[klmadfejno]

Suppose the government left barrels of leaky oil around, then you cause a small fire, which escalates into a huge fire as a result. It's fair to say that you caused the fire. It's probably also fair to say that the bulk of damages are due to government negligence. The debate is where we fall on that spectrum. I would think the power company should be punished as if it caused fires on an average managed forest but there's going to be nuance.

Point is there's two parties with some degree of negligence.

[baddox]

But that’s not the full analogy. The full analogy would be that the government left oil barrels around the whole state, and you went around the state starting hundreds of small fires, and if you had not done that, there would still have been a few fires from other sources, but there would be far fewer fires overall.