Director Jim Jarmusch presented an award at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner on Wednesday with a bitter nod to the fires consuming Los Angeles.
The multiple blazes, fueled by bone-dry conditions and strong winds, have killed at least five people and engulfed 2,000 buildings as of Thursday morning.
“We are all worried about our friends in L.A.,” Jarmusch said, perreports, as the presenter of the Best Screenplay award to “Anora” director Sean Baker. “Climate crisis is brought to you by climate deniers.”
“They are telling us that ‘woke’ is a negative thing,” continued Jarmusch, an indie filmmaker known for such works as “Coffee and Cigarettes,” “Stranger Than Paradise” and “Broken Flowers.” “I would just like to say it’s time we wake the fuck up!”
While weather anomalies can happen, scientists have directly linked climate change to the increased frequency and severity of droughts.
L.A. has received a mere fifth of an inch of rain downtown since July, the second-driest period in at least 150 years, according to CalMatters. That followed another weather extreme, the fourth wettest February in the city’s history, which aided the growth of what became kindling for the fires months later.
Fierce Santa Ana winds that blow from inland out toward the ocean rounded out the perfect setup for the current crisis.