61–70 of 241 posts
One of the big problems is that controlled burns can and do become uncontrolled burns. The largest ever wildfire in New Mexico was started as a planned burn (more honest label) just last year. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/05/2...
Of course, this is discussed in the article.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this just generalizes to the recurring problem of individualism vs collectivism. Government regulation is the answer, but it's not being applied efficiently here
I don't think that's it. I think it's more a consequence of democracy versus autocracy. An autocracy could make these trade-offs without political consequence. Of course, autocracies come with other profound challenges. Most I think agree that a benevolent dictator produces the best outcomes. The problem is that human benevolence is fickle, and subject to interpretation -- invariably leading to violence.
Of course a consequence of democracy is as you way - there are political consequences to unpopular (but necessary) actions, making such measures unpalatable for any but a second term president.
But we surely have navigated politically unpopular initiatives before, for the greater good of the nation. See: Civil Rights Movement.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-kin...
This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…
I feel that this better illustrates the downsides of centralized power: centralized decision making won’t be as efficient as decision making done at the nodes, closer to the actual problem because of missing context and data; and maybe even indifference
For the record, I am not saying that there are no benefits to centralized planning and control. This is just one of its weaknesses besides corruption
This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…
This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…
In some places, proscribed burns are routine. Just not in the place that the article is about.
Heck, the Chicago Parks District does proscribed burns in Lincoln Park, which is a very urban location.
This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…
Another example is how many people advocated for (and how many countries essentially adopted) letting covid spread throughout the population (either like wildfire or via "flatten the curve") to get natural herd immunity because letting a poorly understood (but known to be quite deadly) virus spread through the population was doable but giving out vaccines that hadn't been through phase 2 trials wasn't.
This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…
Or, to put that another way: instead of controlled burns where you're actively setting the fire, why not just build (and maintain) the firebreaks, wait for a wildfire to happen inside the burn zone, and then just refuse to put it out?