Achieving societal goals requires understanding how action leads to consequence. The recent Colorado fire disaster shows the complexities of causality.
1. There are some actions that are hard to undo.. but we spend a great deal of time talking about them. Like removing current subdivisions. So we do the best we can within policy space.
2. There are lots of super-micro decisions.. like "should Boulder graze animals in open space to reduce fuel buildup?" perhaps they already do. Douglas County does although perhaps for different reasons.
3. It's unlikely that everyone could have evacuated in that timeframe without personal vehicles in that timeframe.. should we rethink some community planning ideas?
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!
I look at this terrible fire disaster in a “potentially” different way. Let us “assume” that two possible scenarios for the fire are 1) someone accidentally started the fire, 2) someone deliberately started the fire. Whether accident or intended, the chance for either increases as population increases(more pyromaniacs and more people to cause an unintended fire). Tifton this is the case, we should expect more fires in the US now than in 1950 (excluding nature such as lightning/wind) without fire mitigation over the years. Increased population also would put more people at possible fire risk and fire death. All are more reason to build better, manage forests better…mitigate better. I guess I call this the increase in toasts viewpoint! The fact that we have far better communication with possible fire victims would suggest a clear way to reduce death (flee based on info before you die). Property loss is another less optimistic element since you can’t move your home quickly (in most cases). But you can fire-proof it better and clear fodder from residences). Much of it is cost related, beauty related and education related. Better weather forecasts (red flag warnings etc) should be very positive for prevention….except the pyromaniac has the same information! Steve Lyons
Please Dr Pielke, would you consider applying this excellent approach to the policies used by the CDC and FDA and NIH regarding how to react to COVID? The lockdowns, designations of "essential and non-essential" businesses, school closings, masking, mandates for vaccinations all have been failures in some ways and have led to severe divisiveness and large scale resistance to public health recommendations, and we need to understand why. You can help us understand it and make better decisions in the future.
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
Some additional thoughts:
1. There are some actions that are hard to undo.. but we spend a great deal of time talking about them. Like removing current subdivisions. So we do the best we can within policy space.
2. There are lots of super-micro decisions.. like "should Boulder graze animals in open space to reduce fuel buildup?" perhaps they already do. Douglas County does although perhaps for different reasons.
3. It's unlikely that everyone could have evacuated in that timeframe without personal vehicles in that timeframe.. should we rethink some community planning ideas?
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!
I look at this terrible fire disaster in a “potentially” different way. Let us “assume” that two possible scenarios for the fire are 1) someone accidentally started the fire, 2) someone deliberately started the fire. Whether accident or intended, the chance for either increases as population increases(more pyromaniacs and more people to cause an unintended fire). Tifton this is the case, we should expect more fires in the US now than in 1950 (excluding nature such as lightning/wind) without fire mitigation over the years. Increased population also would put more people at possible fire risk and fire death. All are more reason to build better, manage forests better…mitigate better. I guess I call this the increase in toasts viewpoint! The fact that we have far better communication with possible fire victims would suggest a clear way to reduce death (flee based on info before you die). Property loss is another less optimistic element since you can’t move your home quickly (in most cases). But you can fire-proof it better and clear fodder from residences). Much of it is cost related, beauty related and education related. Better weather forecasts (red flag warnings etc) should be very positive for prevention….except the pyromaniac has the same information! Steve Lyons
Please Dr Pielke, would you consider applying this excellent approach to the policies used by the CDC and FDA and NIH regarding how to react to COVID? The lockdowns, designations of "essential and non-essential" businesses, school closings, masking, mandates for vaccinations all have been failures in some ways and have led to severe divisiveness and large scale resistance to public health recommendations, and we need to understand why. You can help us understand it and make better decisions in the future.
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