Climate Change? Nahhh ...

In SoCal they have figured out ways to protect the denser development from these fires, especially at the base of the San Gabriels. Azusa, La Canada Flintridge, Monrovia, Claremont, Rancho and a bunch of other communities have to deal with this every year. It doesn't involve raking the forests.

 

This seems like an appropriate thread for this … what happens when hard-to-recycle solar panels start to die? We don’t have a plan for that.

Solar Panels Are Starting to Die, Leaving Behind Toxic Trash

 

It's time that our state rethink wildfire suppression. The key is to get on top of the fire in the first hour or so, before (to use a local example) the #HolserFire can blow up into the #ThomasFire.

And the way to do that is to double-down on funding for CalFire and instruct it to reorganize its already impressive Air Ops into the Cal Fire Air Corps. Give it enough money so that one 747 fighting a fire for seven days is instead four 747s fighting a fire for two hours. Demand that all locations within the state's borders be within a 60-minute flight of at least four large firefighting aircraft 24 hours a day during fire season. Yes, that means equip and train them to fly at night. Buy the SuperScoopers from Canada and the 10 Tanker Air Carrier company and get to work.

CalFire's budget is $2.3B and its staffing is 6,100 permanent + 2,600 seasonal + 3,500 inmates. It should be increase to be on par with the California Highway Patrol ($2.7B and 11,000 employees), because while the CHP does of course protect life, I'd argue that CalFire's protection efforts play a bigger role in California society.

This plane, x4, sent immediately to whatever fire is underway, will prevent the destruction we're experiencing across the state every hot month.

 

Ancient trees survive.

2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California park

 

For the second time in the span of a month, my Bay Area enclave is north of 110 degrees. There were days in June and July that I needed a jacket outside. Now for the second weekend it's miserable.

 

It's hardly as extreme as the weather elsewhere, but on Cape Cod this summer we experienced the weirdest thing, a humid drought. Every day, relatively cool or really hot, featured humidity over 80 percent and dewpoints near or above 70, but it never rained until the last week or so, when we've had a decent amount. The air feels like the Amazon Basin and everybody's yard is brown. Odd.

 

I'm always stunned by how the trees survive such early (or late) snowfalls. Seems like there are photos from there of broken tree limbs because the leaves can't hold the weight of the snow.