What is going on, in these American cities? The wind picks up and they burn, then the news reports losses surpassing hundreds of billions of dollars and even worse is the loss in life. It’s clear that these cities are not experiencing Natural Disasters. Nations that claim to be able to destroy the world are certainly the same groups that can also then recognize that that which is within their control to avoid. Should “nature” be permitted to do as it pleases, and be permitted to return the concrete to the vines? If not so, then there are just disasters, a view shared by the United Nations which makes the claim that there are only Natural Hazards. This is supported where Bridgette Balthasar makes the point that despite Natural Hazards, “Disasters are not natural occurrences.” (Balthasar para. 1).
There are hurricanes here, and there are typhoons elsewhere that already cause incredible amounts of damage. The type of disaster that’s no longer “natural” is a disaster caused through burning and fire alone. Withing the same organization as Bridgette above, The United Nations says that these are, “disasters that result from natural hazards, like wildfires or desertification, that have a devastating effect on natural resources, laying waste to ecosystems and wildlife habitats.” (UNDRR para. 4). It’s not even discussed that a fire disaster should occur in a city. How is it that these American Cities that are so close to the water, catch on fire and burn to the ground? Los Angeles and Maui are the most recent in just the past two years. I had a few ties to both of these, with my parents having spent their honeymoon in Lahaina, and I’d just made it to the West Coast not less than 6 years ago for the first time in my life where my sister now lives. My sister had just moved to LA, and I’m to return there shortly. I’m told now that those same places I drove through just a few years ago all have burned and have since been swept away like a tumbleweed. Possibly it’s the same wind of change that carried her there that also fans the fire of destruction there today.
This is a catastrophic event and various discussions have revealed to me that people perceive their issues to be due to natural causes, and refer to the situation as a Natural Disaster. People have heard this mindset, originating from Europe, and seem to have rejected it. Even the news refers to it as, “a display of almost Orwellian doublespeak.” (Kent para. 2). It’s almost as if the idea were to be so transient that the same wind that stoked the fires, sent the idea passing from one ear to the other without having stopped in-between. The rejection of the idea is that these disasters are a societal issue is likely the root of the accusation. Finding a cause for these issues may go on for some time, and it may appear to be easy to simply place such a blame on a societal failure in the same way one might blame the wind being taken out of their own sails. Ships burn, too.
Still, it’s hard at times for me to witness this destruction and disagree. Folks have offhandedly said to me that it’s due to the more liberal Democratic nature of the city. Opposing this idea is that Sydney, Australia, happens to be much further along this political alleyway than California. To compound this, Australia is world renowned for its bushfires which have a history stretching back hundreds of years of recorded history. Not once in that time has it ever been recorded that Sydney has lost its entire north side and has been left with over 250 billion dollars in damages, as a result of these Natural Hazards. As the New York Post says, “The catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires that have reduced entire neighborhoods to piles of ash are estimated to have caused damages and economic losses between a staggering $250 billion and $275 billion.” (Reilly para. 1). Common reports might be that the Australian bushfires have taken over the beaches in Sydney, which recently have, “raged through 100 hectares of bushland,” according to 9NEWS (Hohne para. 1). Generally, these Natural Hazards prompt evacuations, but no damage is permitted that’s comparable to that which is seen in these American Cities. So, is it just places I don’t have any ties to, then? These sums of money are higher than the GDP of more than 50% of US states and territories.
I’m purposefully not accounting for less manageable Natural Hazards such as hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes. The control of fire and the wind that carries it where it ought to not go is very much within the domain of control of man as evidenced by our peers in this world that don’t let this happen to them. In exercising this control, they spend less money, live in more dangerous conditions, and do so while following even further ‘extreme’ political stances than the most ‘extreme’ US state. Folks have pointed toward the wind, erroneously and more often than not. I too, once thought it was the wind that carried me somewhere. We don’t legislate the fire, it wasn’t the money that was being spent on preventing the fire, and it’s certainly the case that fire-starting is already outlawed – do we now move then to ban the wind, remove the air that we breathe? It’s wind, too, that carries the seed from a plant to the soil in which it grows. At what point does a finger need to be pointed at until it happens upon removing ourselves, that we get out of our own way?
