Fire Weather

My Thomas Fire PTSD is triggered — how about yours?

Hello readers — I’m sure you, like me, are devastated by the stories and images coming out of the Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Altadena, and communities across Los Angeles County.

I’ve spent the last few days on the edge of tears. A ferocious anxiety in my chest that tightens when the wind gusts and a question on loop in my mind:

Is this what it’s like now?

Is this really what life is like now?

And there’s nothing but sunshine in the forecast.

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Here’s a memory from earlier in my life — some time around 1999. I’m 12 years old and I’m lying belly down on an area rug at my best friend’s house, pencil in hand. (My favored position for completing homework). I vividly remember the voice on the TV above our heads — some Discovery Channel program that suggested we humans were heating up the planet. It was the first time I learned about “global warming.”

And honestly, I’ve been freaked out even since. A low level existential anxiety. A hum of dread.¹

It’s one of the primary reasons I got political as a young adult: the climate crisis presents an existential threat to life on planet Earth. Seems pressing, right? Not only that — climate change causes the most harm to those who contribute least to the problem. I think of it as the most urgent social justice issue of our time — because it exacerbates existing inequalities. And it intensifies as we fail to take action.

Anyways — for a time, that hum of existential dread became a low level electricity that fueled me. The scale of the challenge — and knowledge of the solutions — inspired me. So imagine my enthusiasm when at 24 years old, I was appointed by President Obama as an Assistant Press Secretary at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The opportunity to put my dreams into action; to be a part of the solution. To make the world a little better, for everyone.²

My EPA headshot. There was a time when I aimed to have this image scrubbed from the internet. Now I just think it’s funny.

At EPA I absorbed some basic truths: when we pollute the Earth, we pollute ourselves. It is really very simple: EPA is a public health agency. The other truth is that we live in a society that values permanent economic growth, to our own detriment. In politics — assuming you’re a decently well-intentioned actor — you’re balancing those two truths.

And that was tough for me. I came into the Obama Administration in 2010. The Democrats has just lost control of House of Representatives (after passing the Affordable Care Act and weathering the subsequent Tea Party backlash). As a result, a lot of people — myself included — lost their jobs. But of course I was delighted to land at EPA. It was my dream.

Another memory that’s on repeat right now is a quick meeting with an old boss: I received the directive to avoid the term “climate change” in press materials as much as possible. Recognition of the climate crisis was politically unpopular,³ and Democrats were trying to avoid being punished for it. Instead of “greenhouse gas emissions,” we spoke of “carbon pollution.” Most often, we invoked the generic “air pollution,” and spoke of its myriad public health impacts⁴ — because that language polled way better than climate action.

The cognitive dissonance, for me, was deeply disturbing. At the same time, I understood the political why. Since then the greenhouse effect has only intensified. This compounds my existential angst. Moving along.

I made it back to the Ojai Valley by 2016 and began work as a reporter for the Ojai Valley News. By December 2017 I was covering an extreme weather event at home: the Thomas Fire. At one point, the valley was surrounded by a ring of fire. Some 100 structures in the Upper Ojai Valley were destroyed.⁵

Dec. 8, 2017. View of Maricopa Highway from Meiners Oaks.