Wildfires and Sacramento Grifters Redux

Back in May I wrote about this year's wildfire response by Sacramento which so far has been to go out for more bond money. Another $5.6 billion is the current ask. It cannot be a surprise that we will have wildfires every year and should actually plan to fight them better. I know Newsom has been busy.  There is a bear running wild all over the state and, of course, plenty of equity issues to resolve.  I feel sorry for CalFire and all of the local units that rush to help them.  We ran a huge budget surplus last year and yet the firefighting resources appear to be about the same.  I don't know how much a few used DC-10s cost, but it cannot be billions.

End result?  A Tahoe Air Quality Index (AQI) of 575.8 last evening around 8pm.  That AQI link states "Think of the AQI as a yardstick that runs from 0 to 500." so I can attest to 575.8 being bad.  Where are all the climate warriors who have time to ban natural gas hook-ups?  Here's the Sierra sun at 6pm.

And before someone yells "climate change", another clear-eyed observer, Bjorn Lomborg, noted this in yesterday's Wall Street Journal

Similarly, climate change is often blamed for wildfires in the U.S., but the reason for them is mostly poor forest management like failing to remove flammable undergrowth and allowing houses to be built in fire-prone areas. Despite breathless climate reporting, in 2021 the burned area to date is the fourth-lowest of the past 11 years. The area that burned in 2020 was only 11% of the area that did in the early 1900s. Contrary to climate clichés, annual global burned area has declined since 1900 and continues to fall.

Here is some related news, but first a snippet of a LTTE to the Daily Journal by one Robert A. Nice that puts it nicely

Editor,

Does all the blame for all the homes and trees lost in the California fires go to PG&E. Did PG&E bring all this power into the woods and then invited people to build around them, no. We as citizens decided we wanted to live in the forest, and we asked PG&E to bring us power and what we didn’t do is oversee this installation. We had planning committees, we had inspectors, we should have seen the potential and planned for a defense against it. Planning and inspecting are both actions that both citizens and power companies are responsible for enacting. I’m not saying PG&E wasn’t part of the blame but we as homeowners also had the responsibility to keep PG&E in compliance.

and then we read in the Daily Post

 

Comments

[Phinancier]

You have to wonder why Merrick Garland is not suing California and Oregon and maybe Washington for negligence. Our smoke is reaching the east coast. Wait. He is too busy suing Texas because they still believe in a border and Arizona and Georgia because they still believe in fair elections.

[You are so close…]

These are excellent arguments for building much more housing in Burlingame. Thank you!

[Joe]

Nah. Way too risky due to sea level rise. Anything east of Roosevelt or Hoover schools is going to be underwater in no time, so we better not. Looks like it has to be in Hillsborough and even lower H'borough may not be high enough https://bit.ly/3Cugbx6

Good try though. Just don't camp in Mills Canyon without a fire extinguisher.

[Paloma Ave]

But, but three of our city council members have voted to save the world by banning natural gas appliances in new homes. (That is for now - Do you think they will want to ban all natural gas appliances now? We will have to wait and see).

By the way, have those three removed their natural gas appliances? Inquiring minds what to know.

Duff, can you enlighten us about your house? Duff, are you there?

[So close and yet so far]

Joe's in a battle of wits with an unarmed they.

[Spurinna]

More smoke = more votes to recall Newsom.

[Paloma Ave]

There are multiple reasons to recall Newsom. But the top one is he declared us a sanctuary state.

He is telling the taxpayers of California, that not only will you pay for yourself and all the poor people but also for those here illegally.

That alone should be enough reason for everyone to vote him out of office!

[Lemming R Us]

Need a reminder. LA Times https://lat.ms/3lXTqMj

[Everything's Jake]

The LA Times article begins with "Newsom wasn't born rich." Wasn't Newsom's father the General Council for Getty Oil? Gavin is an empty headed Ken-doll. He's an amoral human being as well. So gross.

[Spurinna]

Now Newsom is handing out free lunches to every school kid.
Fresco from Pompeii shows politician handing out loaves of bread.

Vote Larry Elder.

[Spurinna]

Newsom: Smokey skies.
Just paroled a murderer he kept in prison the last time around.
But free lunches.

