A conversation with Dr Pierre Purseigle: how the LA wildfires show us that ‘there’s no such thing as a natural disaster’

The apocalyptic wildfires of Los Angeles are already a few weeks in the past. While LA doubles down on its recovery and reconstruction efforts, the wider world has relapsed into complacency. ‘Everyday’ quotidian events have re-occupied our mental maps – life must go on, it seems.

I spoke to Warwick academic Dr Pierre Purseigle back when the fires were hardly contained, whipped up by mounting winds and engulfing residential areas at a horrifying rate. Dr Purseigle is currently writing in the field of ‘critical disaster studies’, whose central conceit is that there is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster’. Natural occurrences such as the recent fires, Purseigle shares, are merely environmental events. “What turns an event into a disaster is the fact that in this case, we have built such a sprawling city that it has exposed its population to wildfires. What makes a disaster is the encounter between the hazard and a vulnerable population.” According to Dr Purseigle, disastrous consequences – such as the destruction of thousands of homes and the rendering of their occupants homeless – result from the “the choices that we made to build the city in the way we did, to build houses that are not technically designed to mitigate the impact of fires or earthquakes.”

Wildfires are not new phenomena – that much is true. Vegetation usually proves easily combustible in times of drought and has always been vulnerable to seasonal weather patterns. However, climate change has compounded this severity, resulting in the term ‘fire season’ being usurped by ‘fire year’ in the day-to-day lexicon of Cal Fire. A recent headline revealed that 2024 was the first year to breach the 1.5C global warming limit agreed upon in Paris in 2015, an agreement which President Trump has withdrawn from yet again. With the incessant emission of fossil fuels set to continue under a second Trump administration that promises to “drill, baby, drill”, few could argue that catastrophic climate change is an anthropogenic, human-induced issue. Combined with an unimpeded urban sprawl, it is easy to see why climate-related ‘disasters’ like that in LA owe much to human policy-making. Whether or not the market system is willing to make sacrifices for a more important profit – the maintenance of a planet feasible for human life on Earth – remains unclear.

A ‘disaster’ is “suffering out of place”, says Dr Purseigle, quoting the definition of historian Jacob Remes. It is “suffering that is noted, that is remarked upon, that is commemorated because it is considered to be out of place, out of the ordinary”

Climate-related ‘disasters’ like the LA wildfires will only grow in frequency in the coming years and decades. Speaking on the memorialisation of these ‘disasters’, Purseigle states that “we have now moved into a very different phase of our existence”, in which climate-related ‘disasters’ may become a banal occurrence. “If your city’s flooded every year, are you going to be commemorating every flood?”, he asks. A ‘disaster’ is “suffering out of place”, says Dr Purseigle, quoting the definition of historian Jacob Remes. It is “suffering that is noted, that is remarked upon, that is commemorated because it is considered to be out of place, out of the ordinary”. One might question, then, what, nowadays, actually constitutes this ‘extraordinary’ quality, particularly in a world facing an ever-escalating climate emergency.

With the LA fires now reduced to embers, a key issue will centre around homelessness. Homelessness has been a major crisis in California for a long time now, Purseigle reminds me. Federal data has shown that half of all Americans living on the streets can be found in California, and, despite spending $17.5 billion trying to tackle homelessness from 2018 to 2022, the state actually experienced a growth in its homeless population during this period. The global attentiveness and response to climate-related events may thus expose a wider ignorance of underlying social issues that have made populations more vulnerable to ‘disasters’. Climate change is elevating the frequency of calamitous events, but the issue must be addressed together with a neglectful politics placing communities in positions of risk, recklessly urbanising while encroaching upon the natural environment.

I ask Purseigle if there is much that can be done to prepare infrastructure or better manage resources for future scenarios like LA. “It is less a question of infrastructure and water supply”, he replies, “than a question of the actual drain of the particular economic system of California”. He adds: “Californian agriculture has been investing and specialising in crops that require a huge amount of water, to the point that Californian aquifers are in many places empty, and the soil is collapsing in many areas. There’s a much bigger water crisis in California that actually speaks to the wider economic system of the state, and that goes beyond the urban. It’s very clear that cities only increase the drain on these resources.”

