By Rabbi Jennie Rosenn
Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
NEW YORK — Our hearts are breaking today for everyone near the raging wildfires in Southern California. Thousands of people are losing places that offer shelter and community – homes, schools, houses of worship – to a terrifying and apocalyptic blaze that is not contained and continues to spread.
While this fire follows a string of others that have ravaged large swaths of America’s west coast, we need not let this become “the new normal.” We are not powerless to confront this reality. We can demand changes that will reverse the trend toward more frequent and extreme climate disasters.
The immense power of this fire has been unleashed by changes in our climate; higher global temperatures have caused extreme heat waves, extended drought, and extremely high winds.
This rise in global temperatures (we just experienced the hottest year on record in 2024) is a direct result of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, which trap the sun’s heat inside the atmosphere, and warm the land, air, and water.
In Jewish tradition fire is both a holy and transformational force (like the burning bush) – and also a destructive source of punishment (as experienced by the sons of Aaron who bring and then are consumed by a “strange fire”).
We know from our own personal experiences how fire is one of the many forces that can be used for blessing or for curse. Sometimes it rests outside of our control, but often – more often than we acknowledge in the context of the climate crisis – the choice is ours.
We are called, in this time, to use our collective power to ensure blessing.
We must demand action from policymakers at all levels of government: transition away from fossil fuels (stop funding new projects, hold the industry accountable for the damage, refuse subsidies), and invest in clean energy solutions.
Now is the time to rally support for the communities being ravaged by these ferocious fires. It is also the time to use our radical imagination to envision and build a different future – one that is just, livable, and sustainable – free of this kind of rampant and devastating destruction.
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Rabbi Jennie Rosenn is the founder and chief executive officer of Dayenu.
With respect Rabbi, I think you have it quite wrong about the fires around Los Angles. The Santa Anna winds at Hurricane strength don’t have any thing to do with fossil fuels. They blow every year. Wind and the lack of water at Pacific Palisades in particular are important issues. Pacific Palisades has 3 Million Gallon Water tanks that were quite useless in this situation.
I have worked at a Meat slaughter and Processing Plant near my Home. In a 2 shift 16 hour day with 900 staff at the height of the season we used I Million Gallons of water per day . Water is stored in 2 million gallon tanks. so we have one tank being used while the other is being refilled by pumps.
2 years ago we had an issue on our 1200 family sheep and cattle farm. My brother milled 25 acres of Radiata Pine trees for timber, some for export. The contractor cut the trees and got them off the farm, then cleaned up the rubbish into heaps. They were quite big heaps. We sought advice from the New Zealand Fire Service about burning the rubbish. We burnt the rubbish early one morning as advised. Firemen were on hand to watch the burn. 4 hours after the burn had finished the wind got up and started blowing at about 30 to 40KMH. Embers started to blow up to 3/4 of a mile away from the Rubbish heaps landing across the farm under Shelter belt trees. Fires started. Firemen were called to fight the fires . They were supported by two helicopters with monsoon buckets and two fertilizer aircraft were quickly converted for fire fighting. The helicopter monsoon buckets were filled from Livestock dams on the farm while the aircraft flew to and from their airfield 8 miles away. It took about six hours to put the fires out. They burnt about 6 acres of farmland beside the Shelter Trees.
I have watched live coverage of the fires on CNN and Fox News since first reports appeared on tv. That its a very dry winter in California this year shows you need better fire fighting services and Better Water Supplies for that purpose. Rabbi, from my experience I think you are missing the points at issue .
“The immense power of this fire has been unleashed by changes in our climate; higher global temperatures have caused extreme heat waves, extended drought, and extremely high winds.”
Perhaps…but how much of the disaster was exasperated by governmental mismanagement?
There is lots of time later for finger pointing. The need for now is to help the victims.