Why Climate Change Is Fast Becoming a Medical Emergency

The move to Los Angeles back in the early fall of 2015 was supposed to be the extension of a love affair, that began a little over a decade ago, when I was so sure that my future as a development executive was securely waiting for my overdue arrival.

2018 Japan Floods.

The TV career didn’t happen, but what I did manage to do, was to cement a thriving relationship with a city that treated me kindly. Against my best wishes, I returned to New York City after only a couple of years, and that happened because like most abusive relationships, the victim always believes they need to do better in order to curb the blows.

It took me another a decade to finally give up my toxic relationship with New York, and beg L.A. for another chance with the hopes that I was still appealing enough to take back — despite being older and not necessarily wiser.

The second time around proved to be a major dud. The adjustment period was a lot more challenging, and the piled up years had turned me into someone who didn’t want to be stuck at the offices of The Hollywood Reporter at past midnight — staging a bunch of tweets about stuff that I used to give a shit about back in 2005.

Read the Medium story by Ezinne Ukoha - “Why Climate Change Is Fast Becoming a Medical Emergency.”

California Fires Enter the Heart of Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — With thick plumes of smoke, towering flames and mass evacuations, a fast-moving wildfire struck one of America’s major cities on Wednesday.

A home burned in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles on Wednesday.

As fires raged out of control across Southern California, a new blaze erupted in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, near iconic landmarks like the U.C.L.A. campus and the Getty Museum, home to old masters paintings and ancient Roman statues.

It burned up to the edges of the 405 freeway, the nation’s busiest highway carrying about 400,000 vehicles a day, where the northbound lanes were closed for much of the day and commuters drove through a shower of ash with flames rising in the horizon.

Forty miles to the northwest, the largest of several fires underway had consumed 90,000 acres by Wednesday night and at least 150 structures — probably hundreds more, fire officials said — and threatened 12,000 others in the city of Ventura and neighboring communities, and was 5 percent contained. Other major fires were burning in the northern San Fernando Valley and the rugged region north of Los Angeles.

Read The New York Times story - “California Fires Enter the Heart of Los Angeles.”

Largest fire in Los Angeles' history burns on city's outskirts, homes evacuated

The city of Los Angeles is under siege from a bushfire which the city's mayor has described as the largest in its history.

A plane makes a drop on a hillside in Sun Valley
neighbourhood, north of Los Angeles on Saturday.

The fire, which is burning in the La Tuna area in the north-east of the city, has consumed about 2000 hectares of brush in the San Fernando Valley's Verdugo Mountains.

By late on Saturday three homes had been lost and another 700 homes had been evacuated, roughly 550 of them from the Burbank and Glendale areas, which are adjacent to the fire.

The Burbank neighbourhood is also home to three of the city's biggest film studios, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney.

Read Michael Idato’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Largest fire in Los Angeles' history burns on city's outskirts, homes evacuated.”

(Los Angeles biggest ever wildfire (bushfire), unprecedented rainfall in Houston, and 1,200 people die, and the lives of some 40 million others turned upside down, by torrential rain in northern India, southern Nepal, northern Bangladesh and southern Pakistan - surely it is time the world stood as one recognising and acknowledging climate change - Robert McLean)

Largest fire in Los Angeles' history burns on city's outskirts, homes evacuated

The city of Los Angeles is under siege from a bushfire which the city's mayor has described as the largest in its history.

A crew with Cal Fire battles a brushfire on
the hillside in Burbank, California, on Saturday. 

The fire, which is burning in the La Tuna area in the north-east of the city, has consumed about 2000 hectares of brush in the San Fernando Valley's Verdugo Mountains.

Only 10 per cent of the fire is contained, officials say.

Around 700 homes have been evacuated, roughly 550 of them from the Burbank and Glendale areas, which are adjacent to the fire.

Read Michael Idato’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Largest fire in Los Angeles' history burns on city's outskirts, homes evacuated.”

How one city is preparing for extreme heat - with trees

The cool shade of a tree makes a hot day more bearable. But in San Fernando, California, a small city near downtown Los Angeles, that relief is hard to find.

Tree People dedicates five years
of care for each tree it plants.

Montañez: “Not only do you have concrete everywhere, you have very few trees in that community.”

That’s Cindy Montañez of the nonprofit “Tree People.”

She says climate change is making the heat in San Fernando worse. Twenty-five years ago, the city experienced about 50 days a year with temperatures over 95 degrees. That number is likely to double to almost 100 days by mid-century.

Read and listen to the Yale Climate Connections story - “How one city is preparing for extreme heat - with trees.”

Los Angeles nearing 100 per cent renewable energy

Los Angeles on the verge of having
100 per cert renewable energy.

Los Angeles is a city born of Thomas Edison’s inventions.

The movie camera, obviously, helped propel it to become the second-largest city in the United States, but the light bulb, too, is integral to the city’s heritage. Unlike many of the country’s older cities, Los Angeles barely knew a time without electricity. There is even a hip bar called The Edison paying homage to the city’s history in a former power plant in the heart of downtown.

Growing up alongside the car and electricity industries, Los Angeles has long been seen as one of the country’s most modern cities. But now, as our collective dependence on power has been found guilty of damaging our water, air, and climate, the city is taking steps to be part of the new future: a clean energy future.

The City Council is going to consider a motion this month that would direct the municipal utility to determine how to move the city to 100 percent renewable energy. The motion already has broad support from councilmembers, and Los Angeles officials confirmed that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has begun work on the report, which will be developed with research partners, including the Dept. of Energy.

Read the ClimateProgress story - “The Second-Largest City In The U.S. Is On The Verge Of Being 100 Percent Renewable.”