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A wildfire burns near Yosemite national park. (Photo: US forest service/Reuters)
'No, Secretary Zinke. Record-Breaking Wildfires in California Have Everything to Do with Climate Change'
People who actual understand science, and also care about planet's future, accuse Interior Secretary of "either being willfully ignorant or purposely deceptive."
Aug 14, 2018
After U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke over the weekend outrageously and falsely declared that the largest wildfires in the history of California have "nothing to do with climate change," it was up to people who actually understand the science--and give a shit about the future of the planet--to set him straight.
\u201cNo, Secretary Zinke. The record-breaking wildfires in California have everything to do with climate change. We must confront the reality that climate change is already destroying tens of thousands of lives, and take concrete steps to avoid its worst consequences.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1534190410
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, Zinke went to the pages of USA TODAY to blame the wildfires ravaging California and elsewhere on so-called "radicial environmentalists" who are somehow preventing forest management - an argument he repeated over the weekend while visiting destroyed areas in California. Of course, as real and not-at-all-radical environmentalists pointed out, what ZInke is really saying is that he wants to give the nation's forests over to the timber industry for clear-cutting, consequences and destruction of natural habitat be damned.
\u201cCWP STATEMENT:\nAs California Burns, @SecretaryZinke Buries his Head in the Sand. Ignoring science, forestry experts, and common sense, Zinke tells reporters the West\u2019s fires have \u201cnothing to do with climate change.\u201d\nhttps://t.co/joanFpMSrI\u201d— Western Priorities (@Western Priorities) 1534178678
Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, explained to The Hill thatZinke is just straight up wrong about the clear role that warming temperatures--now increasingly driven by human-caused global warming--are playing in creating larger and more powerful wildfires.
"Climate change creates drought, high wind conditions, low humidity. Fire creates its own weather," Spivak said. "You can thin all you want till the cows come home but fire will overtake that ... what is misleading is people like Zinke and other people who refuse to talk about climate change and how we need to tackle that."
And as Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and staff writer for Grist, wrote on Monday regarding Zinke's weekend comments in California and ongoing fires in Montana's Glacier National Park, "This summer has felt like a global warming turning point." But in the end, he said, it does matter what people like Zinke and President Trump say about the cause and the solution.
\u201c\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether you believe or don\u2019t believe in climate change. What is important is we manage our forests.\u201d \n\u2014@RyanZinke\n\nYes, Zinke, it *does* matter if you believe in climate change.\n\nIt\u2019s happening. All around us. Right now.\n\nhttps://t.co/8ZnIWWel4S\u201d— Eric Holthaus (@Eric Holthaus) 1534210500
The current best-practice for reducing fire risk is cutting down smaller trees and underbrush, but that's expensive and time-consuming -- the kind of work that logging companies aren't interested in. Even that approach, however, can reduce forests' ability to adapt to climate change. There's no easy answer," says Holthaus.
"And yes, Zinke, it does matter if you believe in climate change," he concluded. "The only thing that will save forests and glaciers as we know them is ending our dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But we're at the point where we know irreversible change is already locked in. That's a scary reality, but instead of driving us to despair, it should motivate us to strive to save what we still can."
An Unconstitutional Rampage
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
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After U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke over the weekend outrageously and falsely declared that the largest wildfires in the history of California have "nothing to do with climate change," it was up to people who actually understand the science--and give a shit about the future of the planet--to set him straight.
\u201cNo, Secretary Zinke. The record-breaking wildfires in California have everything to do with climate change. We must confront the reality that climate change is already destroying tens of thousands of lives, and take concrete steps to avoid its worst consequences.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1534190410
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, Zinke went to the pages of USA TODAY to blame the wildfires ravaging California and elsewhere on so-called "radicial environmentalists" who are somehow preventing forest management - an argument he repeated over the weekend while visiting destroyed areas in California. Of course, as real and not-at-all-radical environmentalists pointed out, what ZInke is really saying is that he wants to give the nation's forests over to the timber industry for clear-cutting, consequences and destruction of natural habitat be damned.
\u201cCWP STATEMENT:\nAs California Burns, @SecretaryZinke Buries his Head in the Sand. Ignoring science, forestry experts, and common sense, Zinke tells reporters the West\u2019s fires have \u201cnothing to do with climate change.\u201d\nhttps://t.co/joanFpMSrI\u201d— Western Priorities (@Western Priorities) 1534178678
Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, explained to The Hill thatZinke is just straight up wrong about the clear role that warming temperatures--now increasingly driven by human-caused global warming--are playing in creating larger and more powerful wildfires.
