On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we discuss the devastating fires in Maui.
Last Tuesday, fires fueled by a combination of strong winds and drought conditions destroyed the historic town of Lahaina. The death toll has climbed to 96 with 1,000 people still missing. Only three percent of the burned area has been searched. The fires destroyed 2,200 structures, including many culturally significant locations. Thousands of people have been displaced.
Scientists say climate change, driven by fossil fuels, has led to more frequent and more powerful extreme weather events, including deadly fires.
Guests:
Chad Blair, politics and opinion editor for Civil Beat
Christina Gerhardt, environmental journalist, Associate Professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley, and author of Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean
Web Resources:
Civil Beat: Deadly Wildfires Caught Hawaii By Surprise
The New York TImes: How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox
Grist: Wildfires just destroyed a Maui town. Next year could be worse.
The Conversation: Native Hawaiian sacred sites have been damaged in the Lahaina wildfires – but, as an Indigenous scholar writes, their stories will live on
