Talking about climate change is a cop out to avoid talking about California’s dysfunctional insurance market & poor landscape management practices. Climate change could be solved tomorrow & it wouldn’t change those things. www.latimes.com/business/sto... - ThreadSky

dingbattitude.bsky.social • 36 days ago

Talking about climate change is a cop out to avoid talking about California’s dysfunctional insurance market & poor landscape management practices. Climate change could be solved tomorrow & it wouldn’t change those things. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-01-18/california-fair-plan-the-home-insurer-of-last-resort-may-need-bailout-after-fire-losses

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dingbattitude.bsky.social•36 days ago

California cannot solve climate change by itself but we could address the insurance market and brush management and building in the right places. The areas of SoCal prone to catastrophic fires have been that way for millions of years due to topography and the positions of the continents.

dingbattitude.bsky.social•36 days ago

As long as SoCal is at the latitude it’s at and the Great Basin exists and the California Current flows we are going to have a Mediterranean climate with very few summer thunderstorms and fall/winter Santa Ana winds, and that’s what creates the ingredients for catastrophic fires.

camplink.bsky.social•36 days ago

9/50ths of an inch of rain in 8 months isn’t normal. The fires started in January, not November.

dingbattitude.bsky.social•36 days ago

0.18” is very dry but it’s not even unprecedented in the historical record. If I recall correctly tree ring studies suggest even drier years during the 1500s. Climate change is probably not helping but even if we fixed climate change tomorrow we’d still have a huge fire hazard problem.

camplink.bsky.social•36 days ago

Yeah. No. "drought occurrence and severity from the last 30 years rival the worst megadrought period in the 600-year reconstruction." https://scitechdaily.com/californias-hidden-climate-history-a-remarkable-600-year-tree-ring-analysis/

dingbattitude.bsky.social•36 days ago

Rival suggests it’s comparable to the worst drought in the last 600 years which means there’s almost surely been worse droughts in the last 2 million years. SoCal development vulnerability to fire just isn’t a problem that’s really related to climate change.

gspeng.bsky.social•36 days ago

We are in the cold phase of both PDO and ENSO. Remember the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge the last time that happened? There's something about Waves 🤔 It's almost like they repeat themselves

camplink.bsky.social•36 days ago

If it was normal, the area would be a different type of ecosystem than chaparral.

alexfischca.bsky.social•36 days ago

For that reason, I was a little surprised by the reference to landscape management in the post above. For the Sierra foothills, sure. For the Santa Monica Mountains? Aside from land use, do you have something I can read supporting the utility of landscape management for mitigating sage scrub fires?

dingbattitude.bsky.social•36 days ago

I think we will need something like what Irvine Company did with Orchard Hills, an irrigated and maintained landscape around development. That with modern fire resistant building construction will help a lot. https://x.com/hotshot_movie/status/1878891960574087360?s=46&t=hyduUnUTrYqImBR3zm9uqA

phoebe1313.bsky.social•36 days ago

Bailout for insurance?! 😳

mias-mom.bsky.social•36 days ago

Yeah, no! This is an incredibly bad take!🤦🏻‍♀️It’s the #ClimateCrisis, dude!

lugoz.bsky.social•36 days ago

Are you an expert on “landscape management” because you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.

rvengosh.bsky.social•36 days ago

Can you no talk about both?

As a long time Californian, we’ve never had large wildfires in January. That’s climate change.

Even without the issues you call out, those fires wouldn’t be happening.

pearl50smag.bsky.social•36 days ago

Now do Florida. Also climate change problems, Hurricanes, extreme high tides, insurance co.s leaving, high rise condos built on the beach sinking. Florida a red state!

johnvaillant.bsky.social•36 days ago

Not either/or. Both/and. They inform each other.

huskygal.bsky.social•36 days ago

Just curious what is your experience in this?

elegyjay.bsky.social•36 days ago

We know - LAT is now in the orange one's pocket... now sinking to the lowest... I would only pick it out of the trash for a birdcage.

littlebirdsteph.bsky.social•36 days ago

That's a stupid take. Just for the simple fact that the two are connected. As you deal with ever more adverse weather events, because of climate breakdown you will need to build up resilience & adaptive ways, because politicians decided not to do much of anything about climate change.

snorider.bsky.social•36 days ago

If we don't address climate change, it is just a matter of time until nothing matters except trying to survive.

soraya22.bsky.social•36 days ago

The same is sadly true across the country. Florida is another example of insurance crisis.

wenatcheeinsurance.bsky.social•36 days ago

It's a both situation. Climate Change is moving faster than underwriting, setting rates, and supporting infrastructure that can slow down and prevent large-scale fires. It is going to take serious efforts if we want reasonable home insurance rates.

reader1970.bsky.social•36 days ago

A lot of rich white people lost homes to the LA fire.
Funding will be found.

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