If we attempt to deconstruct the problems of global warming and urban development for their origins, we will only find ourselves staring back; the manufacture of ‘climate disasters’ is a distinctly human failure

The production of ‘disasters’ like the LA fires is actually a dual process, of which climate change is only a part. “Continuing development and expansion of cities into vulnerable areas” is the other complication here, says Purseigle, speaking of “areas that have always been vulnerable, but [which] are now increasingly so in the current context.” If we attempt to deconstruct the problems of global warming and urban development for their origins, we will only find ourselves staring back; the manufacture of ‘climate disasters’ is a distinctly human failure. Although awkwardly necessary, agricultural expansion and housing development for an ever-rising population have become two key culprits in exacerbating nature’s risk to humans. The question is how to balance these essential needs with sufficient climate policy attention.

“If you consider that anthropogenic climate change is a thing, then that raises political questions”, contends Dr Purseigle. “This is about what state assemblies or municipal authorities are legislating about, it’s about the kind of society that we want to live in, that we want to build in, and it’s about the balance between state and market forces.” Since the description ‘disaster’ is a distinctly human imposition, it is by extension our choice as to whether or not ‘disasters’ happen. On Trump’s first day in office in January, he signed many long-anticipated executive orders, several of them climate-related. With the scrapping of Biden’s Green New Deal, the regulation of the fossil fuel industry will again cease, pollution will no longer be limited, and green jobs will be promoted to a lesser degree. If we are hoping to see progressive climate legislation to lessen the certainty of the next LA-esque ‘disaster’, then the prospects are bleak, at least for the next four years. This is “a fairly obvious point to make”, admits Purseigle, but “it is a necessary point to make, because, after all, these people are in charge, and they need to be placed before their responsibility.”

The responsibility is much wider than right-wing populists. The truth is, how many of us […] are actually ready to make the necessary change, to transform our economic system? This is about a radical reconfiguration of the way we live in order to mitigate the impact of climate change

–Dr. Pierre Purseigle

He then raises an important point: “The responsibility is much wider than right-wing populists. The truth is, how many of us […] are actually ready to make the necessary change, to transform our economic system? This is about a radical reconfiguration of the way we live in order to mitigate the impact of climate change.” “It is too easy to blame this on an easy target like Trump”, affirms Dr Purseigle. “We should definitely blame these [climate change deniers] because they are dangerous, but that should not be an excuse for the rest of us to shy away from our own responsibility. The moment you start looking into specific policy prescriptions, you soon realise that resistance is not simply coming from those [in power]. We all individually and collectively across the world are facing very hard choices. Most of us would rather take the path of least resistance and avoid this conversation until we are confronted with it.”

Perhaps the gathering climate ‘disaster’, I pose to Purseigle, cannot truly be defined as such until everyone has experienced it directly and entered a kind of ‘community’ of loss. Perhaps the desperation to tackle our self-inflicted problems will only begin in earnest when the ‘disaster’ extends everywhere. “What are the chances of Donald Trump changing his tune once his [Florida home] Mar-a-Lago is underwater?”, muses Dr Purseigle. There is, it seems, an ‘only when it becomes our problem’ attitude the world over, whether we admit it or not – and this will hinder efforts to cooperate internationally to contain the global, more figurative, ‘wildfire’. Trump’s scathing critique of the Democrat authorities’ handling of the LA wildfires, which he described as one of “gross incompetence”, begs the question of whether the Republicans are prepared for what is to come during their stay in power. “They will be confronting a very similar situation much sooner than they expect,” assures Purseigle, recalling the political fallout of the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, “and we’ll have to see how they respond to that.” The climate emergency will, without a doubt, soon supersede petty inter-party politics.

