{"id":728,"date":"2023-08-20T16:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-20T16:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/?p=728"},"modified":"2023-08-20T16:46:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T16:46:04","slug":"fire-and-fury-maui-climate-change-arson-and-preparations-for-a-15-minute-smart-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/fire-and-fury-maui-climate-change-arson-and-preparations-for-a-15-minute-smart-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire and Fury \u2013 Maui: Climate Change, Arson, and Preparations for a 15-minute Smart City"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer has not been the summer of love but the summer of wildfires, caused by \u201cextreme weather conditions\u201d which have then been blamed on \u201cclimate change\u201d and by that we mean human-made climate change.\u00a0 First, we had Canada, where there are still over 1000 fires burning<\/a>, then we had Greece where evacuations of villages<\/a> is still happening. \u00a0We have also had a new form of intrusive, direct-action climate activism characterised by very public and very disruptive direct action.\u00a0 These fires have been loudly and publicly blamed on climate change, with the governor of Hawaii explicitly blaming \u201cclimate change\u201d for the extent of the fires.<\/p>\n

However, we should immediately be suspect of these claims for all sorts of reasons.\u00a0 After the deafening chorus of \u201cclimate change\u201d regarding the fires in Greece, the Greek government has since publicly declared that over 666 of the fires were works of arson and they are looking to strengthen the penalties against arsonists.\u00a0 Of course, you have to catch the arsonists first and that is a major part of the problem; arson is an amazingly cheap and effective form of direct action for those vested interests corrupt enough to find a few sociopaths who are happy to burn it all down, especially if there is a utopian justification lurking in the shadows.<\/p>\n

Now, you might be thinking \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d at this point if you have stumbled across this article but rest assured, I will be looking at the evidence regarding what has gone on surrounding the events in Lahaina for the purposes of understanding what probably happened there, and which may also help explain what is going on in some of the other areas where fires are still burning.\u00a0 As is normal, there has been a slew of conspiracies circulating regarding it and some of the \u201cevidence\u201d has been relatively easy to dismiss as noted on \u201cfact-checking\u201d DW site here<\/a>.\u00a0 For example, we are not talking about the alleged DEW (Direct Energy Weapon) targeting or testing, that is a marginal possibility here though some of the descriptions of the track of the fire certainly suggest anomalous track and spreading behaviour.\u00a0 As Glenn Beck has noted, there is much more to that specific story<\/a> and its China connection which NASA really did put out quite an elaborate cover story over during an \u201cexercise\u201d over Hawaii and Florida about a month ago when the Chinese weather balloon was eventually downed over the Northern part of the US.\u00a0 There are<\/em> real questions about the patterns and shape of the blaze which has led to speculation of deliberately started blazes, but alleged conspiracy-theorist extraordinaire Adam Jones<\/a> gave good reasons to come out against DEWs in this case, as there is a far more plausible explanation for the speed and pattern of the spread.<\/p>\n

We should rather talk about the roles of the Hawaii Electric Company in not following protocol to open circuits to prevent sparking in high winds and what has been called \u201ccriminal negligence<\/a>\u201d in not cutting the brush around electric pylons.\u00a0 They had a legal obligation to ensure space around the pylons which travelled along a major highway to the rear of the town.\u00a0 Trees were falling in the winds onto the electric pylons and creating fires. \u00a0Normal practice would be to cut the power when winds exceeded 50 or 60 mph (80-100 km\/h) to prevent the possibility of this occurring. \u00a0Similarly, the lack of maintenance on surrounding areas around the town on the brush and trees which would have prevented the fire from spreading into it so easily, are real and the inexplicable cut-off of water supplies to West Maui as landowners and firefighters were fighting the fire, and succeeding, suddenly found themselves without water.\u00a0 This was despite high level official emergency requests being sent to divert available supplies; these were not conspiracies but were put in writing<\/a> the day after the destruction of the town by a senior local official with the West Maui Land Company who had made the requests for the emergency diversion of water resources.<\/p>\n

