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PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

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Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#61

Post by ThrowMeDown01 »

dang wrote: post #30
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who occasionally gets downvoted for reasons I don't understand, would you mind elaborating on what you find flame-ish about the GP? AFAICT, the post contains hyperbole, but its main thesis seems worth discussing. Even if it's just to conclusively refute it.

The ideological rhetoric. It wasn't a thoughtful comment, which is what we want here. In case it's helpful: people sometimes think that we enforce this standard because we're uncomfortable with intensity and only want (say) a nice and civil bourgeois discussion. And they make legitimate objections to constraining discussion for this reason. But it isn't our reason at all. Rather, it's because of the systemic effects…

> I don't usually explain this because, as you can see from this post here, it takes too long.

Wouldn't the solution for this type of problem be to write it down only once and thoroughly in a blog post, and then refer to it? Or a number of posts, and you only post the pointer.

I've had that idea in general for public forums, that there should be one thoroughly explained list of aspects and view points, and when there is a problem with a post you simply moderate it with "That is a #42".

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#62

Post by masonic »

dangjc wrote: post #16

If someone pours gasoline over everything, but someone else lights the match, why do we put all the blame on the match lighter? Building flammable homes right next to super dry, brush filled forests is just an invitation for disaster.

Risks extend to pricey areas as well.

Look at aerial views above the Oakland Hills before and after the 1991 fire. Roads choked with illegally parked cars, badly overgrown brush, etc. Almost 3,300 home's destroyed.

Look at the same streets now on a typical Fall day: the exact same risk factors in similar proportions. A similar fire now would kill twice as many.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#63

Post by masonic »

Blackstone4 wrote: post #58

Note that PG&E is being held liable under current law for fires started at the site of it's equipment. Regardless of whether or not PG&E was at fault due to lack of maintenance. So when PG&E is found liable then the public and media often conflate it with being at fault. Two different things.

Note that SB 901, the recent PGE bailout over last year's fires (Coffee Park, etc.), is illegally being applied retroactively to this year's fires (see George Avalos' article in the Mercury).

It doesn't even take effect (legally) until 2019.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#64

Post by masonic »

paul7986 wrote: post #22
lacker wrote: post #2

It seems like an odd quirk of liability law that all of the fire damage is blamed on PG+E if the initial spark that started the fire was PG+E’s fault. Surely some blame lies elsewhere as well. I think homeowners need to be paying fire insurance costs proportional to fire risk to properly incentivize fire protection (and I say this as a California homeowner in a somewhat fire prone area). In the end, PG+E is regulated…

California the land of sky high housing & rent, insane deadly forest fires, homelessness like no other state, landslides, earthquakes... it just doesn't sound very appealing. What are the positives ... chasing and potentially realizing your creative (music/film) or tech dreams there? That can be done in other cities like Nashville or possibly close to here in a few years with Amazon building in Crystal City, VA (othe…

  it just doesn't sound very appealing
Indeed. Don't come here. It's horrible. Fires, earthquakes, dragons, locusts, and roaming gangs of hungry zombies abound.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#65

Post by kozikow »

lacker wrote: post #2

It seems like an odd quirk of liability law that all of the fire damage is blamed on PG+E if the initial spark that started the fire was PG+E’s fault. Surely some blame lies elsewhere as well. I think homeowners need to be paying fire insurance costs proportional to fire risk to properly incentivize fire protection (and I say this as a California homeowner in a somewhat fire prone area). In the end, PG+E is regulated…

> "I think homeowners need to be paying fire insurance costs proportional to fire risk"

Wildfires are already covered by property re/insurance. The problem is that risk is badly priced, as modeling for wildfires is currently very underdeveloped compared to hurricanes or earthquakes. There has been no wildfire event of a similar magnitude of property losses in recent history.

Shameless plug: At tensorflight we are actually starting some prototyping of wildfire risk models for the insurance industry based on satellite imagery.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#66

Post by masonic »

hydrox24 wrote: post #3

I want to know if backburning is a common practice in California, or in the USA at all. In Australia a big part of a Firey's job is running controlled burns in the (relatively) low fire risk season to keep the amount of flammable material around cities and property to a minimum. It is a continuation, in a way, of a much more ancient indiginous practice of regularly burning large swathes of bush. It is very much a par…

Proper forest management, including controlled burns, have always been difficult due to the politically powerful ignorant.

Because controlled burns experienced increasing friction, policy evolved to a "let-burn" policy for naturally-started fires (brush gets cleared without anyone having to take responsibility). Problem is, if an area is unnaturally overgrown, fire can have disproportionate severity and become impossible to constrain.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#67

Post by kozikow »

tathougies wrote: post #15
lacker wrote: post #2

It seems like an odd quirk of liability law that all of the fire damage is blamed on PG+E if the initial spark that started the fire was PG+E’s fault. Surely some blame lies elsewhere as well. I think homeowners need to be paying fire insurance costs proportional to fire risk to properly incentivize fire protection (and I say this as a California homeowner in a somewhat fire prone area). In the end, PG+E is regulated…

Fire insurance, like earthquake and flood insurance, does not work because of the scope of damages. Insurance works by pooling risk and taking income from low risk areas to pay for high risk ones. Due to the scope of wildfires, fire insurance is untenable. The solution to this fire is absolutely to blame pg and e and its custoners (yes this includes me). This is the logical conclusion. The only thing preventing us fr…

> Due to the scope of wildfires, fire insurance is untenable.

That's why for catastrophe risks like wildfires you have reinsurers talking that risk - e.g. catastrophe reinsurance market in Bermuda.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#68

Post by dang »

ThrowMeDown01 wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideological rhetoric. It wasn't a thoughtful comment, which is what we want here. In case it's helpful: people sometimes think that we enforce this standard because we're uncomfortable with intensity and only want (say) a nice and civil bourgeois discussion. And they make legitimate objections to constraining discussion for this reason. But it isn't our reason at all. Rather, it's because of the systemic effects…

> I don't usually explain this because, as you can see from this post here, it takes too long. Wouldn't the solution for this type of problem be to write it down only once and thoroughly in a blog post, and then refer to it? Or a number of posts, and you only post the pointer. I've had that idea in general for public forums, that there should be one thoroughly explained list of aspects and view points, and when there…

It would seem so, but something in me resists reducing things that way. It feels incongruent with HN's principle of intellectual curiosity.

I do sometimes link to previous HN comments, but only ad hoc. And I have to remember things in order to link to them, which prevents it from getting totally static.

Re: PG&E-friendly wildfire bill being prepared by lawmakers in wake of lethal fires

#69

Post by [deleted] »

ThrowMeDown01 wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideological rhetoric. It wasn't a thoughtful comment, which is what we want here. In case it's helpful: people sometimes think that we enforce this standard because we're uncomfortable with intensity and only want (say) a nice and civil bourgeois discussion. And they make legitimate objections to constraining discussion for this reason. But it isn't our reason at all. Rather, it's because of the systemic effects…

> I don't usually explain this because, as you can see from this post here, it takes too long. Wouldn't the solution for this type of problem be to write it down only once and thoroughly in a blog post, and then refer to it? Or a number of posts, and you only post the pointer. I've had that idea in general for public forums, that there should be one thoroughly explained list of aspects and view points, and when there…

[deleted]
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