A couple years back, I was kayaking on the man-made Jordan Lake in North Carolina. I’d been on the lake many times before, but that day it was a bit choppy. I ended up going away from shore anyways, and ended up beached about a mile away after not being able to overcome the wind in order to get back. I landed, made a phone call, drank a drink, found some trash, a key and some shells and next thing I knew I was flying to Texas the next day. In this case it was on seeing a driving influence from that same wind that caused me to see value in making a change which didn’t only beach me once that day, but then once again it did so a bit later. It was with the wind I imagined to be at my back that propelled me in such a direction. This was a pure hallucination though. In all cases it was the jet propulsion from the plane that I paid incredible amounts of money to overcome the actual wind resistance to me going there, that got me from where I was at to where I was going. In this case I’d say that cash was “gone with the wind”, too.
What was the case was that my thought of holding myself accountable to imaginary tethers that bound me to the area for six years were never there to begin with had eroded. The realization that I had the free will to do as I pleased, either lock the cell up again or leave. The irrational idea of sitting in an unlocked cell lying in wait of something, at that moment, had come and passed with the same wind that found me beached ashore on that day and I’d decided to accept this unique wind for what it was. The same wind in which I found a breath of life, though, is one and the same as the one that tends to interconnect every one thing – even the solar wind carries matter and energy from the Sun to the Earth.
There are tropes in which one deals with the wind where one paddles against the wind, or spits into it. In one case a progressive effort is confounded by the wind blowing opposite to one’s intended direction of travel. Another case involves the futile application of a relieving effort is thereby thwarted, for whatever reason, and thereby defiles the originator of the effort. In these cases, the element that ordinarily connects something to something else, instead leaves one connected to themselves, so as invite an opportunity for introspection or reassessment of a futile attempt to confront a Natural Hazard of nature. It wasn’t until some time later, that I’d come to stop blaming the wind for my having been beached on that day. It was a lot of other things, but it wasn’t that.
How this same wind’s permitted to take away these American Cities that not a single other country will permit to have happen of their own, is not the same way as in the Fall where it’s only the wind that can know when it is that any particular leaf is to be taken from any particular tree. In this case, there are resources to make sure that these American Cities don’t blow about in the wind so carelessly. The point here is that “fire to cause such levels of devastation in this civilized world” as a concept is so far outside of the scope of the consideration for any other country that it was presumed by the United Nations to not even need to be mentioned in their literature on “Natural Disasters not existing”, in that it’s already understood that fires are not a class of Natural Disaster. There are less people in Los Angeles, than Sydney, so it’s not a people issue. These American Cities burn, but the will of these people to do anything different remains as steeled as ever.
In conclusion, the level of fire damage to these American Cities being claimed is summarized by the amount of money it would take to rebuild, the losses of what was there, and the total lives lost. This number is an order of magnitude higher in these regards, but no discernible reason for this to happen at all is apparent. There are cities that are twice as large, half as well funded, have twice the population, are windier, are more politically ‘extreme’, and any number of conditions that indicate that these American Cities have little justification to burn in the way that they do. In these cases, our peers have determined that what is happening is not a Natural Disaster as reported by the United Nations. The various considerations on which the national climate, or mentality, rest seems to lack a buffer from the wind here.
Works Cited
Balthasar, Brigitte. “Words Matter: Stop Using the Phrase ‘Natural Disasters.’” PreventionWeb, 15Feb2023, https://www.preventionweb.net/news/words-matter-stop-using-phrase-natural- disasters. Accessed 05Feb2025.
Hohne, Josh. “Residents Wake to Thick Blanket of Smoke after Sydney Bushfire.” Sydney Northern Beaches Bushfire, 9News, 22Sep2024, https://www.9news.com.au/national/sydney-northern- beaches-bushfire/07f47468-c057-4f52-b5ea-fbf620101ee8. Accessed 05Feb2025.
Kent, Simon. “U.N. Says Mind Your Language — ‘No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster.’” Breitbart, 01Jan2024, https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/01/01/u-n-says-mind-your-language-no- such-thing-as-a-natural-disaster/. Accessed 05Feb2025.
Reilly, Patrick. “La Wildfires Have Caused More than $250 Billion in Damages and Economic Loss: Report.” New York Post, New York Post, 15Jan2025, https://www.nypost.com/2025/01/15/us- news/la-wildfires-cause-more-than-250-billion-in-damages-and-economic-loss-report/. Accessed 05Feb2025.
UNDRR. “No Natural Disasters.” United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 28Nov2023, www.undrr.org/our-impact/campaigns/no-natural-disasters. Accessed 05Feb2025.