Water supply, as is a common issue on many coral islands, is a disputed and a highly political issue and the politics of the official responsible for responding to the emergency request were very probably a significant factor (given his previous public statements about water as a resource) in the catastrophic delay in filling reservoirs that firefighters were using.\u00a0 So, electricity was left on, water was turned off; this guaranteed the incineration of the vulnerable area, which was the poorer or indigenous commercial strip. \u00a0The wealthier part of the town where such maintenance had been carried out, or in individual buildings surrounded by managed land (such as a church with a park around it), have survived with the mansions of the wealthiest unscathed.\u00a0 This indigenous dimension we will find of interest later because it is supremely significant. \u00a0It seems beyond question that the damage to the town would have no doubt been mitigated almost completely if these emergency requests had been actioned immediately and if basic land management and legal maintenance obligations had been fulfilled.<\/p>\n

There are also further real questions regarding the failure to use the Emergency Warning System which was specifically put in place for emergencies such as tsunamis and fire; this led to the resignation<\/a> of the chief just a day after he defended not using it.\u00a0 Not a single official had attempted to activate the system at any time and the alerting of the residents was done with a 1-minute warning to evacuate via SMS which with towers already down, could not be received.\u00a0 It was also questionable that TV or Radio transmissions would have been heard by people who were working and how children sent home would react to it. There are also serious issues with the releasing of children from school in such circumstances which has resulted in over 1000 still being classed as \u201cmissing\u201d; as children\u2019s homes were already destroyed in some cases, there would have been nowhere to go and the risk of traffickers taking advantage of that situation would have been extremely real.<\/p>\n

There are also serious issues as to the emergency management on the ground, the communities which have survived have not survived because of FEMA or Red Cross support but despite of it with some truly heroic tales of local surf celebrities and other locals forming hubs, arranging airlifts, using local boats for delivering aid, and cooking for hundreds.\u00a0 For two days there was no federal presence prompting an enormous people driven response and when the federal agencies did turn up it seemed they came for a photo-op rather than with practical help or actively interfered with the transport of aid or access to affected areas.\u00a0 This reminded me of an Asian official who explained to me how disasters were sometimes managed in his country, if you wait a few days people will either leave the affected area if they can, or they will die from a lack of clean water, making the clean-up less problematic and the government can efficiently clear and claim their land. In third world fashion too, the police chief, then proceeded to ban access to the areas ostensibly as a mark of respect to identifying those bodies turned to powder.<\/p>\n

It might be reasonable to assert that permitting such passage was dangerous, but the locals were prepared to take the risk, particularly as those isolated or trapped would be desperate for aid. \u00a0It is certainly even more questionable that FEMA and local officials are still refusing access to residents to return to their land.\u00a0 There does seem to have been some improvement with temporary housing and accommodation arrangements, especially as national focus on the official response has heightened.\u00a0 However, as one commentator has noted, the federal grant of $700 per person as emergency aid is an interesting contrast to the billions being sent to fund the war effort in Ukraine.\u00a0 The desire to keep the official \u201cdeath-toll\u201d figures low also seems to have been figuring in the reporting of cadavers beyond recognition and \u201cturned to powder\u201d but such intense heat would have been required to say powder bone for dental recognition, that it is a highly questionable claim.<\/p>\n

Further, what is notable in some of the \u201cfact-checking\u201d debunking websites such as in DW\u2019s above and in AP\u2019s debunking story here<\/a> is that they mention the claim \u201cMaui was destroyed intentionally to rebuild it with the 15-minute city concept\u201d<\/em> as debunked and false, but they give absolutely no justification for that conclusion.\u00a0 DW gives it no justification at all, mentioning it in the context of other easily debunkable photos, we must assume it is debunked by association only; AP mention it only in specifically referring to what the Hawaii Governor Josh Green was saying in a specific<\/em> interview.\u00a0 It would be correct to claim that he does not offer direct<\/em> endorsement in that particular<\/em> interview (because it is not mentioned directly), but it would be equally correct to say that what he said in that interview regarding the transfer of land ownership to the State would be consistent with the thesis of the person who quoted that what he said indicates support for the concept.<\/p>\n

Transfer of ownership of the land into State hands would<\/em> be a prerequisite of allowing such a development to occur.\u00a0 This is because the locals have repeatedly refused to sell the land to corporations that wanted to come and develop such a city in lines with the agenda of the billionaires owning the properties in Lahaina, who wanted to demonstrate the concept of a 100% electric island with smart technology as workable.\u00a0 The local planning authority have repeatedly refused to authorise the redevelopment because the land was historically tribal land.\u00a0 If you dig a little deeper, things start to get really interesting and the plausibility of this as a planned and executed event to bypass the opposition of the indigenous people to redevelopment gets much stronger.<\/p>\n