Just days into 2025, the Los Angeles area has been engulfed by record-breaking wildfires. Amidst widespread drought and hurricane-force winds, some areas which have never once needed to evacuate due to fires have been completely destroyed, with over a 100,000 people ordered to evacuate the area so far.
2024 was, yet again, the hottest year in history. Global average temperatures crossed an important threshold in 2024: 1.5° C (2.7° F) warmer than pre-industrial levels. This was the maximum temperature set as goal by the Paris Climate Accords, the threshold after which dangerous effects of climate change are expected to become commonplace.
But these fires are not simply a natural disaster, and climate change is not a natural condition – the capitalist system is to blame. Climate change is being accelerated by fossil fuel tycoons, billionaire industrialists and the politicians in bed with them who command the United States’ economy, and for whom the destruction of the environment is of no importance compared to their profits. They are covering the U.S with a web of fossil fuel pipelines. A tiny number of monopolists use their power and influence to block progressive climate legislation, sow confusion about climate science in the media, and strangle the life out of green initiatives. Meanwhile, it is everyday working-class people – from Maui, to Asheville, to Los Angeles – who are paying the price and picking up the pieces.
President-elect Trump, a climate change denier, tried to blame northern California environmental policies for the lack of water in Los Angeles. But in fact, Los Angeles gets no water from northern California; all of their water is groundwater, local sources, or the Colorado River to their east. Both Republicans and Democrats continue to spend more than $1 trillion a year on past, present, and future wars at the federal level, while state and local governments are forced to cut needed services, such as firefighting, due to lack of money.
Residents are told to leave their home but not given any options on where to go, and few resources to aid their evacuation. All the while, hundreds of incarcerated individuals are risking their lives on the front lines of the fires. These individuals are being paid about a dollar an hour for this grueling work – and when they are released, their criminal records can bar from careers in firefighting
Meanwhile, socialist countries like Cuba and China show a better model for combating climate change. From their increasing investments in renewable technologies and green public transport options, to prioritizing people in responding to natural disasters as they happen. We can see that socialism, without capitalism’s insatiable need for profit at any cost, is the only way out of the climate crisis.
We need to build a movement against climate change that can directly combat the lies and deceit of the fossil fuel industries – industries that still receive government subsidies. We need to point out the connection between climate change and a military industrial complex that is often exempt from environmental regulation. And we need working and oppressed peoples to unite and see the climate struggle as part of the working class struggle for power in the United States. Let’s build a fighting climate justice movement that takes to the streets!
No new pipelines!
People and the planet over profits!
