Distressed Maui

August 12, 2023

Maui fires live update:  Death toll hits 80 as officials warn it is likely to climb.

Officials say the number of dead will likely increase as crews search the wreckage that wiped out the tourist town of Lahaina.  NBC news is on location covering the devastation.

By NBC News

What we know about the wildfires

*Officials have confirmed 80 deaths in the wildfires, but Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen warned the death toll “could go up.”

*The inhalation of dust and other airborne particles unleashed by the “highly toxic” burning areas could be a health hazard, Maui County officials warned.

*Six fires are burning in Maui and the Big Island, but officials say the Lahaina fire is now 85% contained.  Many of the town’s historic landmarks are lost.

*Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the fires are likely to be the largest natural disaster in the state’s history.

*NBC New Miguel Almaguer, Dans Griffin and Steve Patterson are reporting from Maui.

Anyone with family, pets, homes, and property, as well as community leaders, indeed the whole country should feel compassion for these persons who have lost everything in a devastating wildfire, one of Hawaii’s largest natural disasters.  Lahaina is the old capital of the Hawaiian indigenous people, before that were taken over by the Americans.  When this article speaks of “many of the town’s historic landmarks are lost,” this is taking about the islands indigenous past, going back to the late 1700’s.  Only the banyan tree remains, scorched but still alive, a living source of hope for the island.  This tree was planted on April 24, 1873, to mark the 50^th anniversary of the first American Protestant Mission. It was a gift from missionaries in India. (Wikipedia).

When the fire raced through this historic part of Maui burning everything, residents were forced to flee for their lives.  It was a fast- moving fire, and the residents had little time to escape.  Some jumped into the ocean to save their lives.  Hurricane Dora was 500 miles south of Hawaii but was close enough to cause high winds to whip across the state.  The summer was hot and dry when the fires started. The fires were whipped into a firestorm when dry fuel and high winds resulted in a major set of fires causing natural disaster.

The question in everyone’s mind, “Is this another example of climate change making natural disasters worse?”  Weather data reports the last 10 years of the Hawaiian Islands have been drier than normal.  Others cite the human development of the islands resulting in a different landscape and more structures to burn.

As an interested citizen, I find it poignant that while much of the country remains riveted on the tempest in the teapot of Washington, DC, with Democrats hoping Donald Trump gets convicted of something and Republicans hoping Hunter Biden meets the same fate, that 80 persons in Hawaii are dead from a raging fire.  Where are our priorities as Americans?  We waste endless hours arguing about politics which mean nothing but cannot find the time or the political will to address climate change which means everything, even our survival as a human species!  The Arctic Ice is melting, the Alaska glaciers are receding, the Greenland ice sheet is shrinking, and the Antarctic was warm enough this winter for the scientists to grow tomatoes!  Why is this not on the morning news?  For us, it takes a natural disaster with 80 persons dead and counting to get our attention.

There is speculation that the North Atlantic current may slow and change, if enough fresh water from melting ice mixes with the salty ocean.  There are “hot spots” identified as we speak in the ocean off the coast of England and in the Atlantic Ocean near Miami.  The Atlantic basin is uncommonly warm.  Even with the El Nino effect, the agencies that forecast hurricanes keep revising their forecasts upward due to the warm Atlantic Ocean.  Europe is set to be in for another scorcher this year.  India has had record rains and is likely to restrict rice exports as these may be needed for domestic supply.  Beijing China is recovering from devastating flooding which is beyond most meteorological records.  At some point, even the most skeptical person will begin to ask this question: “Is something unusual going on?”

When insurance companies begin to flee certain states due to the cost of natural disasters (as Florida and California), the question for residents of those states, “Is it affordable to live in this state any longer?”  These are reasonable questions for reasonable persons to ask.

The issue of climate change has become politicized to the extent that it cannot be reasonably discussed.  Floridians, who will be affected by rising sea levels in the next 30 years are more concerned about the parents signing a form to allow children’s nick names to be spoken in class by the teacher than whether or not parts of the Florida coast will soon be under water.  Our politicians go to great lengths to “strain at a gnat, but manage to swallow a camel” as Jesus said of the Pharisees of his day.  The Republicans have swallowed a camel in their candidate for President, former President Trump, as he continues to give them great indigestion!

