I’ve been to Los Angeles several times over the years – for work, entertainment, and occasionally out of the curious mix of “business trips” that journalists tell them. I’ve always loved this place: the optimism in the sky, the streets of palm trees, the sun-washed hills rolling down to the Pacific Ocean.
But this time it’s different. The hills were burnt. The air is irritating. Driving into Altadena, I was not met by the familiar suburban buzz, but by the damaged sight and smell. House ditch. Trees become fragile bones. The haze stuck to the lungs.
The Altardna fire was not only burning on land. They burned their lives. The people who build houses now, memories and future stand in ashes now, only they manage to hold something in the security aspect of the chaos.
It’s not just physical harm. This is the mood. The conversation is quieter and the eyes are heavier. You may feel the common trauma – the place they love can be taken away again at any time.
What I saw moved me so much that I did something I rarely do on the road: I stopped, set up my phone, and recorded a short video for the EV-powered YouTube channel. I stood there in the consequences of stillness and talked about the urgency of action on climate change. You can watch here: EV Power – La Fire.
Yet despite the uncontributing evidence – rising temperatures, worsening storms, extended wildfire seasons – some still stand in front of cameras and insist that climate change is some exquisite scam. In the United States, Donald Trump works in the sport. His casual firing of climate science has always been his political theme, playing in the crowd but giving up on the planet.
This is a dangerous luxury, this denial. It allows leaders to avoid tough policy decisions and shift the cost of action to keep the machine humming to keep it ongoing. But it is a sacrifice for communities like Altadena and Oxfordshire and Oxfordshire farmers and those who have already paid for the price of floods, droughts, fires and food shortages.
Climate denial is not limited to Maga circuits. In the UK, we also have our own chorus of skeptics – some in the media, some in the bar, some are sadly, in the position of real influence, and then there is reform on the topic in the UK. They use the language of “common sense” to cover themselves up, as if ignoring problems is more practical than solving them.
This is where my trip to Los Angeles is related to the column above Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson is not Trump – he is not running to back down on environmental protection, and what he does to educate the public about the reality of agriculture rather than any politician I can name. But when he waved the link between extreme weather and climate change, it gave the same complacency, making the fire hotter and the oceans rose faster, while communities like Altadena were the first to be blasted.
It’s a tough fact: the cost of action is high, but the cost of doing nothing is devastating. Businesses know this – supply chains are damaged by floods, crop yields are hit by drought, every “century” disaster that happens every other year, and insurance costs soar. Whether you are on a farm in Chipping Norton or a logistics center in California, climate change is a line of profit or loss, whether you admit it or not.
The lesson from Altadena is not just about wildfires. This is what they happen more frequently, more intensely, and happens where they don’t burn. Unless we accept links to our ever-changing climate and take corresponding actions – they will continue to happen.
Flying home, I thought of the people I met there. Not activists, not lobbyists, not political agents, but residents trying to rebuild. They don’t have the luxury of debating whether the climate is changing. They live in the consequences of answers.
If one thing the business can draw from is that leadership means facing reality, even inconvenient. We can’t continue to see climate change as someone else’s problem, or tomorrow’s problem, or – worst of all – not a problem at all. Because when you get to your doorstep, it is too late to deny that they are true.
