Capitalist Greed Poisons Us
LOS ANGELES (USA), June 22— Thick toxic smoke blows across large sections of the county. A fire in a huge Boyle Heights cold-storage facility burns for the sixth day. Residents of this mainly-Mexican/Chicano working-class neighborhood suffer the most. A stark example of capitalism’s environmental racism. “The whole east side of LA County is like that,” a teacher told her class.
“It’s going to be a very slowly unfolding tragedy,” said a comrade who lives nearby. “The poorest folks will see elders weaken, and even die, of respiratory illnesses. Possibly see premature births and birth defects in the areas adjacent to the toxic brew of industrial insulation, lithium batteries, and solar panels burning.
“The county opened shelters, but in areas only a few miles away, also affected by smoke,” she continued.
Normal fire-fighting techniques don’t work. Solar panels covered five hundred thousand square feet (4.56 hectares) of roof. “Those panels are burning at upwards of 1500 degrees (over 800 °C)!” exclaimed a former firefighter, distressed at the sight of firefighters on the roof. “That roof is likely going to go!”
So fire crews in helicopters dump huge quantities of water on the facility. But the very dense foam filling the structure’s corrugated steel walls continues to burn slowly. It emits gases. And all that water weakens the walls. The whole building could collapse.
Meanwhile, eighty-five million pounds (38.6 kilotons) of rotting food creates a major biohazard. Rotten meat breeds dangerous pathogens. It generates toxic liquids and more gases.
“I always think about the pressure to go back to ‘business as usual’ while health risks are ongoing,” said another comrade. “Those who work outside in the polluted air are often our most vulnerable workers, including immigrants, who must continue laboring to make their living.”
The blaze apparently started with an ammonia leak inside the building. Lineage, the $18 billion company that owns the warehouse, is trying to blame it on subcontractors working on the solar panels. Fire completely destroyed a similar Lineage cold storage facility in rural Finley (Washington State) two years ago after burning for sixty days.
“Not a conspiracy, just capitalism doing its thing,” commented a Redditor.
Lineage, Inc. (formerly Lineage Logistics) is the world’s largest temperature-controlled warehouse real estate investment trust. Between 2017 and 2023 it acquired over one hundred companies. It operates five hundred facilities across eighteen countries. With a total revenue of $5.4 billion in 2025, the company clearly prioritizes profits over maintenance or safety!
The Lineage fire in Los Angeles shows again that capitalism is not capable of solving the problems it creates for the masses.
Why are massive cold-storage facilities needed anyway? That’s “capitalism doing its thing.” Large-scale commercial frozen food is one of many terrible results of imperialist commodification of food. That is, food is produced to be sold profitably in international markets.
That’s yet another reason we need a communist society. To produce and distribute healthy food that meets people’s needs. Not for sale. Not only for those who can afford pricey farmers’ markets or consumer co-op shares. For everyone. And more of us will be involved in producing that food as communism brings together city and countryside.
Fight for our class! Fight for communism!