.