A few days ago I was in a conversation with a Lutheran pastor in Florida and he was saying that the kind of hurricanes that so devastated his state this year will be regular occurrences now. Such events will occur not once every ten years, but annually. That’s how climate change has affected his state.
I recall how I was invited to speak there a few years ago as part of a weekend gathering of religious groups who wanted to address Climate Change in the state of Florida. One speaker, a scientist, showed a map of the state and demonstrated how 1/3 of it will be under water in so many years and 2/3 in so many years more at the rate we were going.
Another speaker informed us that the governor of the state at that time, now a member of the US senate, forbade all state workers to use the term “climate change” in any official correspondence. He belongs to that one party in America that wants to “drill, baby, drill” while refusing to talk about climate change.
Now, in the second largest city in America, we have another climate emergency resulting not in devastating hurricanes but in devastating wildfires. It has been estimated that the fires raging on in LA will amount to $50 billion in damage. But of course, you cannot put a dollar figure on lives lost, homes and their mementos destroyed, and the landscape and beauty of a place burned to a crisp.
As one observer has commented, “this is not just a tragedy. It is a crime.”
Why a crime? Because oil and fossil fuel companies are buying politicians annually, to the tune of about $800 billion, to subsidize the fossil fuel industries even though they know that their industry is largely responsible for ongoing climate change that is warming the Gulf of Mexico so profoundly that seas are rising and hurricanes multiplying.
What is happening in LA is also due primarily to climate change which is due to fossil fuels. It has been proven that fossil fuel CEO’s have known this was coming for decades, just as cigarette manufacturers knew about the cancer cigarettes caused for decades. And were eventually prosecuted.
Another observer, a fire ecologist named Morgan Tingley, posted this on Bluesky: The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time, how climate change is largely responsible for this.
“We are devastatingly unprepared for the climate that fossil fuel greed is creating,” one youth-led Sunrise Movement wrote on social media. The fossil fuel corporations “choose to fight investments in renewable energy, spread propaganda, and bribe politicians into supporting $757 billion in fossil fuel subsidies.”
“It’s like Armageddon,” one LA resident said. “Everyone keeps saying ‘apocalyptic,’” said a CNN reporter. “But that doesn’t begin to cover it.”*
It is not only corporations that hold responsibility; but also the politicians whom they easily buy. And the media that regularly spread their denials. And SCOTUS for Citizens United that encourages such blatant corporate and political criminality.
*Jake Johnson, “As Apocalyptic Fires Torch LA, Climate Campaigners Say ‘Big Oil Did This.'” Common Dreams, January 9, 2025
See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation.
Banner image: Trump denying climate change. Image by Mike Finn on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Are these human failings of denying the reality of climate change and continuing to make money on it, the exact opposite of creation spirituality? The exact opposite of what Jesus or any spiritual teacher would recommend? The antichrist at work therefore? Are spiritual warriors that fight for creation needed more than ever?
Recommended Reading
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
4 thoughts on “Raging Fires in LA: Are Climate-Denying Politicians Criminals?”
von Prof. Christian Stöcker gibt es dazu ein Buch mit dem Titel:
Männer, die die Welt verbrennen
Inhalt:
„Warum wir den Kampf gegen gewissenlose Geldmacher, egomane Staatslenker und verlogene Propagandisten gewinnen müssen. Die Welt steckt in der Endphase eines Kulturkampfs: Gier gegen Gerechtigkeit, Zerstörung gegen Nachhaltigkeit, Zynismus gegen Empathie. Nichts zeigt dies deutlicher als die Reaktionen auf die Klimakatastrophe.“
I believe words matter. It is no longer ‘climate change’ but it is now a ‘climate crisis’. I think if the word ‘crisis’ was used more rather than ‘change’ it might, in a tiny way, help open people’s eyes to it. It’s no longer just a change, but now is at a CRISIS and yes, I would agree that most politicians who don’t believe in the climate crisis are CRIMINALS!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! We All need more prayers and sacred actions for ourselves, others, and Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Nature for personal/communal spiritual transformation with-in God’s Spirit of Love, Wisdom, Truth, Peace, Justice, Compassion, Loving Diverse ONENESS in All Spiritual Dimensions in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
I agree with everything said in this article. And….I do not know what to say in order to correct, heal and soothe the painful situation. “You can lead a donkey to water but you can’t force it to drink”. Some have chosen and some are choosing to stick their heads in the sand. I have no control over their behavior in this “crisis.”
Since I don’t have any answers, I do have a question. What are those of us who are Spiritual Warriors doing to prepare ourselves to be of service to others in the midst of the crisis whatever the circumstance? Will we allow the Light of Christ and the Wisdom of other Spiritual Masters to shine forth, guide the way, provide healing, offer encouraging words, etc., etc.? Will we be living examples of The Beatitudes and The Prayer of St. Francis?