Are Fires Nature's Equalizers in a Denatured California?

Did George Marsh Predict this in 1864?

While everyone on twitter is politicizing the tragic fires in California, I have a different take on the bigger picture. As always, my training and education takes me to philosophy of science and nature. In my books and articles about systems designed by Homo economicus, I discuss how nature achieves resilience and “energy” efficiency through “local” balance and symbiosis but imbalances in man-made systems which wastefully rely on non-local resources lead to fragility, diseases, disparities and disasters. Denatured man-made systems may look impressive, large, glamorous and convenient but not resilient or cost-effective. Just think about the high maintenance (cost-ineffective and fragile) large scalable urban systems that have an insatiable appetite for resources like water, electricity and fuel (gasoline), usually transported from remote places, and the permanent need to dump and haul their trash to remote places called landfills. Many large urban areas in the world are now facing “trash burying” crises.

Unfortunately, the widespread fires in the Los Angeles area show us how fragile expensive denatured and imbalanced urban centers can be. I say “denatured” and “imbalanced” because it is odd to have lush green backyards, golf courses, pools and large mansions on the hills or valleys of a drought-stricken area (the image shows the shocking contrast between the lush landscapes and the bone-dry surrounding). It is unnatural for a city and state with minimal fuel resources to have millions of car burning gasoline non-stop on traffic-jammed highways. It is also unnatural to have so much wealth next to hills and valleys that house thousands of homeless people. The whole scene as well as the distribution of water and wealth seem very incongruent. The area’s socioeconomic and architectural landscape seem imbalanced, disjointed, unnatural, opportunistic, ephemeral and fragile. Other urban center are not an exception. In Las Vegas, for example, if you dare to walk away from the main strip, you see destitute areas and people living traumatized lives just one block away from the world’s most glitzy street. Disjointed, incongruent, disassociated, are the types of words that come to my mind when thinking of such huge contrasts over a short distance. In fact, in his 1864 book “Man and Nature,” American polymath and diplomat George P. Marsh brilliantly argues that ancient civilizations collapsed all because they grew unnaturally and without respect for natural balances and ecosystems. He found evidence that many of the world’s deserts and barren lands started from eroded soil resulting from human activities like excessive deforestation or massive urban centers.

Some of the fires in Los Angeles allegedly started from homeless camps in the dry hills overlooking the multimillion dollar homes housing large swimming pools and lush manicured grass. In fact, some water sprinklers were left on during the fire to protect the lush landscape in luxury homes from being scorched. Firefighters could not use many of the fire hydrants because they ran out of water. Ultimately, the imbalance in water usage and wealth (via the homeless camps) became costly to the wealthy. Fire became a cruel and merciless equalizer. There are news of looting in wealthy gated communities of vacated or scorched homes too.

Fortunately, the number of people impacted in the 30000+ acres of burnt land is relatively low because many of the luxury homes that burned down were either vacant and used as vacation or second home by multi millionaires, or housing single people or couples with no children. Some homeowners filmed the fire destroying their house (using home security camera) from their other home on the East Coast, and shared it with TV stations. Many of the more expensive areas engulfed by fire also had more horses and pets than children or family members. It is good news because higher a population density would mean more injuries and harm to humans. Yet, with so few people hogging so many natural resources and needing so many human resources such as police officers, landscapers, maids, firefighters, horse trainers, dog sitters, plastic and Botox surgeons, Yoga gurus, masseuses, lawyers, psychologists and rehab centers, these short-sighted man-made oases become costly, fragile, imbalanced, and in the eyes of those who fall behind, unfair, unjust and cruel. Nature meanwhile, doesn’t care about who is just or unjust. Fires, floods, droughts are nature’s equalizers (of energy). Similarly, DIS’order, DIS’cord, DIS’parity and DIS’ease are costly equalizers of imbalances humans impose on ourselves and nature in our pursuit of scale, speed, convenience and opulence, as I scientifically explain in my books.

Los Angeles fires wiped off at least $100 billion in assets plus a lot more in resources spent to fight it, emotional trauma inflicted on people, air pollution, etc. We would avoid all this if instead of our relentless pursuit of speed, convenience, scale and opulence adopted nature’s formula for resilience: Local Symbiotic Metabolic Balance at the individual and community level. I explain the concept in my books using thermodynamics, behavioral and evolutionary psychology, history, neuroscience and physiology.