Any Comments from the Philosopher-in-Chief on California's Current Disaster?

Ten people have died in northern California after what officials are describing as an “unprecedented” wild fire that has already destroyed 1,500 structures and devastated large swaths of wine country.

  The Guardian

That seems like a very high number of people to die in a wildfire these days.

Nine of the deaths occurred in Napa and Sonoma counties, while another was farther north, in Mendocino county, officials said.

[...]

California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in eight mostly northern counties – Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Sonoma and Yuba counties. The flames are barely contained and are threatening thousands of homes and vineyards in the wine country north of San Francisco.

[...]

Around 20,000 people have been evacuated, including hundreds of senior citizens from local nursing homes.

Entire neighborhoods and a trailer park in the town of Santa Rosa, 55 miles from San Francisco, have already been razed, along with a Hilton hotel, according to local reports.

[...]

Another Cal Fire spokesperson, Heather Williams, said that 17 major fires had started in the past 24 hours [...] , burning about 94,000 acres, mostly in the northern part of the state. Of those fires, only two are even partly contained, she said; one at just 10% and another at 25%.

[...]

The high number of fatalities in one series of connected fires is unusual. There have been, on average, 13 wildfire fatalities a year in the whole of the United States since 2014, according to figures collated by the National Interagency Fire Center.

[...]

Head, the Cal Fire captain, said the fires were probably linked to a warming climate. “It has been hotter, it has been drier, our fire seasons have been longer, fires are burning more intensely, which is a direct correlation to the climate changing,” she said.

That's just a hoax, right Philosopher-in-Chief?

The fire’s economic impact is not yet known – the hundreds of wineries in Napa and Sonoma valleys are their lifeblood. Wine Spectator magazine said that two wineries – Signorello Estate Winery and Paradise Ridge Winery – were destroyed and that portions of another, Stags’ Leap, were also burned.

Although most of this year’s grapes have been harvested, the remaining 20% are some of the most valuable, said Jennifer Putnam, executive director of Napa Valley Grapegrowers, the Napa Valley vineyard trade association. “It’s some of the best fruit that Napa produces, all of the cabernet sauvignon, so it will have a major economic impact if this last 20% can’t be picked,” she said. “We will have to see where we are tomorrow and next week to see how the grapes are metabolizing all this smoke.”

New wine labels: Smokey Cabernet. Or something like. Cost a fortune. Bet.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

We Try to Help

HERMANN, Mo. — When news of a pending global wine shortage made headlines last month, wine lovers around the world feared they might not be able to find their Loire whites and Rioja reds as easily as they can now. Supply was forecast to fall as demand continued to rise, taking wine prices with it.

But in one small corner of the wine world, winemakers were gearing up for what was to be a record harvest.

A shortage of wine? Not in Missouri.

[...]

According to a Morgan Stanley Research report, 2012 wine production was already short about 300 million cases — the largest shortfall in decades. Wine production in Europe dropped 10 percent alone that same year. Global demand for wine is also on the rise.

“Missouri has seen some increase in demand for Missouri wines in general,” Johnson said. “There are also more acres of grapes. There’s not a shortage of Missouri wine.”

  alJazeera

Well, thank goodness.

Official yields won’t be reported to the state until April, but growers have already noticed the glut of grapes. Johnson said this year’s harvest has the potential to increase Stone Hill’s wine production as much as 30 percent, and it’s the same story at other Missouri wineries.

Coming out of a recession and unprecedented drought, it may be just the boost the state’s little-known wine industry needs.

I’ll try to help support it.

And, by the way, my California friends, Missouri does now have some very nice wines, indeed. Who would have thought?

It’s the weather that led to this year’s high yield in Missouri. The first sign of good fortune came when the spring and fall frosts never came. The cold typically has the potential to wipe out an entire year’s harvest.

No fall frost. We went straight into frigid winter this week.

At least we have wine.

A little historical note:  It was the University of California at Davis and the Missouri wine grape rootstocks that saved France’s wine industry when the phylloxera outbreak devastated their vineyards in the late 19th century.