To not want to hear any more about the Californian fires

[Viviennemary]

For a start I do feel a lot of sympathy for folk who have lost everything in those fires. But what is the point of telling us night after night about the devastation these fires are causing, we can't do anything about it nobody can. And America is a rich country and can afford to rebuild. Unlike Gaza where folk have been left with nothing, and hardly had much in the first place.

In recent summers, there’s been extreme heatwaves in Southern Europe where the temperatures just get hotter year on year.

Every winter, there’s places in the UK that flood and yet no investment goes into protecting people from these predictable events.

Climate change means that we’ll get more and more of these kind of events and there should be plans.

I said white people were affected - which is why it has become a constant news story.

🤦‍♀️

@Viviennemary This is a truely awful thread. And some of posts are frankly disgusting. you are making it out to be “this disaster is worse than yours so shut up and deal with it, we don’t care”. How hateful and heartless can you be? Next natural disaster in the UK you better not bang on about it, you know because the other disasters in the world are much more important than yours, and the uk is a western country with money so you can fix it.

Is it caused by climate change or is it the type of fire which can ignite anywhere there is dry woodland, spreading extensively& more rapidly depending on the density of the forest & surrounding scrubland. This along with lack of management & preparation for this type of event.

No of course not. Where did I say that? I didn’t bring Gaza into the conversation. I was responding to a poster who seemed to think that we should be more affected by the suffering of US citizens than that of Gazans, because we don’t share the same values as Gazans! I was simply asking what they meant by that. At no point did I indicate that I thought we should be playing ‘competitive suffering’. Please don’t misrepresent me.

Do the people that shoehorn gaza into EVERY conversation and situation even realise what they are doing?

You are just making people exasperated and more likely to think along the sentiment of 'Fuck gaza'.

There are so many horrific things happening to people all over the world, if you genuinely think it's only really awful and a human right issue in one place at the moment then you are blind and biased.

If it is to the point that you can't even feel sympathy for human beings who aren't your currently chosen mascots for your virtue, then you are dangerously radicalised.

More coverage of it. Let's hope that unlike the Black Summer fires the LA fires start a major shift in policy to actually make a difference to climate disasters.

It's not big news because it's white people, it's big news because it's celebs. It's how the news works, unfortunately. If it was happening, for example, in a rural part of Bulgaria (to white people), no-one would give a shit.

Exactly! Fires in Hawaii were news here, ash clouds in Iceland were news here with very small populations comparatively. Both were horrible and I am not comparing but rather I am saying this is a big deal as Los Angeles is a big city and population affected runs in hundreds of thousands.

The ignorance to think everyone in California is rich and lives in a mansion is staggering.

Oh yeah, the jewish-muslim wars of the 1700s didn't happen 🙄
Look up the actual history not just a few select recent events.

It doesn't matter how rich you are either - money doesn't make up for the loss of personal treasured items or memories
Celebrities might be rich but they're also human

@Thoughtsonallsorts if I've understood the reporting correctly, the ferocity of the fire is massively exacerbated of the strength and behaviour of the wind, which is as it is due to climate change.

I think it’s because there’s loads of film footage, drone filming etc so you can really see the effects of the fire. Not much footage coming out of Gaza / Syria etc etc

17th century
In Yemen, Jewish communities were forced to convert to Islam or be banished to the Mawza Exile.

1799
Napoleon briefly occupied Palestine and offered it as a homeland to Jews, but the plan was shelved after his defeat at Acre.

Other events in Jewish-Muslim history
1660: A Druze power struggle destroyed Safed and Tiberias.

1661: An Islamic edict overturned forced conversions, allowing Jews to practice Judaism openly.

1668: Sabbatai Zevi, a claimed messiah, was forced to convert to Islam in Turkey.

1839: Jews of Mashhad were forced to convert to Islam to end a pogrom.

1844: Jews were the largest population group in Jerusalem.

1896: Jews were the absolute majority in Jerusalem.

There's some basic facts incase you were genuinely under the impression that it was a new conflict in the 20th century.

There were massive wildfires in Australia a few years ago, and people definitely cared.
Koalas burned, wildlife and farm animals- Horses, the advice was to leave them without head collars and to let them protect themselves as best they could- It was shocking.

The American fires- looks like the buildings aren’t built of brick and stone - but look to be flimsy timber and board (?).

Kind of like how I'm bored of hearing about Gaza.

as far as im aware they build theres mainly out of wood and what we call plaster board they call it sheet rock i believe.

Sad how the absolute worst of humanity is coming out here. From the usually fairly tolerant MN.
Lucky there are still people in the world who are capable of caring about their fellow human from what ever country they come from.

I care immensely about Gaza. But I also care about what’s going on in California - I have family there, who aren’t living in million dollar homes and are about to lose everything.

Remind yourself that it is possible to care about more than one thing.

I've been fairly glued to the coverage of the LA fires the last few days. I have no great love for LA or the countless eye-wateringly rich celebs who inhabit it, but the scenes of devastation are unbelievably apocalyptical. I suppose partly it comes down to the morbid curiosity of it - it just looks like something from a disaster film, it's scarcely believable.

Conversely, as harsh as it sounds, I have little interest in Gaza. Just as you say about the LA fires, there's nothing we can do about a foreign conflict thousands of miles away in a region that has been a geopolitical mess since time immemorial. And to be frank, I'm beyond sick of people forever bickering about it online.

But, I suppose it just comes down to choice, which news you wish to follow and which you do not. If you're fed-up of hearing about it, it's easy enough to switch the TV off or put the phone down. You're not duty bound to follow something that doesn't interest you.

What an absolutely shitty premise for a thread OP. So sorry a massive humanitarian catastrophe along with the loss of priceless history and architecture is boring for you.

This is actually one of the worst threads I have ever read on mumsnet and I have been around here a long time…. I can’t work out if this is a reflection of the average mumsnet user, or a damning indictment of modern society. Either way it’s horrible.

This is a disgraceful thread

The vast majority of people who lost their home aren't celebrities and aren't super rich. Entire very normal neighborhoods have been decimated.

That can be reported on without Gaza or North Carolina or whatever other place that is having a shit time being brought up because empathy doesn't actually have a limit.

If you want to turn away from it stop watching the news. And especially refrain from starting a thread about it. It's big news for very obvious reasons, ffs.