Nero... Er, Trump Tweets While California Burns

Last week, President Trump blamed “bad environmental laws” for the catastrophic wildfires now raging in California, inaccurately claiming that water that could be used to fight the fires was “foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018

California state officials and firefighting experts immediately rebutted the president’s comments. “We have plenty of water to fight these fires,” Daniel Berlant of CalFire, the state’s fire agency, told The New York Times. “Let’s be clear: It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires.”

Trump signed an emergency disaster declaration for California on July 28, but as the biggest-ever wildfires in the state’s history continued to grow, he took to Twitter:

“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming, and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water—Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals."

“[The president’s] claim that firefighters don’t have enough water to extinguish the fires in California is both blatantly false and unhelpful in relief efforts,” Athan Manuel (at left), director of the Sierra Club‘s Lands Protection Program, editorialized on CNN.com the day after Trump’s erroneous Tweets.

“But perhaps more dangerous than his falsehood is his conflation of two separate issues: water management and wildfires,” Manuel charged. “Such a statement ignores that climate change is the real reason wildfire season has been so intense. Getting the cause wrong prevents real risk analysis and points to ineffective solutions.

“The long-term safety of the more than 40 million homes in wildfire-prone areas will depend on how effectively we address the atmospheric pollution that is driving global warming,” Manuel said. “It's up to all of us to ensure that Trump's spurious calls for water don't distract us from the real solutions that are within our reach.”

Read Manuel’s editorial in its entirety.