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Norm Rubin's avatar

My comment to my Facebook friends:

In a way, this smart essay by RPJr reminds me of the late great Jane Jacobs — just because it states clearly facts that are obviously true but frequently ignored. Jane "dined on" a brilliant talent to do that for decades, and I think that this essay is a great example of it too.

I wish this was required reading for lots of people, probably starting with Greta.

I only find one fault with it. RPJr focuses on causality of an individual event (here the recent Colorado fires) like a bulldog. That is interesting and useful, but it also risks missing a larger truth. For example, if this fire was started by falling transmission lines instead of an illegal trash fire, his logic would dictate a completely different set of policy responses. But if we focus our policy responses on making ourselves more resilient and less vulnerable to scary events of all kinds, we might discover cost-effective policy responses to both cases, and many more.

But in both RPJr's approach and mine, I think that a 5-minute honest start would probably be enough to suggest that transforming the global energy economy to Net Zero in the next 29 years is not a shortcut to a world without these kinds of fires.

The benefits of logical thought and open debate and cost-benefit analysis!

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CLIFFORD MASS's avatar

Roger.... are you implying that the Boulder County growth plan, which left grass-filled wildland next to dense housing development, could be a partial cause of this disaster? A fascinating implication..cliff mass

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