Hawaiian officials attributed the cause of catastrophic wildfires to alleged failures from the state’s main power utility company and downed power lines this week after Democrats blamed the disaster on global warming.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the government of Maui County, Hawaii, alleged Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and its subsidiaries failed to properly power down live electrical equipment amid a red flag windstorm earlier this month. [emphasis, links added]
Due to this failure, downed power lines operated by the utility company sparked a series of deadly fires on the island, the lawsuit claimed.
“The lawsuit alleges that the Defendants acted negligently by failing to power down their electrical equipment despite a National Weather Service Red Flag Warning on August 7th,” Maui County said in a release announcing its lawsuit.
“The lawsuit further alleges HECO’s energized and downed power lines ignited dry fuel such as grass and brush, causing the fires,” the announcement added. “The lawsuit also alleges failure to maintain the system and power grid, which caused the systemic failures starting three different fires on August 8th.” …
However, Democratic lawmakers, a top White House official, and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green have all blamed the event, which has claimed the lives of at least 115 people, on human-caused global warming.
“This is devastating. This is a climate emergency,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., an original sponsor of the Green New Deal, wrote in a post on X on Aug. 10. “I stand in solidarity with my friends and colleagues from Hawai’i — we must act fast, provide aid, and invest in a resilient and safe future.”
“Heartbreaking fires in Hawaii! Scientists are clear that climate chaos wreaking havoc on ecosystems everywhere is the new norm,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said in a separate post. “We need to take action immediately or else it will get even worse.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who spearheaded a recent congressional investigation into Big Oil, called on President Biden to declare a “climate emergency” in response to the fires.
“My heart breaks hearing of the devastation in Maui,” Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., added. “The climate crisis is here and it’s killing people. It’s time for [Biden] to declare a climate emergency.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined in, saying the wildfires were a “devastating view of our planet as we fail to adequately address the climate crisis.”
And White House clean energy czar John Podesta called for policies to reduce carbon emissions to fight future natural disasters like the Maui wildfires which he said were “fueled by climate change.”
“This summer has brought one climate disaster after another, from extreme heat in Arizona and Texas and across the Southeast to floods in Vermont and upstate New York to thick smoke from Canadian wildfires,” Podesta told reporters on Aug. 16.
“And all of us have watched in horror as the Maui fires have claimed over 100 lives — the largest loss of life of a fire in the last 100 years in America.”
“To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about,” he continued.
Experts, though, have thrown cold water on claims that climate change triggered the Maui fires.
Instead, they said the event was largely a result of years of poor forest and brush management, in addition to declining agriculture. Such conditions, they said, allow fires to spread rapidly and make fires harder to contain.
“Blaming this on weather and climate is misleading,” said Clay Trauernicht, a University of Hawaii at Manoa professor and environmental management expert. “Hawai’i’s fire problem is due to the vast areas of unmanaged, nonnative grasslands from decades of declining agriculture.”
“These savannas now cover about a million acres across the main Hawaiian Islands, mostly the legacy of land clearing for plantation agriculture and ranching in the late 1800s/early 1900s,” he continued.
“The transformation to savanna makes the landscape way more sensitive to bad ‘fire weather’ — hot, dry, windy conditions. It also means we get huge buildups of fuels during rainy periods.”
Top image via YouTube/screencap
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Are the Democrats now ready to beat their heads against the wall for being so incompetent about it all?
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How does CC start a fire? Where/what is its ignition source? Magic by any chance??
The climate maniacs continue to scream about stooping “carbon emissions” but I understand that carbon dioxide is the supposed evil substance in their campaign. C and CO2 are very different things. Why can’t they get their story straight? It’s obvious they don’t understand a lick about climate science.
How many wise people have said that adapting to climate change is the answer? All the wind turbines and solar panels in the world haven’t prevented one wildfire. Fix the poles and wires. At least deal with the brush and dry grass under them. Spray it with RoundUp and work it into the dirt.
Instead of making excuses, just do it.
Sonnyhill, as I’m sure you know adapting to climate change has been Bjorn Lomberg’s mantra. And he’s a true believer that we humans are causing a change in the climate but also believes that a wealthy country can much more easily deal with any problems that a changing climate causes. Or even just natural disasters like wild fires, hurricanes, and flooding. But poor countries cannot and therefore see large numbers of their citizens getting killed each year by natural disasters. Or as we saw in Maui even a wealthy country can see such destruction and death in Lahaina caused by inept government.
There have been a number of studies showing that action to avoid climate change that we are currently undertaking is more expensive that adapting. There is another significant factor. The cost of trying to prevent climate change is running trillions of dollars, harming economies, inflicting hardships on those least able to afford it, and reducing freedom. We have these costs if anthropological climate change is happening, but we also have these costs if the movement is a fraud. With adaption approach, we only have costs if climate change would turn out to be real. This is a strong argument for not taking action unless it becomes necessary.
Poor nations are often mentioned since they are less able to adapt. We need to remember that they are also being harmed by action on climate change. Hundreds of millions have never had electric power. Due to climate change motivation, these poor countries have been denied financing for fossil fuel power plants, the only power that they can afford.
Consider that the Hawaiian Electric Company failed to power down the grid during a red flag warning. The company was prioritized investing in renewable energy over clearing excessive foliage. Much of the native growth in Hawaii has been replaced by savanna. There has been a one degree increase in temperature, which by the way could not have been caused by carbon dioxide because it is beyond its saturation point. It is obvious that anthropological climate change was not a factor in these fires. The Democrats trying to use this disaster to justify a “climate emergency” are either lying or stupid. I suspect that it is the latter.
David, I do believe that some Dems know what is really going on but are using the “climate emergency” as a power grab (as well as enriching family and friends). But there are many who are ignorant (while others like Biden and Harris are actually stupid).
As to Hawaiian Electric I suspect many know that going to all “renewable energy” is not possible but they are beholden to the state government to follow their mandates. So too much of the monies that could have been used to harden their grid as well as reduce flammable materials near their power lines went to installing and linking the intermittent solar and wind systems. But of course HE will be blamed rather than the state and local governments.
Lots of deniers in Hawaii.