[TEASER] World on Fire

Upstream

Politics, Society & Culture, News

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a free preview of the episode "World on Fire." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast

As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going.

In this bonus Patreon episode, Robbie takes some time to reflect on the fires in the LA area and reads a piece that he wrote for Huffington Post which exposed the privatization of firefighting services during the 2018 Woolsey Fire in LA.

This episode in our reading series covers a wide variety of topics from climate change, forest mismanagement, how neoliberalism shapes our municipalities, the rise of fascism and cop cities, the role of mutual aid, the rise of private firefighting services (and the rich assholes who utilize them while simultaneously working for the defunding of public services), the oligarchs who run California's agriculture industry, the connection between imperialism and climate change, and much more.

Further resources:

"As California’s Wildfires Raged, The Ultra-Rich Hired Private Firefighters," Robert Raymond
All Power Books
Midnight Books
PSL Los Angeles
The People's Struggle San Fernando Valley
Mutual Aid LA
A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit

Related episodes:

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, Robbie here with another Patreon episode. And this one is actually sort of an
0:05.9	off week bonus episode because I just really wanted to get into the studio and talk a little bit
0:12.8	about some current events. And our next Patreon week isn't until like the week of the 20th. And that
0:19.6	just felt like way too far out. So yeah,
0:22.6	today I want to talk a little bit about the LA fires and I'm going to do so by actually
0:29.2	reading an essay that I wrote in 2018, which is I think eerily so relevant to what's happening right now in Southern California.
0:42.2	And I do just want to start, though, by saying, like, really my heart goes out to everyone who is
0:47.4	impacted by this right now.
0:49.9	I know a number of people who've told me that they know like dozens of friends who've lost
0:54.9	their family homes and their apartments and at least 10 people have lost their lives so far.
1:01.2	Hundreds of thousands have been evacuated, something like 2,000 structures have been lost.
1:06.9	And I think this is now the most destructive fire in LA's history. Well, there are like five fires
1:13.9	burning right now. Some are much larger than others. But, you know, that's saying a lot because
1:19.4	Los Angeles County burns a lot. And I'm also definitely feeling really sad thinking about all of
1:26.2	the wildlife and also all the pets and our animal friends. And I'm going definitely feeling really sad thinking about all of the wildlife and also all of the pets and our animal friends.
1:29.9	And I'm going to try to throw some links for donations and mutual aid stuff in the show notes.
1:36.7	And I'll keep adding to those as they keep coming in and I keep seeing them.
1:42.8	But it's definitely true that fire
1:45.8	is a natural part of the Californian landscape, but not like this, right? Like climate change
1:53.0	exacerbates things in a way that turns these fires, it turns fires into mega fires and once in a lifetime events into common occurrences.
2:04.3	And I think it's also really important when we think about this stuff to think about the increased
2:10.3	density of populations living in these areas of what we call the wildland urban interface.
	...

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