6 ms·

Why do it randomly in the middle of a term instead of campaign based of this so we can properly debate and discuss the details?

tstrimple 6y ago
Because we don't live in a direct democracy?
- username90 6y ago
  Hiding your true intentions and then showing your 15 year plan after you get elected is not in the spirit of representative democracies. Here in Sweden we discuss these things before elections and in general have more climate measures than California, so I don't see why a politician would need to be this heavy handed.
  - natch 6y ago
    > I don't see why... The mistake here is assuming that just because you don’t see a reason, that must mean there is no reason. Maybe you should visit California next time we are in peak firestorm mode and then you might see.
    - blackflame7000 6y ago
      So this will stop the fires then? Better than say mandating forest management?
      - tstrimple 6y ago
        Stop fires? No. In the long term it's meant to address the conditions to lead to the size and severity of fires we're seeing today. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46183690 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46183690 > In terms of loss of life and damage to property, the data shows the worst fires have all been in the past 10 years or so - except for one fire in 1991 in Alameda County. > And this year, there have also been unusually strong winds combined with periods of drought across parts of the western US. Six of the largest fires recorded in California have all happened this year. > Prof Doerr says a combination of drier, hotter and windy conditions is the key factor in these recent fires. > He adds that even in areas where there have been attempts to reduce flammable material in forests, it's not clear how much difference this would have made. > "The bottom line remains that the extreme meteorological conditions are the main drivers for these extreme fires."
        throwawaysea 6y ago
        But climate change is not the main driver of recent wildfires, and it at most one contributing factor among many. If old growth trees remained, if forests were cleared of dead trees, if stands were thinned, if logging companies were allowed to harvest in a timely/economical fashion, or if controlled burns were used with the frequency they used to be, most of these fires would not happen. If there are fewer fires, the smaller number of bad fires that do still happen are much easier to put out quickly, because we would not have to spread fire fighting resources too thinly. Here's a survey of articles covering the West coast fires (CA, OR, WA) that make this clear: - https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-... mentions that before 1800, several million acres were burned every year through indigenous burning and also lightning-caused fires. In 2019, California committed to burning just half a million acres a year, but is far from reaching even that modest goal. - https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911592361/are-recent-wildfires-enough-to-restore-the-equilibrium-with-fire https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911592361/are-recent-wildfire... mentions that California needs to address 20M acres every year (through thinning or burning). In 2019, $160M was spent putting out wildfires in CA, but the economic damage was $80B - and yet preventative measures are not being taken. - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/california-today-100-million-dead-trees-prompt-fears-of-giant-wildfires.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/california-today-100-m... notes that California's focus on fire suppression has led to mass quantities of dead trees resulting from a lack of smaller fires and increased infestation (due to increased forest density enabling transmission of pests/disease) - https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/09/did-global-warming-play-significant.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/09/did-global-warming-pl... mentions that the wind patterns that caused recent wildfires in Oregon is unlikely to have been caused by climate change - https://katu.com/news/on-your-side/lack-of-forest-management-allowed-fuels-to-accumulate-expert-says https://katu.com/news/on-your-side/lack-of-forest-management... notes that in Oregon, a lack of forest management has led to a buildup of dense fuels - https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/to-stop-wildland-fires-forestry-not-climate-policy-is-the-priority https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/to-stop... notes various policy failures that have caused Washington forests to grow out of control, unharvested, and with high density. - Both the WA state Department of Natural Resources (https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection) and WA timber industry (http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-risk/ http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-ris...) have been increased investment/assistance/regulatory support in thinning forests and conducting prescribed burns. Despite these calls being made for over a decade, despite ever increasing state budgets, and despite a consistent single-party rule, the governor and legislature have done little to respond to those calls for help. The reality is that all three West Coast governors - Newsom (CA), Brown (OR), and Inslee (WA) - are operating in states that have left-leaning legislatures, judiciaries, and executive leadership. The failure to prevent wildfires or manage them effectively is entirely their fault. It's much more convenient however, to blame an externality like climate change, than to be honest about their own failures. And at the same time, the political theater of blaming wildfires on climate change allows them to forward their political/ideological agendas through far-reaching proposals like Green New Deal, which are much broader than just environmental issues.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  CA regularly amends its constitution via voter initiatives, so I'd say we (Californians) actually do live in a fairly direct democracy. Also, I'm not sure anyone has ever characterized representative democracy as: politicians campaign on certain issues, and then after getting elected — and with no material intervening factors — they enact sweeping regulations that they never even hinted at during their campaign (or decades-long prior political life).
