As the Los Angeles-area wildfires continue to burn, the leftist media have found almost every possible way to explain what caused them, while ignoring the obvious facts. On Wednesday’s The 11th Hour, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle brought in University of Pennsylvania professor and longtime climate alarmist Dr. Michael Mann to hypothesize about the fires as a direct effect of climate change and what he called an “addiction to fossil fuels.”
Ruhle opened by stating that President-Elect Trump “falsely blamed President Biden and Governor Gavin Newsom for the wildfires.” She failed to mention, however, that his criticism was not entirely misplaced.
California had been suffering from poor water and forest management for years and the state neglected to initiate sufficient preventative measures. A 2021 investigation by CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom found that Newsom had overstated the number of treated acres with fuel breaks and prescribed burns by 690%. And the state has not built a new reservoir since 1979.
Dr. Mann asserted the fires were a “preventable tragedy” and that they resulted from the continued use of fossil fuels. This, according to him, led to an overlap between the fire season and the Santa Ana wind season as well as less rainfall, all of which he concluded “is tied to the large-scale warming of the planet from the burning of fossil fuels.”
He went on to characterize Trump’s response as a “classic deflection” because he simply “doesn’t want to talk about climate change.” He ironically accused the president-elect of “trying to distract the public by talking about anything else” when the media was doing just that.
Not a word was said about Newsom’s role in all of this or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ incompetence coupled with her obvious absence from the city during the outbreak of the wildfires.
A CNN interview with Newsom showed the governor seemingly crumbling under the pressure of the disaster. When asked about the water shortages, he decided that “local folks are gonna figure that out":
COOPER: “What is the situation with the water? Palisades ran out last night.”
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 9, 2025
NEWSOM (throws hands up): “Local folks are gonna figure that out.” pic.twitter.com/O0AfSP6XW3
Ruhle also omitted any reporting on the recent law enforcement and fire department budget cuts. Evidently, like the rest of the leftist media she was too desperate to find an explanation for the disaster that was more comfortable than the full truth.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
01/08/2025
11:53:20 PM ESTSTEPHANIE RUHLE: Drought and intense winds are fueling the deadly California wildfires, and Donald Trump falsely blamed President Biden and Governor Gavin Newsom for them. For more, I want to bring in Dr. Michael Mann, he joins me now. He’s a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis. First, I want to get your take on these horrible fires, and how is climate change contributing to them?
DR. MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. I’d say it's good to be with you, but we almost never have the news to discuss, do we?
RUHLE: No.
MANN: You know, what–what we’re seeing play out is–is a tragedy. And it’s a preventable tragedy. It’s a result of the fact that we have continued to burn fossil fuels, elevate the levels of carbon pollution in the atmosphere to the point where we now have a fire season that stretches well into the winter, into the new year, and what we’re seeing now is that the fire season has expanded to the point where it’s overlapping with the Santa Ana wind season. They didn’t used to overlap. The Santa Ana winds tend to occur outside of the dry season. But now we’re seeing an overlap, because the dry season’s getting longer. The rains are taking longer to come in the winter. It’s January and there’s barely been any rainfall over a large stretch of southern California. And all of that is tied to the large-scale warming of the planet from the burning of fossil fuels.
RUHLE: Donald Trump is blaming President Biden and Governor Newsom for these fires. What’s your reaction?
MANN: Yeah, of course he is. Um, you know, this is classic deflection because he doesn't want to talk about climate change. His incoming administration is doing everything they can to dismantle climate action in the U.S., to dismantle programs to incentivize clean energy, a move towards clean energy, climate solutions. And, so, he’s trying to distract the public by talking about anything else, by talking about the governor, by talking about the current president, by talking about land-use practices or raking of leaves, anything he can to distract the public so that they don't see this for what it is: a manifestation of our continued addiction to fossil fuels, an addiction that his administration hopes to maintain.
RUHLE: Alright. Dr. Mann, thank you for joining us. Again, I would say it's good to see you, but I never see you on a good night. Thank you for your work.
(...)