"Climate change creates drought, high wind conditions, low humidity. Fire creates its own weather," Spivak said. "You can thin all you want till the cows come home but fire will overtake that ... what is misleading is people like Zinke and other people who refuse to talk about climate change and how we need to tackle that."
And as Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and staff writer for Grist, wrote on Monday regarding Zinke's weekend comments in California and ongoing fires in Montana's Glacier National Park, "This summer has felt like a global warming turning point." But in the end, he said, it does matter what people like Zinke and President Trump say about the cause and the solution.
\u201c\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether you believe or don\u2019t believe in climate change. What is important is we manage our forests.\u201d \n\u2014@RyanZinke\n\nYes, Zinke, it *does* matter if you believe in climate change.\n\nIt\u2019s happening. All around us. Right now.\n\nhttps://t.co/8ZnIWWel4S\u201d— Eric Holthaus (@Eric Holthaus) 1534210500
The current best-practice for reducing fire risk is cutting down smaller trees and underbrush, but that's expensive and time-consuming -- the kind of work that logging companies aren't interested in. Even that approach, however, can reduce forests' ability to adapt to climate change. There's no easy answer," says Holthaus.
"And yes, Zinke, it does matter if you believe in climate change," he concluded. "The only thing that will save forests and glaciers as we know them is ending our dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But we're at the point where we know irreversible change is already locked in. That's a scary reality, but instead of driving us to despair, it should motivate us to strive to save what we still can."
After U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke over the weekend outrageously and falsely declared that the largest wildfires in the history of California have "nothing to do with climate change," it was up to people who actually understand the science--and give a shit about the future of the planet--to set him straight.
\u201cNo, Secretary Zinke. The record-breaking wildfires in California have everything to do with climate change. We must confront the reality that climate change is already destroying tens of thousands of lives, and take concrete steps to avoid its worst consequences.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1534190410
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, Zinke went to the pages of USA TODAY to blame the wildfires ravaging California and elsewhere on so-called "radicial environmentalists" who are somehow preventing forest management - an argument he repeated over the weekend while visiting destroyed areas in California. Of course, as real and not-at-all-radical environmentalists pointed out, what ZInke is really saying is that he wants to give the nation's forests over to the timber industry for clear-cutting, consequences and destruction of natural habitat be damned.
\u201cCWP STATEMENT:\nAs California Burns, @SecretaryZinke Buries his Head in the Sand. Ignoring science, forestry experts, and common sense, Zinke tells reporters the West\u2019s fires have \u201cnothing to do with climate change.\u201d\nhttps://t.co/joanFpMSrI\u201d— Western Priorities (@Western Priorities) 1534178678
Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, explained to The Hill thatZinke is just straight up wrong about the clear role that warming temperatures--now increasingly driven by human-caused global warming--are playing in creating larger and more powerful wildfires.
"Climate change creates drought, high wind conditions, low humidity. Fire creates its own weather," Spivak said. "You can thin all you want till the cows come home but fire will overtake that ... what is misleading is people like Zinke and other people who refuse to talk about climate change and how we need to tackle that."
And as Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and staff writer for Grist, wrote on Monday regarding Zinke's weekend comments in California and ongoing fires in Montana's Glacier National Park, "This summer has felt like a global warming turning point." But in the end, he said, it does matter what people like Zinke and President Trump say about the cause and the solution.
\u201c\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether you believe or don\u2019t believe in climate change. What is important is we manage our forests.\u201d \n\u2014@RyanZinke\n\nYes, Zinke, it *does* matter if you believe in climate change.\n\nIt\u2019s happening. All around us. Right now.\n\nhttps://t.co/8ZnIWWel4S\u201d— Eric Holthaus (@Eric Holthaus) 1534210500
The current best-practice for reducing fire risk is cutting down smaller trees and underbrush, but that's expensive and time-consuming -- the kind of work that logging companies aren't interested in. Even that approach, however, can reduce forests' ability to adapt to climate change. There's no easy answer," says Holthaus.
"And yes, Zinke, it does matter if you believe in climate change," he concluded. "The only thing that will save forests and glaciers as we know them is ending our dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But we're at the point where we know irreversible change is already locked in. That's a scary reality, but instead of driving us to despair, it should motivate us to strive to save what we still can."
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LATEST NEWS
Trump Backs 'Blatantly Unconstitutional' Proposal to Send US Citizen Inmates to El Salvador Prisons
"You may not deport a U.S. citizen, period," said one legal expert.
Apr 07, 2025
With a deadline looming for the Trump administration to return a Maryland resident to the U.S. after expelling him along with hundreds of other people to an El Salvador detention center under a shadowy deal with the Central American country, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday stunned observers by expressing a desire to send U.S. citizens into El Salvador's prison system.
