The wildfire crisis is ultimately the product of a state politics controlled by interest groups whose agenda has drifted out of any cognizable relationship with the daily well-being of the state’s average citizen.
Because California accounts for less than 1% of global emissions, nothing it does will make a difference to climate, but its ratepayers shell out billions for wind and solar that might be better spent on fireproofing. A generation of ill-judged environmental activism has all but ended forest management in favor of letting dead trees and underbrush build up because it’s more “natural.” At the same time, residents resist any natural or planned fires that would consume this tinder before it gives rise to conflagrations like those now menacing Los Angeles and San Francisco.
An activist state Supreme Court imposed on utilities responsibility for any wildfires started by their equipment regardless of negligence. At the same time, state policy obliges them to extend their networks to support housing developments in areas the state designates as “very high fire risk.”
California’s activist one-party government, with its penchant for pretending to be a national government in relation to the hot-button issues of the left, is where all these roads end. Elites subsidize electric cars for themselves while promoting zoning that forces lower-income workers to commute three hours to a job or live in their cars. PG&E can’t keep trees off its power lines but can supply exact numbers for how many LGBTQ workers it employs.
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The wildfire crisis is ultimately the product of a state politics controlled by interest groups whose agenda has drifted out of any cognizable relationship with the daily well-being of the state’s average citizen.
Because California accounts for less than 1% of global emissions, nothing it does will make a difference to climate, but its ratepayers shell out billions for wind and solar that might be better spent on fireproofing. A generation of ill-judged environmental activism has all but ended forest management in favor of letting dead trees and underbrush build up because it’s more “natural.” At the same time, residents resist any natural or planned fires that would consume this tinder before it gives rise to conflagrations like those now menacing Los Angeles and San Francisco.
An activist state Supreme Court imposed on utilities responsibility for any wildfires started by their equipment regardless of negligence. At the same time, state policy obliges them to extend their networks to support housing developments in areas the state designates as “very high fire risk.”
California’s activist one-party government, with its penchant for pretending to be a national government in relation to the hot-button issues of the left, is where all these roads end. Elites subsidize electric cars for themselves while promoting zoning that forces lower-income workers to commute three hours to a job or live in their cars. PG&E can’t keep trees off its power lines but can supply exact numbers for how many LGBTQ workers it employs.