raged in November 2018, after years of drought
and rising temperatures. The blaze killed three
people, forced a quarter million to evacuate,
and destroyed 1,075 homes.
The Santa Ana winds “blew that fire incredi-
bly fast, right down to the coast in a day,” Dean
Kubani recalled on a hot day last fall, as we stood
beneath the Ferris wheel. Kubani had recently
retired as Santa Monica’s sustainability chief,
after 25 years with the city; he had watched the
Woolsey fire from the beach. “Normally fire sea-
son is September, October,” he said. But it lasts
longer now “because we’re not getting the rain,
and we’re not getting the cool weather.”
For anyone wondering what living in Califor-
nia, America, or the world will be like in 2070,
this is a critical moment—and a confusing
one. The United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change says we must slash
greenhouse gases to zero over the next half
century, if not sooner, to forestall a climate
disaster. Instead the world is producing more
fossil fuel, not less. Oil and gas companies in
the United States, already the top producer,
plan to boost development 30 percent by 2030.
President Donald Trump has moved to take the52 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC