The media needs to show how the climate crisis is fueling the LA wildfires
Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
With few exceptions, the news has shied away from showing how the unfolding climate crisis plays a large role in the disaster
Thu 16 Jan 2025 06.00 EST
Last week, as the Sunset fire was bearing down on her Los Angeles home, Allison Agsten approached a group of television news crews gathering in her neighborhood. Did any of them plan to mention the role of the climate crisis in their reporting?
The question was professional as well as personal for Agsten, who runs a climate journalism center at the University of Southern California and has trained reporters on how to connect the climate crisis to what’s happening in the world. She has lived in her home along Runyon Canyon, near Hollywood, for a decade.
At a moment when making the climate connection to these deadly fires seemed urgent to Agsten, she told us, she was disappointed by the response she received. One reporter said she “just was not sure how my news director feels about covering climate on the air”. Another was more interested in what Agsten might know about looting in the area and asked if she had any security camera footage of the fire or of looting that could be used on air.
I’m a climate scientist and my house in LA burned down. My work has never been more real
“It was disheartening because it’s my personal story, and it’s disheartening because it’s what I do for a living,” said Agsten, director of the USC Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication.
The Los Angeles fires represent a seminal moment for the climate crisis – and for journalism. These are not the wildfires of seasons past. They are mega-fires that have now burned an area larger than the entire city of San Francisco. They are likely to be the costliest disaster in US history, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has predicted. At last count, a staggering 6 million people remained under a critical fire threat
Detroit IP TV is a local affiliate of the 