Just three months ago, California was engulfed in deadly wildfires. Now it’s deluged by blizzards and flooding rains. The latter have taken at least one life, but they are a relief from an epic drought.The weather is crazy and scary, in other words, and climate change will keep making it crazier and scarier — and costlier. Wildfires have already driven California utility PG&E Corp. into bankruptcy,Here is the real story where we see Sierra Cloub throew ropadbloaks into PGE plans to clear fire hazard::
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) is planning to clear cut wide swaths of trees surrounding power lines in an aggressive program that claims to address wildfire hazards as a part of their Fire Safety Zone work. Though some vegetation trimming and line clearances are required by law, these new cutting plans far exceed those requirements. As PG&E itself states, “The California Public Utilities Commission requires PG&E maintain at least a 4-foot clearance between vegetation and power lines in high fire-threat areas year-round to help ensure electric reliability and public safety.” Under their new program, PG&E wants to enlist property owner consent to voluntarily remove all vegetation to a distance of 15 feet from each side of the power lines in the affected zones, and extend the clearing down to one foot above the ground. PG&E owns more than 100,000 miles of transmission lines, which it regularly inspects and maintains by cutting and trimming trees. With the planned clear cut width of 30 feet, the path of destruction could be considerable. Such a dramatically new approach should have a comparably high profile, with extensive advance publicity and full, clear explanations, including what property owners’ rights and choices are. Unfortunately, the company seems to be introducing its plan homeowner by homeowner. How fully informed will property owners be, and how free will they feel to decline the extra removal, if representatives simply show up at their doors and say this is necessary for fire safety?To make the legal case that Bloomberg needs, we need a more accurate condition. We have to ask, who is right, was it always 15 feet? Or the lessor, government mandated 4 feet? If that number increases due to climate change, then we have our condition. Consider the case where global warming increases the rate of dehydration in the trees, they become flammable sooner. That effect should be measurable, we can include a quarter point provable increase in temps, then due the lab work, prove how much was due to warming and how much due to Sierra Club being fake environmentalists.
Also, we need smarter people, like me instead of idiots from Bloomberg who just repeat the fairy tale. And the Sierra Club! They should know that forest fires contribute about 5-7% of CO2 pollution. So if Sierra Club got the number worn, then Sierra Club owes us the money for the extra ice they melted. I do believe the Sierra Club will also owe me money for all the inefficient public rail systems they have, erroneously, supported.
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