In a press briefing aboard Air Force One Sunday evening, Trump was asked by a reporter about an offer made by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept prisoners sent by the U.S. from its federal prison population.
"I love that," Trump said. "If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and hit people over the back of the head and purposely run people over in cars, if he would take them, I would be honored to give them."
"I don't know what the law says on that," he added. "I have suggested that, why should we stop at people who cross the border illegally?"
Podcaster and former Obama administration staffer Jon Favreau said Trump's remarks could be summed up as: "He wants to send American citizens to a foreign gulag."
Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which permits the U.S. government to detain and deport noncitizens during wartime, to expel 238 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they are being held in the country's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). About two dozen people who were originally from El Salvador were also sent to the prison, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a Maryland man who had legal protected status, was not convicted of a crime, and had previously received a court order barring the U.S. from deporting him to his home country for fear of persecution and torture.
Trump said several times in his comments Sunday that he was unsure of the legality of sending U.S. federal prison inmates to a foreign prison system.
In February, after Bukele first offered to imprison U.S. citizens, Lee Gelernt of the ACLU told NPR that the idea was a "non-starter."
"You may not deport a U.S. citizen, period," Gelernt, deputy director of the group's Immigrants' Rights Project, told the outlet. "The courts have not allowed that, and they would not allow it... It would be blatantly unconstitutional to deport a U.S. citizen."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also touted Bukele's offer at the time, calling it "an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country."
Trump's remarks on potentially expanding his deal with the Salvadoran president to include U.S. citizens followed U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis's order mandating the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S. with a deadline of 11:59 pm Monday.
Xinis on Sunday rejected the administration's request to lift the order, saying Abrego Garcia's expulsion had been "wholly lawless" and that the "risk of harm shocks the conscience."
On Monday, the administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block Xinis' order, saying her demand that the White House adhere to the Constitution was "district-court diplomacy" and accusing the judge of trying to "seize control over foreign relations."
The administration has attacked the district court in Washington, D.C. in recent days over the order, with homeland security adviser Stephen Miller calling on Congress last week to "step up" and abolish the panel by refusing to fund it.
The White House has called Abrego Garcia's expulsion and imprisonment in El Salvador an "administrative error" and claimed the Maryland father is no longer under U.S. jurisdiction, so the administration cannot order him to be returned.
"We suggest the judge contact President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt last week.
Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins said that under the same logic, "there is also nothing that prevents them from shipping American citizens to a gulag in El Salvador and saying, 'Nothing we can do.'"
Hope people understand the trajectory that we’re on: if the executive is arguing that it has no recourse once people here end up in a prison in El Salvador, then that’s the precedent for there being no recourse when this starts happening to United States citizens.
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— Alexander Ross (@alexander-ross.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 7:03 PM
As Trump expressed interest in expelling U.S. citizens to a foreign prison system, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council pointed out that the details of the White House's deal with Bukele have not been publicly disclosed.
"We literally know nothing about it, other than we're paying them $6 million," said Reichlin-Melnick. "No law in the United States authorizes us to pay another country to imprison people. And yet! They're doing it."
Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director for Detention Watch Network, told Newsweek Monday that the deal with Bukele is being used "as a tool of propaganda with the core objective to dehumanize and villainize people while carrying out their cruel mass detention and deportation agenda unchecked."
"Bottom line, Trump and Bukele's partnership deepens collaboration with authoritarian leaders," said Ghandehari, "further jeopardizing democratic values in the U.S. and around the world."
Mahmoud Khalil Rips Columbia University's Complicity in Trump Rampage
"The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia's repression playbook concerning Palestine."
Apr 07, 2025
In an op-ed dictated to his attorney from a detention facility in Louisiana, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil late last week condemned the Ivy League institution's complicity in the Trump administration's targeting of Palestinian rights advocates and campus dissent more broadly.
Khalil, who has said he is a political prisoner, argued in the Friday op-ed that Columbia "laid the groundwork for my abduction" last month by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. The Trump administration's detention of and effort to deport Khalil—who helped lead student protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—have sparked widespread alarm and backlash, much of it directed at Columbia.
"The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia's repression playbook concerning Palestine," Khalil wrote, pointing to the recent arrests of other international students who have spoken out in support of Palestinian rights.
Writing in the university's daily student newspaper, Khalil noted that "Columbia has suppressed student dissent under the auspices of combating antisemitism," an approach also taken by the Trump administration, which said the arrest of Khalil was carried out in alignment with the president's "executive orders prohibiting antisemitism."
