The Democratic Party’s obsession with climate change is nothing more than an excuse to promote its economic agenda and to excuse Democratic incompetence in the face of natural disasters. The latter is on display in Hawaii.

Climate has once again become the culprit for a disaster, with everyone from legacy media outlets and activists to the Democratic governor of Hawaii blaming climate change for the fires or for “amplifying” the fires in some undefined way. “Let’s be real, world,” Gov. Josh Green (D-HI) said. “Climate change is here.”

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What do we know about the fires in Hawaii, which have killed at least 114 people and led to hundreds more, including children, going missing? For one, we know that the risk of wildfires on Maui has been known for years as invasive plant species have grown significantly over the past two decades. We know that Hawaiian Electric was aware of the threat of its power lines creating wildfires in 2019 and that, sure enough, power lines most likely caused the fires.

We also know that Hawaiian Electric spent most of its resources on meeting the Democratic government’s renewable energy mandates. We know that the emergency official who made the call not to sound the emergency sirens to make residents aware of the fire had no background in disaster response and that residents did not receive the text or radio/television alerts that the government sent out instead of the sirens.

We know that that official has since resigned. We know that another official waited more than five hours to release water to help quell the fires. That official wanted water allocation discussions to focus on “true conversations about equity.” He was then transferred to another position rather than being fired for incompetence.

So we have a fire threat that has been known for years, an electric company that was focused on Democratic renewable energy dreams instead of fire management, and incompetent officials who botched the emergency alerts and the release of water. Who knew that climate change also caused human incompetence at every level of Hawaii’s emergency services and electricity utilities?

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This has also been the norm in California, where Democrats and their media allies regularly blame the state’s man-made droughts, wildfires that result from poor forest management, and failing energy grid on climate change. Democrats can’t possibly take any blame for these failures, so instead, they must all be chalked up to the undefined effects of “climate change” that can only be solved by fully embracing the Democratic Party’s economic agenda. Isn’t that convenient?

The possibility of disasters like this will continue to rise in the coming years, not because of “climate change” but because of the Democratic Party’s reliance on the excuse of climate change. Democratic officials such as those in Hawaii and California refuse to change course on their failing policies or take the blame for incompetent emergency responses because “climate change” means Democrats not having to take responsibility for anything.