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > we (Californians) actually do live in a fairly direct democracy California has direct democratic elements. It is not a direct democracy. There is a lot of writing and research on why direct democracies are probably not a good idea for all questions, from antiquity to the modern era. One field that dies with proximity to democracy is law, e.g. the ancient Athenian system of trial by popular assembly. Another is the management of commons, e.g. fisheries, forestry and, I would argue, our atmosphere. Note that such delegation doesn't mean usurpation. It just means the elected leaders negatively consent to, and constrain, rule making. This is the basis of the agency-driven civil service model, which first–to my knowledge–flourished in China before making it West by way of the Middle East.
    - throwawaysea 6y ago
      Why do you believe management of the commons would fail under direct democracies? That seems like an arbitrary claim but maybe I don't understand the reasoning. I feel like any flaw that is claimed about direct democracy can be claimed about high-turnout representative democracy as well (and therefore broadly about democracy in general). After all, we elect representatives effectively on popularity contexts, echo chambers squeezing out marginal leads, and poor/manipulable information flows. A related question: wouldn't a representative democracy always perform more poorly than a (benevolent) technocracy?
  - s17n 6y ago
    Pretty sure the original concept of representative democracy didn't involve campaigning on issues at all, it was more like "the people decide who they want to represent them by picking the wisest and most honorable citizens, and then the representatives decide what to do about the issues."
mehrdadn 6y ago
Debates on major topics during a campaign aren't really known for their scientific quality and attention to nuance, so I'm not really sure we should be upset if anyone's passed up on the opportunity to debate acceptable fuel emissions during campaigns. Between healthcare, immigration, criminal justice reform, etc. there isn't exactly a shortage of topics to debate and pick a side on during a campaign. And unlike (perhaps) the market, it's not like mother nature gives points for democracy either.
- username90 6y ago
  Problem is that without debates this is likely to just get reverted and make people lose even more trust in their politicians.
  - sjy 6y ago
    In Australia, the debate was so popular that it continued after a carbon tax was successfully implemented, which resulted in the tax being repealed in 2014 and not much action on climate change since then. Maybe “debate” is not the right word for what happened, but engaging the public on climate policy seems to have had perverse effects in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Australia
    - username90 6y ago
      Sounds like you would get better results if you created a policy people are happy with instead of just doing something that will get reversed and create more future opposition against green solutions.
natch 6y ago
It’s a good time right now because the fires in California have put a spotlight on environmental issues. Also you have to adapt to changing conditions and then take actions accordingly. This is true generally, and possibly even more so for politicians and governments.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  > It’s a good time right now because the fires in California have put a spotlight on environmental issues. Some people are blaming the wildfires on global warming, but many (on the left and the right) are saying forest maintenance has been the primary cause. [1] Also, the recent rolling blackouts have shown the risk of relying too much on solar and wind power. I'm not sure that the specific timing makes too much sense, unless the goal is to have this largely overshadowed by the presidential election and recent passing of Justice Ginsburg. 1: https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-...
  - headmelted 6y ago
    I’m a bit saddened people didn’t react more positively to the Tesla battery day event. I’m not talking about stock speculators (gamblers gonna gamble, whatever) but just generally I thought it was very encouraging that Tesla’s main goal right now is to dramatically drive down the cost of energy storage while driving up the density and production capacity. Is it enough? Not on their own, but if others can adopt their methods to produce more batteries then it’s effectively printing money for those companies for the next thirty years (as even the laggards are forced to move to zero emissions across their grids). It would be nice if this creates the kind of fierce competition E.M. set out to do with Tesla originally. We need more energy storage than we have now by several orders of magnitude.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    what makes you think the blackouts have to do with the power generation type? my understanding was that the blackouts have to do with danger to/from power distribution infrastructure
gpm 6y ago
It's literally announced 15 years in advance. Plenty of time for the public to elect politicians who will roll it back (indeed, the cynic in me assumes that is the whole reason it was able to be announced).
- username90 6y ago
  You are probably right, I don't see any movement in car stocks at all. Seems like nobody thinks this matters.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Over the last few years, a number of mostly European countries have passed regulations to ban new petrol/diesel cars by 2030-2040, with some cities to ban then as early as 2025. So from the industry's point of view, this is more of the same, and not unexpected. It would arguably be weird if the markets moved much; this sort of thing should be priced in.
    - username90 6y ago
      > Over the last few years, a number of mostly European countries have passed regulations to ban new petrol/diesel cars by 2030-2040 They haven't, EU countries cannot do that since it is against EU law. Instead there have been several proposals for phasing out fossil fuel cars that are still discussed, but nothing is decided. That is how politics and regulations are usually done.
unethical_ban 6y ago
None of your assertions are backed by logic. You imply that politicians can only do things that they promise on the trail, without responding to things real time. This would be disastrous. You imply that without "debate" it is likely to be reverted, which has no basis in theory or fact.
- username90 6y ago
  A 15 year plan isn't urgent and requires very strong support in order to survive when the next leader gets elected. Doing this without a public discussion doesn't make sense in any way. Also we have known about climate change for decades, there has been no huge revelations about it the past year, there was no reason this couldn't have been a part of his campaign.