[Joe]

Very illuminating headline from the WSJ today:

As the Dixie Fire and Others Burn, the U.S. Struggles to Find Enough Firefighters

Low pay and a booming economy leave U.S. Forest Service struggling to hire the personnel it needs in a dangerous fire season

“There are shortages at all levels,” a recent note from one forest manager looking for help from current employees or even retirees read. “If you are interested in supporting the cause and supporting the wildland firefighting effort from the aviation perspective I encourage you to respond to this email.”

Mr. Sloop, who works year-round as an outdoor guide with his wife, hasn’t responded to the entreaties. He can’t justify leaving it for a seasonal job where the pay typically ranges from $15 to $18 per hour, benefits are rare and higher wages for overtime mean putting his life at risk.
----------------------
I'll go you one further. I was chatting with an old friend over the weekend about the cost of DC-10s, etc. He said the pilots who fly the DC-10's and Super 80s full of flame retardant at just above tree level are making $90 an hour. They're working 12 hour shifts with about half of that in the air. The "bird dog" pilots who fly higher looking for the fire and then direct the big boys to the right spot are mostly younger pilots looking to build up hours on the cheap and they make a bit more than half of what the big boys make.

....and we have a $290 billion/year state budget..........

[Barking Dog]

Fire - Power - Money

https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=F7g_5AI57Ng

Just one video in a great series of videos

[Barking Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRK5SbHXWwk

[Fire the boy]

Where the hell is Newsom? Something like 2 MILLION acres have burned for the second year in a row and he hasn't done a damn thing. WTF? I voted for him but not this time. He's clueless and useless.

[Christopher Cooke]

The Calder and Dixie fires are the very first to cross the Sierra mountain passes in modern history. It used to be thought that the low er levels of oxygen and sparse vegetation would prevent such fires from burning and spreading at the high elevations. I am sure glad that climate change is not making things worse,.

[Lap it up]

By that logic we should be generating extra CO2 not less. You are buying the agenda without understanding it. Climate change causes drought AND flooding. Guess we're screwed either way.

[Christopher Cooke]

Not too hard to figure this one out: climate change=more extreme weather, droughts, floods, hurricanes, more fires. The reason is that as the polar ice caps melt, more moisture is released into the atmosphere. Areas that get hurricanes such as the eastern Atlantic and Gulf regions, get them more frequently and much greater in strength. The west is experiencing much warmer weather so we get droughts, which leave the forests susceptible to bark beetle infestation. Trees die, creating more fuel for fires when they ignite. That is why we get much bigger fire storms. The simplistic view that droughts and floods cannot be linked to climate change ignores the obvious point that a warming climate affects different regions differently. Essentially the weather is becoming more extreme. Read something other than the editorial page of the WSJ, which continues to shill for the oil companies. Heck, go read the court testimony of Rex Tillerman, the former Exxon CEO, who said Exxon had long ago concluded that human activity was warming the planet

[Joe]

There's no lack of sources that dispute such direct ties. Here is one, but there are many more using IPCC data and an understanding of how the IPCC uses confidence intervals:

https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/ipcc-and-sceptics-agree-climate-change-is-not-causing-extreme-weather

[Lap it up]

He will diss that group too. Just watch.

[Christopher Cooke]

The article you referenced relies on old data. Here is one conclusion in the most recent report by the Working Group of the IPCC, which was released last month: “Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5.” You can read the summary here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf

[Paloma Ave]

Here is the 64 billion dollar question.

Will proposed changes make any difference?

[Paloma Ave]

Here is the 64 billion dollar question.

Will proposed changes make any difference?

[Christopher Cooke]

Paloma, you ask a good question. I think another question is will things get better is we follow the status quo? A government that implements policies designed to address climate change should constantly measure to determine if the policies work and be willing to abandon or change them if they are not working. Also, maybe it should start with the policies that are easiest to implement first, or which have the fewest negative consequences.

[Phinancier]

There is a lot of progress happening and it is not because governments are forcing it. People and companies are doing it on their own. Governments are actually so two-faced that they hurt the movement. The best example is Germany. And there is this. https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Report-Most-nations-fall-far-short-in-plans-to-16460155.php

We can only imagine the peer pressure on the "scientists" to up the fear ante in AR6 to counter lowering the worst case scenario. Not doing it would make you persona non grata in the lounge.