Obviously there are the climate change denialists who think “global elites” have paid actors setting forest fires around the globe, but there are also reputable people saying this. When I hear arson, I hear a person starting a fire with malicious intent. Are there really massive numbers of malicious firestarters around the globe, or does arson also cover things like recklessness/carelessness, like if I burn trash in my backyard or start a campfire on the woods and it gets out of control?
I think arson is a scapegoat in a lot of incidents, but it definitely happens. For example someone in my town was struggling with psychosis and attempted to burn down a business, probably because in their reality it housed some really evil stuff. Another person was angry at my agency and unsuccessfully tried to set the building on fire. It must be blown super out of proportion though and I'll bet that arson is attributed to accidental fires, though, to avoid climate change conversations and just freak people out.
Just liberalism using rascism to deny materialism.
Did conditions change and lead to bad outcomes? No, one of them did it.
It's a non sequitur. Climate change has nothing to do with how wild fire start. It doesn't matter how it starts, climate change makes wild fires more common and worse. Very dishonest people pretend that the argument is climate change causes wild fires by making things so hot they burst into flame.
Also there are different degrees of arson. Intentionally setting a field on fire can be third degree arson. Setting someone's house on fire to kill them is first degree arson.
Very dishonest people pretend that the argument is climate change causes wild fires by making things so hot they burst into flame.
Anyone with half a brain would know that’s bullshit, and things burst into flames because they get hit by lightning.
Trying to deflect but there are organized arsons going around, like in spain to get grazing for cattle https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/wildfires-ravage-spains-asturias-temperatures-hit-record-highs-2023-03-30/
The rebuttal is that even if its arson the effect is worse. People have been starting fires for cultivation and grazing for ages. Problem is that today the fires dont die out
See I think this is what I mean. Like in the past the word “arson” has meant, to me, for example someone burning down another person’s house intentionally and maliciously. And I think a lot of people have the same understanding. And so I think a lot people hear the word arson linked to wildfire, and they picture people going out to the woods with the malicious intention to start large forest fires. And so it’s easier to accept the right-wing conspiracy of soros-funded arsonists intentionally starting fires to then blame on climate change.
The way you frame it makes it seem more like it’s farmers who, while the burning is illegal, are engaging in a generations old practice with no intention to start a huge forest fire. At least in Spain’s case. Which I think is a completely different situation than what most people (or at least us Americans) picture when they hear arson.
Well there are cattle owning Spanish and then there are the rest 😃, (well there are quite a few with a few cows that would never think of the idea of starting a fire for sure). But its not like sustainance farming projects. They are fascist assholes and even the government used the word terrorism in describing it. Most of spanish people would gladly see some of them cuaght in the flames.
Basically if you do it you just said I don't give a fuck as long as my cows can graze...
in my part of fire country, we’ve had four big wildfires in the last decade and one of them was actually caused by “arson”. the fire department is always trying to figure out how the fire started, and if some human caused the fire they call it arson. it’s pretty much the second thing you said. if you started a camp fire in the woods out here right now you’d be fined if caught. there are big signs every where in natural areas that say whether fire is allowed or not, and it’s usually not. there are also mandates for trimming trees and clearing brush before traditional fire season starts. burning trash or starting a campfire in the woods at this point about be a malicious or negligent act, and that makes it legally arson.
the way the brush fires work in our neck of the woods is that mountains and canyons that run east to west create a natural bellows when wind comes off the great basin. any fire that starts rapidly spirals out of control, and high winds can send embers and chunks of debris dozens of miles to start new fires. fires don’t just randomly burst into existence naturally though. part of my high school burned down cause of a guy flicking cigarette butts into dry grass. one of them was the power company, another was sunlight hitting broken glass in a field, and the most recent one was a transformer on some private street exploding. idk how the fire people figure this out once it’s all a burn scar, but arson is a real thing that causes wildfires.
you’re totally right that the coverage of it as arson is super sensationalizing and kinda weird, especially because calfire won’t announce a cause for a few more days or weeks. the news in LA fucking loves to talk about crime and make fun of people. in my memory, people who started campfires or had some of their property start a wildfire are usually cast as homeless/ drug addicts/ otherwise disposable. if it’s obfuscating blame, i’d say it’s not the news covering for climate change, it’s them covering for the state’s ineptitude. crime and person of interest stories are like jingling keys in front of many of my neighbors, so we aren’t asking about evacution plans, future proofing, water management, or zoning laws.
There was a very large fire in Oregon around 8(?) years ago that was started by a kid throwing fireworks into a gorge. Not maliciously. I think that counted as arson.
Yeah this is what I mean, like that to me is not the first thing I think of when I hear “arson.” Feel like the throwing around of the word arson for things like this makes people less inclined to look into things to fall back on blaming these things on some unspecified other and buying into right-wing climate change denial conspiracies
This kind of response to issues affecting society is very common on the right. When a problem is brought up they don't discuss solution, instead they go straight to finding someone who can be made personally responsible (fairly or not) and blaming them. This blame-assignment is then presented as a solution in and of itself.
The nice part about this is that blaming some guys doesn't cost anything, it doesn't require the government to do anything (except punishing them) and it avoids discussion about structural issues that might be uncomfortable to the right and the interests they represent.
The point of the fires is not who started them. Fires start from time to time, sometimes because of arson, sometimes for other reasons. The issue is how to handle the fires through having fire brigades, through technical measures to prevent fires from starting and spreading etc.
Depends on who is saying it. I've absolutely seen the take that increased fires are deliberately started by them in order to prove global warming is real.
I have also seen careless cigarette tossers charged with arson (though I don't remember how successfully), which would imply firestarting from carelessness could be considered arson by some.
People who just want to start a big fire (and act on it) are pretty rare. We had one in our city last year who tried twice to set our main national park on fire before he got arrested (the pattern was very deliberate, starting fires at the bottom of hills with strong tail winds).
Arson is pretty commonly committed by fash against unhoused encampments in CA
And conversely, fash and lib fash alike love to imply that the fires are the fault of homeless people through the “arson” label
Yeah that's the major issue. They do this vigilante anti-homeless fire starting and then say "see the homeless people start fires, they deserve to be eliminated." After years of organizing in unhoused encampments I know that most encampment fires in my area are not the fault of the people who live in those encampments. Some are, but most are not
They're deflecting because they don't think climate change is real (it's a SeeSeePee hoax) so every wild fire has to be done by arsonists
Even if it were arson, climate change is why the fires grow out of control and create their own weather.
We didn’t suddenly get more arsonists in the population compared to 1970. We’ve got more dangerous conditions now so when someone does commit arson it becomes much larger than ever before.
I also doubt the arson story, unless arson includes carelessness like tossing cig butts.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
It feels to me like muddying the water on what's responsible. Like they're trying to normalize the increasing number of fires.
It’s absolutely a muddying of the waters. But I’d like to be exacting in my criticism of those people. Since I can see a situation in which climate change creates the conditions (drier, hotter, drought, more wind etc) that cause human-started fires to grow larger and out of control. When folks start to talk about “arson” in relation to wildfires, is there any truth to it and I just have too narrow a definition of arson, or is it purely just a muddying of the waters?
I mean arson in my motherthounge is murder fire.
Lighting a match does not say what the consequences will be
