Maui Fires: Climate Change, Electric Company Culpability, or Activism Gone Wrong?
In the past several days, social media has erupted with theories on what sparked the wildfires that devastated the Hawaiian island of Maui, leaving more than 100 dead, and 1000 missing.
Corporate media outlets have quickly jumped to blame climate change for the horrific fires that rapidly spread across the island earlier this month.
The claim: climate change, caused by carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses, fueled a drought in Maui, leaving grasslands dry and ripe for fires. Simultaneously, strong trade winds that rapidly spread the brush fires were attributed to an alleged incremental increase in global temperature.
Despite environmentalists’ assertions, the primary source of global temperature monitoring, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been under scrutiny as of late for “poorly managed sensors” and false high readings.
Some reports have accused NOAA of placing monitoring stations in places that artificially raise the temperature, such as asphalt parking lots within large metropolitan areas. Scientists have explained these “inconsistencies” in recent studies, stating, “Cities have grown up around stations, and some weather stations are not ideally located. All of these issues introduce inconsistencies into the temperature record.”
Climate activists have lost nearly all credibility after theories such as melting icecaps leading to polar bear deaths, mass starvation, and “the population bomb” were debunked spectacularly.
Unfortunately for climate alarmists, several — more plausible — hypotheses have been presented to explain what sparked the flames in Maui.
Hawaiian Electric, a major power supplier on the islands, allegedly has known for years that the powerlines the company installed across Maui were prone to creating sparks and posed a potential fire hazard in the area.
“Four years ago, the utility said it needed to do more to prevent its power lines from emitting sparks. It made little progress, focusing on a shift to clean energy,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Since the report was commissioned by Hawaiian Electric in 2019, the company spent less than $245,000 on fire prevention projects. According to the Washington Examiner, the company spent millions “trying to meet a 2015 mandate” that requires “100% of the utility’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2045.”
Environmentalists, while attempting to solve a widely disputed “problem,” — the ambiguous, blanket term attributed to any weather phenomenon that results in disaster, “climate change” — created an entirely new threat to the climate.
One final hypothesis to explain the deadly fires, only being discussed among social media users in hushed tones in fear of the dreadful “conspiracy theorist” label, is arson. Just last year, the Maui Fire Department responded to six fires all set within 40 minutes. Local media reported that the “simultaneous burns shut down highways and snarled commutes.”
“It is suspected that these are being set intentionally. We have some video footage of a vehicle that has been seen at more than half of these locations. We also have a partial plate number and a description of a couple individuals that have been seen,” Maui Mayor Michael Victorino said at the time. “Fire and police suspect someone is intentionally setting them,” he reiterated.
Though there is no current evidence to suggest that the fires that devastated Maui just two weeks ago were intentional, some political commentators have pointed out that environmentalists were responsible for 239 arsons and bombings within 55 years.
Five investigators from the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) have been deployed to Maui to determine the cause of the fires. Among the group of five investigators is an ATF Fire Research Laboratory electrical engineer and an Arson and Explosives Group supervisor.
ATF Seattle Field Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan McPherson said in a statement, “We hope the deployment of National Response Team resources will allow the residents of Maui, and the state and nation as a whole, to know that we will do everything in our power to support our local counterparts in determining the origin and cause of the wildfires there, and hopefully bring some healing to the community.”
The wildfires caused thousands to lose their homes and belongings, and many Maui residents lost their loved ones, as officials scramble to care for those affected, the media must apply pressure to determine the cause, locate the parties responsible, and hold them accountable.
