Intense, uncontrolled fires have been tearing through the greater Los Angeles area, forcing at least 180,000 people to evacuate homes, incinerating 12,000 structures, tearing apart many people’s lives. These are the largest in the history of Los Angeles, and among the largest urban fires in U.S. history. The fires have already killed 24 people. 

As we write, the fires have not been contained, and the intense Santa Ana winds continue to whip the fires, which jump from house to house, leap over freeways, and bring hell to the people and environment of Southern California. Dense and toxic smoke hangs over large portions of the city.

Capitalist-Driven Climate Change Sets the Stage for Catastrophic Fires

The fires and the devastation they are causing are a product of three overlapping factors:

• One, Southern California has been in the grip of an extreme dry spell, which scientists point out is linked to climate change, and which has left the area parched and very flammable.
• Two, very intense, hurricane-force winds have made the fires impossible to stop by the currently existing fire departments. The winds have carried burning embers for miles, where new fires start.
• Three, shortsighted, unplanned, and environmentally irrational capitalist development in LA has led to more and more homes being built in forested or semi-forested areas. This makes people more vulnerable and makes fires more likely to ignite from sparks caused by human activities. And on top of building homes where they should not be built, the system has failed to develop firefighting capacity that can deal with the enormity of the firestorm conditions the system itself has created.

Capitalism-imperialism—with its exploitative, profit-based, anarchic development—has burned and continues to burn oil and natural gas. This profit-driven dependence on fossil fuels results in the massive release of carbon and methane that traps heat in the atmosphere. Which leads to rising temperatures and climate change engulfing our planet... that now threatens ecosystems and life itself. (See the resource page: Capitalism-Imperialism Is Destroying the Planet… Only Revolution Gives Humanity a Real Chance to Save It.) 

Climate change and capitalism have created a tinderbox in Southern California, and it has exploded into flames.

Fascist Lies in Service of “Drill, Baby, Drill”

The MAGA fascist, climate-denying/anti-science Trump has seized on the crisis to attack environmentalists and California governor Gavin Newsom. Trump lied that firefighters ran out of water to fight the fire in some areas because of measures to use water to save endangered fish in northern California. Water for saving the fish had nothing to do with the water for fighting the fires. The fire hydrant system in LA was designed for fighting one or two house fires—not hundreds. That is one of the reasons it crashed against limits. 

A System Problem, a Radically Different, Far Better System Urgently Needed 

The reality is that BOTH the Democrats and Republicans have completely failed to do what is needed to respond to climate change. It is the system that they preside over and safeguard that has brought us to this precipice!

For decades, climate scientists have warned of the dangers of burning fossil fuels. For decades they have called for the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels and the radical reconfiguration of economies and societies. Yet here we are...

• There is no massive reduction of carbon emissions... and 2024 was the hottest year in recorded human history.
• The U.S. under Biden-Harris has been producing more oil and natural gas than any other country.
• Trump is promising even more devastating assaults on the environment.

System Problem... Fundamentally Different System Urgently Needed 

The fires in LA—and the ever more horrifying climate change itself—are fundamentally a SYSTEM problem. And the answer is revolution and a whole new and far better system. This revolution is POSSIBLE. It is the ONLY WAY OUT for humanity. And it must be URGENTLY WORKED FOR right now, as the fascist Trump comes to power. 

Don’t be taken in by the profound lie that “there is no alternative.” Bob Avakian (BA) has authored a developed, visionary, and viable plan (see box) for a whole new emancipating society in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America that can actually confront and act on the environmental crisis on the scale, and with the urgency, and planetary perspective required. This encompasses but goes far beyond the environment—providing a sweeping vision, firm foundation and concrete blueprint for transformation in every sphere, and with a degree of the positive freedom to act together to transform the world AND the freedom to—and support for—dissent, critical thinking, and ferment on a scale never before seen anywhere. 

WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM addresses the environment like this:

Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, Finally Abolishing War, and Systematically Addressing the Environmental Crisis

The new socialist government will not develop or use nuclear weapons and will take concrete steps and wage determined struggle to abolish nuclear weapons everywhere, with the ultimate goal of finally abolishing wars among human beings, with the abolition of the capitalist-imperialist system, and all systems and relations of exploitation and oppression, which are the basis for wars. This new socialist government will move, quickly, systematically and effectively, to address the already acute and fast accelerating environmental crisis, with the aim of bringing into being a world where humanity can truly be fit caretakers of the earth.

All this is not just a dream, or a wish—it is what is possible and necessary in the interests of the masses of people in this country and the great majority of humanity, and for the future of humanity as a whole.

All this is why there is an urgent need, and we boldly dare to demand—and we call on all those who hate injustice and hunger for a society and a world where people can fully thrive and give the fullest expression to their humanity, to join in making this the demand of millions and tens of millions—a demand which can finally be made a reality through the fearless, determined struggle of those millions and tens of millions:

The Existing Capitalist-Imperialist System And Institutions Of Government In This Country Must Be Abolished And Dismantled—And Replaced By A New, Socialist System Based On The CONSTITUTION FOR THE NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLIC IN NORTH AMERICA.

What the fires burning now in Los Angeles underscore is that there is no time to lose.

We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way.
—Bob Avakian

For how such a revolution could be made, see Bob Avakian’s social media messages Revolution #1-11; and for how this relates to the current situation of a fascist regime coming to power, see BA’s messages Revolution #102-111.