Replies

1. Expert Member
   BILL WICHERS | Nov 08, 2019 11:59am | #1

   Looks to me like nothing in their new deal has anything at all to do with the widlfires, or trying to contain or prevent such fires from happening again the future. There are no new ideas there. The housing cost problems on the west coast are due to restrictions on new building, this is well known. They over regulate markets and then they have problems. Supply and demand: too little supply, prices go up.

   PG&E has been blamed for starting the fires, and threatened with essentially unlimited liability. They have been doing these blackouts to try to prevent more fires from starting. Now they get blamed for causing blackouts. Notice how no matter what they do, everything is somehow their fault? I'm sure they never wanted any of this to happen. Now they are apparently selling generators to people, likely at very good prices to try to help out, and that's bad too according to the article.

   Bill

2. 
   exeric | Nov 08, 2019 02:02pm | #2

   I have high regard for Naomi Klein ever since she introduced the idea of the shock doctrine, where shocks to the economic system are intentionally introduced. The idea is to keep people off kilter to the point where there is so much infighting among different groups that they can no longer work together to find solutions. It's the idea of distraction and scapegoating as an actual policy.

   I used to have high regard for PG&E but no longer. In the recent power outages they cut power excessively using a much broader brush than was needed. We have microclimates in California where there are broad differences in climate within close geographical distances. They actually cut power to fog shrouded areas of the coast that were in no danger of a conflagration. In my own region it is very arid but winds were very light and never gusting beyond a reasonable 25 mph, and that only very occasionally. We were in a direction far upwind of the fire and in no danger from that fire. Yet our power was cut off 4 days. The amount of economic damage caused by that broad brush shut off was equivalent to a REAL catastrophe to hundreds of unaffected communities.

   Finally, the fire was caused by PG&E because they failed to shut off a high tension wire and did not clear the brush and trees beneath the tower. An insulator electrical bypass failed and sparked the fire. This was something that could have been avoided if they were conscientious about maintenance of their lines and infrastructure. They are not.

3. 
   krom | Nov 09, 2019 09:41am | #3

   The fires are caused by lack of maintenance by PG&E, some of which is forced by "environmentalists" who have made it difficult or impossible to keep the right of ways clear, keep the forests healthy, or to maintain a network of firebreaks.

4. 
   greennewdealhomes | Apr 19, 2022 03:40pm | #4

   Hey Doug. Here's a couple links to some "local Green New Deals." - your pal Rachel in Duluth
   https://www.greennewdealhomes.com/
   https://www.greennewdealhousing.org/

1. 
   user-723121 | Apr 19, 2022 04:13pm | #5

   Thank you, Rachel

   Nice work, I will follow these sites.

   I see Will Munger on the board of directors, is he the son of Willard Munger? I met Willard in the 90's in his state office back in my activist days. The ultimate environmentalist, one of my heroes.