These politicians are driven by a political cycle that usually lasts hardly more than a couple of years. Corporations are driven by the financial reporting cycle that can be as short as a quarter and usually are very reluctant to accept any long-term intervention that is so obviously in the interests of everyone, including their own shareholders

– Dr. Pierre Purseigle

“The problem we have is one of temporality”, he proposes. “These politicians are driven by a political cycle that usually lasts hardly more than a couple of years. Corporations are driven by the financial reporting cycle that can be as short as a quarter and usually are very reluctant to accept any long-term intervention that is so obviously in the interests of everyone, including their own shareholders. This is what’s completely infuriating in many ways.” Considering the affluent nature of the communities affected in LA, particularly in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, Purseigle says that it will be “very interesting to see whether all those wealthy actors [will] come out and stand up for a different kind of climate change intervention.”

The insurance market will also have to be more introspective. Due to the pronounced risk of climate ‘disasters’, there is a spiking trend of companies withdrawing or not renewing insurance policies in areas under threat. For example, insurance firm State Farm dropped around 1,600 policies in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood alone last July. This has left many homeowners and business owners with no coverage and caused insurance prices to skyrocket, an issue which is not exclusive to California. Indeed, Purseigle mentions a similar situation in several European coastal regions at risk. The Palisades Fire, which destroyed many of the USA’s most expensive homes (the median home value in the area is $3.1 million, according to real estate data firm ATTOM Data) could contribute to making LA’s the costliest wildfire in US history, with the overall property damage across the city estimated at a potential $150 billion.

The insurance crisis, Purseigle believes, is evidence that “we have really entered into a phase where market-based solutions simply cannot cope” with the growing climate danger. Although insurers are businesses seeking profit, “the insurance industry”, he tells me, “has actually been making the economic argument for quite some time now for radical climate change intervention. Now, those guys are not exactly radical anti-capitalists. But what they are saying is that the economic cost is such that we must absolutely invest and transform our relationship to fossil fuels, simply because the market is not going to be able to provide the solution.”

There arises a question of why environmental movements aren’t “better at communicating the quotidian, practical implications of climate change”. “The question” we must answer, he thinks, “is [one of] how we can envisage a situation in which those interconnections are turned into solidarity”

As stakeholders in this global market, Dr Purseigle stresses that we are always here to cover this ‘cost’, alluding to the fact that “we pay twice, effectively”. “We suffer the consequences [of the ‘disaster’] and we have to cover the cost, through either taxes or [rising] insurance premiums.” Consequently, there arises a question of why environmental movements aren’t “better at communicating the quotidian, practical implications of climate change”. “The question” we must answer, he thinks, “is [one of] how we can envisage a situation in which those interconnections are turned into solidarity.”

Since the ‘climate crisis’ is unlikely to affect all of us directly in our lifetimes, it will prove difficult “to communicate or translate this [‘distant’ concern] into immediate implications and consequences for the taxpayer now”, particularly as many people’s more pressing worries concern matters of daily life. Purseigle, reaching for possible solutions, suggests that we “need to figure out a way to demonstrate that this problem that is unfolding over decades or centuries is already having a practical, noticeable impact now. And I think insurance is one of the ways to do that. It’s to say, ‘look, we are all stakeholders in this global insurance market, and as a result, we are all paying the price’”. This idea could be “deployed politically”, he concludes, “but that’s probably something for people that are smarter than I am to sort out.”

There is a perception that every climate-centred article must end with the optimistic qualifier: ‘but there’s still hope’. The simple truth, however, is that we know there’s still hope. It’s just a matter of acting. Dr Purseigle’s comments show that the path of recuperation and damage limitation remains open to us, albeit narrowing day by day. If the message is that ‘there’s still hope’, then it is a frail one, which will encourage dissipation and forgetfulness, and re-submerge us in more quotidian worries – that is, until the next flame begins to lick the bush, calling us to arms once more. “Climate change”, says historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, “poses for us a question of a human collectivity, an us, pointing to a figure of the universal that escapes our [individual] capacity to experience the world. It is more like a universal that arises from a shared sense of a catastrophe. It calls for a global approach to politics.” The climate crisis, as exemplified in LA, is one we have created; one we are obliged to remedy for the sake of global biodiversity; and it cannot be left to fester until it is no longer feasible to look away.