The L.A. Fires: How They Happened, Climate Change’s Role, and What the City Must Do Now

Plain English with Derek Thompson

The Ringer

News Commentary, News

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With so many confusing narratives unfolding around a fire that is still raging out of control, I wanted to talk to somebody I knew and trusted to get stories like this right. Robinson Meyer is the founder and editor of Heatmap News and a former staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate news and related disasters. We talk about why this Los Angeles fire is so unusual, how it differs from most recent forest fires in California, the role of climate change, and what Los Angeles and other places can do to protect people from the inevitability of future disasters. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Robinson Meyer Producer: Devon Baroldi Links: Could More Controlled Burns Have Helped? 5 Startups Working on LA Fires What Started The Fires? Why LA’s Fires Are Exceptionally Hard to Fight Does climate change make the Santa Ana winds worse? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up everybody? Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch.
0:06.6	And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby.
0:10.3	I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the
0:15.7	mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league.
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0:33.4	That's at Ringer NBA.
0:35.0	And check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters
0:40.2	in the history of podcasting, right on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel.
0:48.8	Over the past week, like many of you, I've been gutted and astonished by the devastation in Los Angeles.
0:55.9	As we record this, more than 20 people have died in the Los Angeles fires.
1:01.3	More than 10,000 homes are destroyed, and 200,000 residents have been displaced.
1:08.4	And those statistics, of course, only brushed the surface of the devastation this means
1:13.6	to people who have lost their homes,
1:15.4	their memories, their wealth, their community.
1:18.6	Members of my family, some of the people I love most
1:21.5	in this world have been deeply, deeply affected by the fires.
1:24.6	I know many employees of the ringer
1:26.3	have either lost homes or known someone who
1:29.1	lost a home, whether in the palisades, where the destruction was most widespread, and in the
	...

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