5 ms·

i was hoping to see mention of employing cultural burning methods used by indigenous folks[0], who have multiple generations of experience already in this area.

i was hoping to see mention of employing cultural burning methods used by indigenous folks[0], who have multiple generations of experience already in this area. it seems possible some of this money does end up being employed this way, but it's disappointing that it's not more prominently featured in a story like this. [0]: for instance, https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-09-01/california-and-australia-look-indigenous-land-management-fire-help https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-09-01/california-and-austra...

rch 6y ago
As an amature biodiversity-focused conservationist, I've found it hard to keep policy conversations from devolving into zero sum economic reasoning. It seems like once a certain threshold of wealth and equity issues is crossed, systems thinking goes out the window completely.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Similarly: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/17/1008473/wildfires-california-prescribed-burns-climate-change-forests/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/17/1008473/wildfire...
- clairity 6y ago
  some takeaways on size and cost: * 33 million acres of forest in CA, 57% owned by the feds, 3% by CA, 14% by the logging industry, 26% by others * $200/acre for prescribed burns, $1000/acre for thinning, ~$800/acre on average for the US fire service * 1.1 million acres need treatment each year (~$1B/year) to be effective, according to the little hoover commission * ~$2B committed by CA, but over at least 5 years * this bill would appropriate $300M/yr from feds on the flipside, it's harder to pin down benefits. they cite $9B in costs from one fire, but how much of that is (socialized) losses from excessive (private) risk-taking? it's unclear, but likely not none. how does insurance account for and/or distort that risk? none of the articles spend much time quantifying health or environmental costs (e.g., CO₂e) of forest fires on the population, and the potential reductions from better management. it's hard to take a reasonable position without knowing the magnitude of these benefits as well.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Among estimates I've seen are 20,000 homeless (I belive from 2017 fire season), another source gives 67,000 displaced in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties alone, and as many as 3,000 premature deaths from smoke-induced air pollution, most to 65+ age groups. https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/20000-evacuees-displaced-by-fires-in-san-mateo-santa-cruz-counties/ar-BB18bQUA https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/20000-evacuees-... https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Hidden-cost-of-wildfire-smoke-Stanford-15595754.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Hid... Attaching costs to these is difficult. A chronically homeless person costs the tax payer an average of $35,578 per year. https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homelessness-saves-taxpayers-money/ https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homeless... Probably high-side, but a portion of the fire-displaced are likely to become so. If we assume half that cost, displacement alone is ~$340 million/yr. The US puts a statistical quality year of life at $129,000. Life expectancy aged 65 is 20 years. Again, reducing this by half (assuming premature deaths are spread across the age cohort), we get a ~$4 billion value. This would again be an annually-incurred cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm
    - clairity 6y ago
      thanks, that seems to be a reasonable analysis. i'd like to look into the disproportionate risk side of things too, but data on that seems less accessible/more scattered.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Systemic risk are inherently difficult to assess. They're often rare, complex, distributed, in time, space, population, and mechanisms. All of these make both quantification and messaging much more difficult.
        clairity 6y ago

rch 6y ago

As an amature biodiversity-focused conservationist, I've found it hard to keep policy conversations from devolving into zero sum economic reasoning. It seems like once a certain threshold of wealth and equity issues is crossed, systems thinking goes out the window completely.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Similarly: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/17/1008473/wildfires-california-prescribed-burns-climate-change-forests/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/17/1008473/wildfire...

clairity 6y ago
some takeaways on size and cost: * 33 million acres of forest in CA, 57% owned by the feds, 3% by CA, 14% by the logging industry, 26% by others * $200/acre for prescribed burns, $1000/acre for thinning, ~$800/acre on average for the US fire service * 1.1 million acres need treatment each year (~$1B/year) to be effective, according to the little hoover commission * ~$2B committed by CA, but over at least 5 years * this bill would appropriate $300M/yr from feds on the flipside, it's harder to pin down benefits. they cite $9B in costs from one fire, but how much of that is (socialized) losses from excessive (private) risk-taking? it's unclear, but likely not none. how does insurance account for and/or distort that risk? none of the articles spend much time quantifying health or environmental costs (e.g., CO₂e) of forest fires on the population, and the potential reductions from better management. it's hard to take a reasonable position without knowing the magnitude of these benefits as well.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Among estimates I've seen are 20,000 homeless (I belive from 2017 fire season), another source gives 67,000 displaced in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties alone, and as many as 3,000 premature deaths from smoke-induced air pollution, most to 65+ age groups. https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/20000-evacuees-displaced-by-fires-in-san-mateo-santa-cruz-counties/ar-BB18bQUA https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/20000-evacuees-... https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Hidden-cost-of-wildfire-smoke-Stanford-15595754.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Hid... Attaching costs to these is difficult. A chronically homeless person costs the tax payer an average of $35,578 per year. https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homelessness-saves-taxpayers-money/ https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homeless... Probably high-side, but a portion of the fire-displaced are likely to become so. If we assume half that cost, displacement alone is ~$340 million/yr. The US puts a statistical quality year of life at $129,000. Life expectancy aged 65 is 20 years. Again, reducing this by half (assuming premature deaths are spread across the age cohort), we get a ~$4 billion value. This would again be an annually-incurred cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm
  - clairity 6y ago
    thanks, that seems to be a reasonable analysis. i'd like to look into the disproportionate risk side of things too, but data on that seems less accessible/more scattered.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Systemic risk are inherently difficult to assess. They're often rare, complex, distributed, in time, space, population, and mechanisms. All of these make both quantification and messaging much more difficult.
      - clairity 6y ago