Residential solar is primarily really for single family homes and similar types of residences. Within populated areas of California (which is where most energy

Residential solar is primarily really for single family homes and similar types of residences. Within populated areas of California (which is where most energy consumption is going to be in California) it is 100% a richer area. Sure, those kinds of homes are also common in the suburbs but the suburbs where that’s affordable are where there’s significantly fewer people living. I don’t know the setup in other places but any big metropolitan area is probably going to look similar and that’s where most of the energy demand and resultant CO2 emissions are coming from. You don’t see solar on high rises because this kind of strategy does not work. As for emergency disaster response, historically this entailed the government having designated shelter places with disaster supplies (eg diesel generators, large amount of food stores, cots to sleep people, etc). This would typically be things like schools and sports arenas because of how much emergency shelter could be provided. I don’t see how adhoc disaster preparedness where you rely on some neighbors thinking ahead for everyone else is better than a strategic plan intentionally meant to cover everybody. It’s a nice perk if you’re lucky, but I’d rather make sure that centralized planning can actually help everyone. Btw this wasn’t because the local government was competent - if I recall correctly there were federal and state laws requiring cities be able to handle such emergencies. I’m not sure if we’ve gotten worse at them that you’re now concerned, but generally I have seen pretty good disaster response mechanisms.