tstrimple 6y ago

Because we don't live in a direct democracy?

username90 6y ago
Hiding your true intentions and then showing your 15 year plan after you get elected is not in the spirit of representative democracies. Here in Sweden we discuss these things before elections and in general have more climate measures than California, so I don't see why a politician would need to be this heavy handed.
- natch 6y ago
  > I don't see why... The mistake here is assuming that just because you don’t see a reason, that must mean there is no reason. Maybe you should visit California next time we are in peak firestorm mode and then you might see.
  - blackflame7000 6y ago
    So this will stop the fires then? Better than say mandating forest management?
    - tstrimple 6y ago
      Stop fires? No. In the long term it's meant to address the conditions to lead to the size and severity of fires we're seeing today. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46183690 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46183690 > In terms of loss of life and damage to property, the data shows the worst fires have all been in the past 10 years or so - except for one fire in 1991 in Alameda County. > And this year, there have also been unusually strong winds combined with periods of drought across parts of the western US. Six of the largest fires recorded in California have all happened this year. > Prof Doerr says a combination of drier, hotter and windy conditions is the key factor in these recent fires. > He adds that even in areas where there have been attempts to reduce flammable material in forests, it's not clear how much difference this would have made. > "The bottom line remains that the extreme meteorological conditions are the main drivers for these extreme fires."
      - throwawaysea 6y ago
        But climate change is not the main driver of recent wildfires, and it at most one contributing factor among many. If old growth trees remained, if forests were cleared of dead trees, if stands were thinned, if logging companies were allowed to harvest in a timely/economical fashion, or if controlled burns were used with the frequency they used to be, most of these fires would not happen. If there are fewer fires, the smaller number of bad fires that do still happen are much easier to put out quickly, because we would not have to spread fire fighting resources too thinly. Here's a survey of articles covering the West coast fires (CA, OR, WA) that make this clear: - https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-... mentions that before 1800, several million acres were burned every year through indigenous burning and also lightning-caused fires. In 2019, California committed to burning just half a million acres a year, but is far from reaching even that modest goal. - https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911592361/are-recent-wildfires-enough-to-restore-the-equilibrium-with-fire https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911592361/are-recent-wildfire... mentions that California needs to address 20M acres every year (through thinning or burning). In 2019, $160M was spent putting out wildfires in CA, but the economic damage was $80B - and yet preventative measures are not being taken. - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/california-today-100-million-dead-trees-prompt-fears-of-giant-wildfires.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/california-today-100-m... notes that California's focus on fire suppression has led to mass quantities of dead trees resulting from a lack of smaller fires and increased infestation (due to increased forest density enabling transmission of pests/disease) - https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/09/did-global-warming-play-significant.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/09/did-global-warming-pl... mentions that the wind patterns that caused recent wildfires in Oregon is unlikely to have been caused by climate change - https://katu.com/news/on-your-side/lack-of-forest-management-allowed-fuels-to-accumulate-expert-says https://katu.com/news/on-your-side/lack-of-forest-management... notes that in Oregon, a lack of forest management has led to a buildup of dense fuels - https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/to-stop-wildland-fires-forestry-not-climate-policy-is-the-priority https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/to-stop... notes various policy failures that have caused Washington forests to grow out of control, unharvested, and with high density. - Both the WA state Department of Natural Resources (https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection) and WA timber industry (http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-risk/ http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-ris...) have been increased investment/assistance/regulatory support in thinning forests and conducting prescribed burns. Despite these calls being made for over a decade, despite ever increasing state budgets, and despite a consistent single-party rule, the governor and legislature have done little to respond to those calls for help. The reality is that all three West Coast governors - Newsom (CA), Brown (OR), and Inslee (WA) - are operating in states that have left-leaning legislatures, judiciaries, and executive leadership. The failure to prevent wildfires or manage them effectively is entirely their fault. It's much more convenient however, to blame an externality like climate change, than to be honest about their own failures. And at the same time, the political theater of blaming wildfires on climate change allows them to forward their political/ideological agendas through far-reaching proposals like Green New Deal, which are much broader than just environmental issues.
gnicholas 6y ago
CA regularly amends its constitution via voter initiatives, so I'd say we (Californians) actually do live in a fairly direct democracy. Also, I'm not sure anyone has ever characterized representative democracy as: politicians campaign on certain issues, and then after getting elected — and with no material intervening factors — they enact sweeping regulations that they never even hinted at during their campaign (or decades-long prior political life).
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > we (Californians) actually do live in a fairly direct democracy California has direct democratic elements. It is not a direct democracy. There is a lot of writing and research on why direct democracies are probably not a good idea for all questions, from antiquity to the modern era. One field that dies with proximity to democracy is law, e.g. the ancient Athenian system of trial by popular assembly. Another is the management of commons, e.g. fisheries, forestry and, I would argue, our atmosphere. Note that such delegation doesn't mean usurpation. It just means the elected leaders negatively consent to, and constrain, rule making. This is the basis of the agency-driven civil service model, which first–to my knowledge–flourished in China before making it West by way of the Middle East.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    Why do you believe management of the commons would fail under direct democracies? That seems like an arbitrary claim but maybe I don't understand the reasoning. I feel like any flaw that is claimed about direct democracy can be claimed about high-turnout representative democracy as well (and therefore broadly about democracy in general). After all, we elect representatives effectively on popularity contexts, echo chambers squeezing out marginal leads, and poor/manipulable information flows. A related question: wouldn't a representative democracy always perform more poorly than a (benevolent) technocracy?
- s17n 6y ago
  Pretty sure the original concept of representative democracy didn't involve campaigning on issues at all, it was more like "the people decide who they want to represent them by picking the wisest and most honorable citizens, and then the representatives decide what to do about the issues."