I long for a time in which reasonable people can have reasonable conversations.  Can we not have a national conversation on the things which matter the most for our ongoing viability on this earth?  Are we so stupid as to think that we can wish away all the C02, methane (CH4), nitrogen oxide (N02), sulfur dioxide (S02) and laden water vapor (H20) currently held in our atmosphere?  How many fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters made more potent by latent heat in our atmosphere and oceans do we need to bring this climate concern to our collective attention?  Are we not fiddling around doing nothing while Rome burns down around us?

There is a lot of money, energy and time being spent to perfect nuclear fusion as a means for clean and unlimited energy.  There is a lot of energy and time spent predicting the futures of the stock and commodities markets for investors.  Considerable time and energy are spent pontificating and prognosticating on the price of gold, oil, silver, wheat rice, soybeans, and corn.  We even know how much methane the cattle on this planet belch into our atmosphere which contributes to global warming.  Making meat for human consumption that mimics beef and chicken is getting it own body of research.  Even climate change gets a conference every 2 years in which goals for C02 emissions are set and ways to limit production is proposed.  Yet back home, the USA and other countries as China and India do very little to change their carbon footprint.  The Saudis pretend to say that Hydrogen will be the next big thing in energy, but scheme along with Putin and Russia to keep the price of oil as high as possible, by managing supply.

When the Revelation of John says “in the end times a third of the earth will be burned up” is this not taking about a lot of heat in certain parts of the planet?  We know that the type of miracles that God does in the Old and New Testaments are miracles which involved the created order.  Natural means are seen as miraculous.  Noah’s “40 days and 40 nights” of rain is simply a lot of excess water.  When Sodom and Gomorrah met their demise, it was likely an asteroid burst in the ski and the subsequent fire that rained down and burnt the inhabitants.  Moses’ burning bush was a spontaneous combustion in which God chose to be present Himself to Moses, “I Am that I AM”.  The children of Israel being brought out from Egypt by God’s strong right hand involved ten natural plaques and a natural event in which a “strong east wind” opened a passage of water across the sea.  Moses bringing water out of the rock by striking it with his rod was surely a natural aquifer found in the desert. The manna which fed the Israelites is surely a natural product of the desert plants.  Jesus’s healing of the sick, and miracles of the loaves and fish involve natural elements of created things.  Jesus took mud and used his own spittle to recreate the blind man’s eyes.  Bringing life to the dead is God returning to that person the spirit of their body.

Does is not strike the student of Holy Scripture as reasonable if God chooses to speak in the last days before Jesus’s coming, “the great day of the Lord,” that God may speak through natural means of the creation as well as any other way God can get our attention. Wormwood falling into the sea can be a meteorite that poisons the water.  What if a natural disaster can be God speaking to us all of his love for us and for our world!

Besides being distracted by whatever is the latest entertainment craze, the latest foible of our politicians, or the concern for the reason that gasoline and diesel, food and durable goods are higher in costs, we might choose to become more aware of the voice of the creation, which is speaking, as the scripture says, “groaning in travail, waiting the for glorious liberation of the children of God.”

It is not possible today we are hearing the voice of the earth, God’s beautiful creation, crying out against us, her inhabitants! We have polluted too much, poisoned too much, eroded too much, devastated too much, destroyed too much the natural species, raped our lovely creation too much…Is it not time the earth rebels against us as its inhabitants and says “Enough!!!: “I have had enough already!”  Time shall be no more!

There are many things the world as God’s natural creation is telling us.  But do we have ears to hear?  Do we have hearts that understand?  And understanding, will we humble ourselves before our God and seek his redemption, his forgiveness, his strength? Daniel says, “in the latter days many will go to and fro and knowledge will increase.  But only the wise will understand what God is doing. “

The choice is between wisdom and foolishness.  The wise builds his or her house on the solid rock of Christ.  The foolish find in the floods that theirs is build on “the sinking sand.”  “And the rains came, and the floods came and beat upon that house and great was the fall of it.”

Today, we can choose to find wisdom or continue in our foolishness.

I wonder if any will understand.

Prayer: “O God, Creator, Redeemer and Friend, come to us and abide with us, that we may ever live to serve you, through Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior and our Redeemer.

Maranatha!  Come quickly, Lord Jesus!  Amen.

Bill Wilson, servant of the Lord, by the Lord’s grace and mercies, to whom be all praise, glory, honor and blessing, both now and forevermore.  Amen.

BW