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August 30, 2023

We can all agree that the wildfire in Maui was terrible. What we can’t agree on is the cause: Leftists say “climate change.” People rooted in facts say it was a combination of natural disasters and gross mismanagement driven by green zealotry.

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The Maui wildfire, stoked by howling winds, was a raging inferno of 1,000-degree heat that raced along, creating a hellscape at lightning speed before devouring the tourist town of Lahaina. Due to heavy winds that morning, some local schools were closed, leaving children at home while their parents went to work. Currently, the death toll stands at 114, but over 1,000 people are still missing, an unknown number of whom are children.

The government’s appearance on the scene was not propitious. When FEMA teams finally arrived, they checked in at three five-star hotels, the Fairmont Kea Lani, Four Seasons, and the Grand Wailea Astoria, where the prices at all three resorts start at $1,000 per night. Compare that to the one-time payment of $700 that Biden offered to the victims. FEMA justified this by saying, “Due to the lack of available lodging, FEMA negotiated government rates, at the lowest possible cost, for staff temporarily staying in the available hotels.”

Fox News’s Jesse Watters refuted this, noting that when his team checked at a nearby Days Inn, rooms were available, including some with an ocean-front view for a nightly $250. He also said that Expedia had listings for even less.

Image: Maui fire. YouTube screen grab.

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How devastating was the carnage? Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich poignantly describes how children were burned to ashes in their homes:

I saw one report that firefighters are having a very hard time psychologically going from house to house because the scenes of these little children, the scenes families gathered in the bathtub and in the shower trying to find one last place where there was water.

According to a recent report, residents fleeing the inferno in their cars encountered a gridlock caused by “Hawaiian Electric trucks that were replacing telephone poles along the road to Highway 30.” Tragically some were incinerated in their cars. One resident explained that a police car deliberately blocked an escape route.

Looking at the disaster, Democrats immediately cried “climate change.” Appearing on Face The Nation, Hawaii’s governor Josh Green wasted no time dealing the climate change card from the bottom of the deck, declaring, “Well, let’s be real world. Climate change is here. We are in the midst of it with a hotter planet and fiercer storms. The consequence of global warming and storm change is changing things.” When asked, “Did climate change amplify the cost of human error?” he answered, “Yes, it did.”

Other politicians echoed this theme. Washington’s governor Jay Inslee announced, “This is not your grandmother’s climate change. This is a new beast.” Illinois’s Senator Dick Durbin tweeted that “The wildfires raging across Hawaii are a devastating view of our planet as we fail to adequately address the climate crisis.” Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley had his own tweet: “Heartbreaking fires in Hawaii! Scientists are clear that climate chaos wreaking havoc on ecosystems everywhere is the new norm. And California’s Rep. Ro Khanna tweeted that “Again, it’s time for POTUS to declare a climate emergency.” Each of them knows that, if the government completely controls carbon emissions, the government completely controls everything.

The problem for the climate alarmists is that the data show that there were factors of much greater significance than “climate change.”