mehrdadn 6y ago

Debates on major topics during a campaign aren't really known for their scientific quality and attention to nuance, so I'm not really sure we should be upset if anyone's passed up on the opportunity to debate acceptable fuel emissions during campaigns. Between healthcare, immigration, criminal justice reform, etc. there isn't exactly a shortage of topics to debate and pick a side on during a campaign. And unlike (perhaps) the market, it's not like mother nature gives points for democracy either.

username90 6y ago
Problem is that without debates this is likely to just get reverted and make people lose even more trust in their politicians.
- sjy 6y ago
  In Australia, the debate was so popular that it continued after a carbon tax was successfully implemented, which resulted in the tax being repealed in 2014 and not much action on climate change since then. Maybe “debate” is not the right word for what happened, but engaging the public on climate policy seems to have had perverse effects in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Australia
  - username90 6y ago
    Sounds like you would get better results if you created a policy people are happy with instead of just doing something that will get reversed and create more future opposition against green solutions.

natch 6y ago

It’s a good time right now because the fires in California have put a spotlight on environmental issues. Also you have to adapt to changing conditions and then take actions accordingly. This is true generally, and possibly even more so for politicians and governments.

gnicholas 6y ago
> It’s a good time right now because the fires in California have put a spotlight on environmental issues. Some people are blaming the wildfires on global warming, but many (on the left and the right) are saying forest maintenance has been the primary cause. [1] Also, the recent rolling blackouts have shown the risk of relying too much on solar and wind power. I'm not sure that the specific timing makes too much sense, unless the goal is to have this largely overshadowed by the presidential election and recent passing of Justice Ginsburg. 1: https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-...
- headmelted 6y ago
  I’m a bit saddened people didn’t react more positively to the Tesla battery day event. I’m not talking about stock speculators (gamblers gonna gamble, whatever) but just generally I thought it was very encouraging that Tesla’s main goal right now is to dramatically drive down the cost of energy storage while driving up the density and production capacity. Is it enough? Not on their own, but if others can adopt their methods to produce more batteries then it’s effectively printing money for those companies for the next thirty years (as even the laggards are forced to move to zero emissions across their grids). It would be nice if this creates the kind of fierce competition E.M. set out to do with Tesla originally. We need more energy storage than we have now by several orders of magnitude.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  what makes you think the blackouts have to do with the power generation type? my understanding was that the blackouts have to do with danger to/from power distribution infrastructure

gpm 6y ago

It's literally announced 15 years in advance. Plenty of time for the public to elect politicians who will roll it back (indeed, the cynic in me assumes that is the whole reason it was able to be announced).

username90 6y ago
You are probably right, I don't see any movement in car stocks at all. Seems like nobody thinks this matters.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Over the last few years, a number of mostly European countries have passed regulations to ban new petrol/diesel cars by 2030-2040, with some cities to ban then as early as 2025. So from the industry's point of view, this is more of the same, and not unexpected. It would arguably be weird if the markets moved much; this sort of thing should be priced in.
  - username90 6y ago
    > Over the last few years, a number of mostly European countries have passed regulations to ban new petrol/diesel cars by 2030-2040 They haven't, EU countries cannot do that since it is against EU law. Instead there have been several proposals for phasing out fossil fuel cars that are still discussed, but nothing is decided. That is how politics and regulations are usually done.

unethical_ban 6y ago

None of your assertions are backed by logic. You imply that politicians can only do things that they promise on the trail, without responding to things real time. This would be disastrous. You imply that without "debate" it is likely to be reverted, which has no basis in theory or fact.

username90 6y ago
A 15 year plan isn't urgent and requires very strong support in order to survive when the next leader gets elected. Doing this without a public discussion doesn't make sense in any way. Also we have known about climate change for decades, there has been no huge revelations about it the past year, there was no reason this couldn't have been a part of his campaign.