"This institution's singular concern has always been the vitality of its financial profile, not the safety of Jewish students. This is why Columbia was all too happy to embrace a superficial progressive agenda while still disregarding Palestine, and this is why it will soon turn on you, too," he warned. "If there was any illusion left, it shattered last week when the board of trustees executed a historic maneuver to seize direct control of the presidency. Cutting out their middleman, the board appointed fellow trustee Claire Shipman to a position reserved for academic leadership. Who can still pretend this is an educational institution and not the 'Vichy on the Hudson'?"
"Faced with a movement for divestment they couldn't crush, your trustees opted to set fire to the institution they're entrusted with," Khalil continued. "It is incumbent upon each of you to reclaim the university and join the student movement to carry forward the work of the past year."
Khalil and his legal team are currently fighting the Trump administration's effort to remove him from the country. Earlier this month, a second federal judge rejected the Trump administration's request to transfer Khalil's case to Louisiana, a demand that civil liberties advocates decried as a ploy to "manipulate federal court jurisdiction" in order to receive a favorable ruling.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union—which is representing Khalil—stressed in an NBC News op-ed last week that Khalil "has never been accused, charged, or convicted of any crime."
"The Trump administration is sending a message to everyone in America: If you dare to disagree with the president, you will be punished," Lieberman wrote, alluding to a fight over federal funding. "Columbia was just the first target. Harvard and Princeton are now in danger of similar treatment. This is a full-scale attack on the system of free inquiry, discussion, and debate that is at the core of higher education, which is so crucial to the strength of our democracy."
'We're Turning Into a Dictatorship': Trump Tariffs Seen as Ploy to Further Consolidate Power
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy called President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs "a political weapon designed to collapse our democracy."
Apr 07, 2025
Analysts puzzling over the bizarre formula the Trump administration used to calculate its country-by-country tariff rates are wasting their time, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said in a response to the American president that has gone viral in recent days as global markets continue to nosedive.
"It's not economic policy, it's not trade policy," Murphy (D-Conn.) said in remarks recorded after Trump announced the sweeping tariffs last week. "It's a political weapon designed to collapse our democracy."
While President Donald Trump's universal tariffs on imports make no sense as an effort to rectify the failures of the status quo trade regime and bring back offshored U.S. jobs, they are comprehensible when viewed as "a tool to try to compel pledges of loyalty, this time from companies and industries in the United States," Murphy argued.
"You have to understand that everything Donald Trump is doing is in service of staying in power forever—either him or his family or his handpicked successors," the Democratic senator continued. "He's trying to destroy our democracy."
Murphy contended that the president designed the tariffs to be so widespread that corporations across private industry would have to come to the White House and "make an agreement with Trump in which he gives them tariff relief in exchange for a pledge of political loyalty."
"What could that pledge look like?" Murphy continued. "Well, maybe they agree to champion his economic policy publicly. Maybe they agree to make contributions to his political campaign. Maybe they agree to police their employees to make sure that nobody that works for that company works for the political opposition."
Politico reported late last week that businesses across corporate America "fear Trump's wrath" and are thus declining to criticize the president's tariff policies even as they wreak havoc worldwide and threaten to spark a devastating recession.
"There is zero incentive for any company or brand to be remotely critical of this administration," one unnamed public affairs operative told Politico. "It destroys your ability to work with the White House and advance your policies, period."
"While the United States has plenty of real problems to deal with, Trump is ignoring them to manufacture the fake emergencies he needs to further enlarge and centralize his power."
Murphy is hardly alone in seeing Trump's tariffs as an instrument of power consolidation.
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Monday that "we're turning into a dictatorship" as Trump conjures "fake national emergencies" to jack up tariffs, deport people en masse without due process, gut efforts to combat the climate crisis, and dismantle large swaths of the federal government.
"As Trump declares emergency after emergency to justify his reign of terror, he's simultaneously eliminating America's capacity to respond to real emergencies," Reich wrote. "Make no mistake about what’s really going on here. While the United States has plenty of real problems to deal with, Trump is ignoring them to manufacture the fake emergencies he needs to further enlarge and centralize his power."
One analyst, Zack Beauchamp of Vox, argued the tariffs are more a symptom of the decline of U.S. democracy rather than a cause of it.
"Trump's tariffs will, if fully implemented, be remembered as their own cautionary tale. While he campaigned on them, he wouldn't have been able to implement the entire tariff package had he gone through the normal constitutionally prescribed procedure for raising taxes," Beauchamp wrote. "The fact that America isn't functioning like a normal democracy, with public deliberation and multiple checks on executive authority, is what allowed Trump to act on his idiosyncratic ideas in the manner of a Mao or Putin."
"It's still possible that Trump steps back from the brink," he added. "But even if he does, and the worst outcome is avoided, the lesson should be clear: The long decay of America's democratic system means that we are all living under an axe. And if this isn't the moment it falls, there will surely be another."
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