On August 16th, an unprecedented thunderstorm shook the walls of my Bay Area home. Our flimsy complex shuddered through 2,500 ferocious lightning strikes and 75mph wind gusts. The strikes hit the parched California forests, starting multiple fires. On Thursday, dawn never came. I was on Mars, under an eerie yellow sky punctuated by a tiny sun the colour of Kool Aid.
Climate change isn't an equaliser. It adversely affects the vulnerable. California is an abundant state, not only home to big tech, and the entertainment industry, but much of America's food is grown here.
However, the burden put on communities of colour is striking. The Latino community has been the hardest hit by the pandemic. As essential workers, they pick, sort and serve the food. They are often undocumented in order to keep them fearful and disenfranchised – and our food cheaper.
Familiar California scenes become dystopian. Migrant workers are bent over in fields under a burnt sky desperately harvesting crops. As other residents flee for their lives, migrants are issued special evacuation area access passes to keep working in dangerous conditions. With no legal standing, or access to health care, this is what it looks like when all systems fail in an unequal world.
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Climate change is exposing racial and socioeconomic cracks in society. Firefighting has long been done by prisoners for a tiny amount of money, and prisoners are disproportionately people of colour.
‘Boom of explosions’
Mike Sears, a Silicon valley programmer and former prison firefighter, volunteered to help. “I went to the fire dept and they said they to evacuate. But I told them I’d been a fire-fighter in prison and have a big heart, they said okay.” Sears noted that the lack of prisoners left them short of help. “Back in the 80s I was incarcerated. First come the local firefighters and we prisoners would go in after and cut down bush. Now you have a pandemic. The inmates are in lockdown.”
Migrants are issued special evacuation area access passes to keep working in dangerous conditions
Recently laid off from his tech job during the pandemic, he described his experiences: “You can hear the fire coming when you start to hear the boom of explosions when the gas tanks blow. They light up the whole sky.”
Was he frightened? “I’m still frightened. California is burning, I can’t see the sun. It’s raining ash and Donald Trump is in the White House. All around me people are living in their cars. They don’t have a job because of Covid, and now their house is gone.”
Shari Russell, an English teacher in Fremont High School, had just bought a new house in July in nearby Boulder Creek. “We got the dog, the cat, the kids, and our hard drives and down the hill we went.” She teaches remotely while managing three kids. “We worked so long to save money to buy a house to give my kids stability. That’s all we wanted. We hadn’t even made our second mortgage payment when we had to leave.
“When I moved here, locals gave us lists about what you do to keep your house fire-safe. It doesn’t matter. The problem is bigger.”
‘Turn into hell’
It is only the beginning of fire season and Russell has no idea when she and her family can move back home. “We haven’t ever had a fire like this, lightning struck in so many places. We didn’t stand a chance.”
Maria Behan, an evacuee and writer from Sonoma County said, “When I moved here in the early 2000s, California was paradise. It’s heartbreaking to see it turn into hell. What has me rattled – and grieving – is the harm we have done to the planet and the possibility that we may not possess the wisdom or will to undo it. I’m getting the hell out. I have Irish citizenship and lived there for years. Right now, that green, rainy country sounds like paradise.
“Scientists agree that climate change makes it hotter, drier and leads to more fires. I don’t need scientists to tell me that. I can feel it in my bones. I’ve lived here for 15 years. My sister lost her home in a fire three years ago. I’ve evacuated from my own home three out of the past four years. My 95-year-old father has been evacuated from his senior community twice.
While Trump denies that climate change is happening, Biden is refusing the green new deal
“Fire is part of the ecosystem. But now humans have built homes in areas that used to be wild. We’re suppressing too many fires to protect what’s ‘ours’. But nature has the final say on what we get to keep.”
Did we think our relationship with the planet could be just extraction and exploitation with no consequences? A Pew Survey shows how divisive the issue still is for Americans, with 68 per cent of Democratic voters seeing it as high priority in contrast to 11 per cent of Republicans.
While President Donald Trump denies that climate change is happening, Biden is refusing the green new deal. Fear is, with a contentious election in November, neither candidate will commit to radical policies needed to tackle this crisis.
Emer Martin is an Irish novelist, painter and film-maker who lives in Oakland, California