[rsj_hn]

California is a fire hazard because of anti-logging policies. Once they get rid of 90% of their forests, they will be fine.

If they don't, nature will find a way to get rid of those forests one way or another. It's an arid state that underwent a 300 year drought from the 1600s to the 1900s. There was a brief wet period that looks like it's come to an end, and a lot of trees need to go.

Unfortuntately blaming climate change isn't going to help resolve this, and the state seems insistent that the correct solution is getting rid of plastic straws and ICE vehicles even as they are surrounded by over a hundred million dead trees that need to be culled, and the situation is only going to get worse.

So I'd say it might be a better approach to stay away from states that blame all their environmental problems on climate change rather than their own policies.

[wahern]

> California is a fire hazard because of anti-logging policies.

What anti-logging policies? The Federal government owns 57% of the forests. State and local governments own a mere 4%. 39% is in private hands. Of that 39%, 60% (~23% of the total) is owned by timber companies. The remainder (~15% of the total) is held by small landowners. Source: https://lhc.ca.gov/sites/lhc.ca.gov/files/Reports/242/Report...

The Federal government can do whatever it wants. The state has no land to log. And most of the private land is owned by... logging companies, who are definitely not anti-logging.

As with so many things in this state, the problem seems to come down to California's peculiar environmental review laws, which make it easy for outside interests to challenge and delay private projects, including, apparently, forest management projects. See https://www.redding.com/story/news/2019/01/30/california-cal..., which discusses plans to allow aggregation of review approval--not because reviews are costly, per se, but because each nominally independent review multiples the disruptive power of third-party challengers; and https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-31/californ... reporting on the enactment of those plans.

California really just needs to overhaul its environmental review laws; specifically, by removing or at least substantially diminishing the power to independently challenge reviews and review approval through protracted litigation. But that's politically difficult because it's what empowers NIMBYs and activist organizations of all stripes and across the political spectrum. Everybody hates NIMBYs up until the point they're asked to relinquish powers that would allow them (or their favorite organization) to block stuff they don't like. Note that for most challenges concern about the natural environment is just a pretense, which is why when it comes down to real support for reform you can't find any votes, either in the legislature or through referendums. Republicans in Orange County abuse the review process just as much as tree-huggers in Marin County. Any kind of reform is easily spun into a narrative about removing local control--relinquishment of a veto power each and every Californian possesses over the land management practices of every other Californian.

[rsj_hn]

Yes, Federal environmemntal laws also don't serve California or other arid jurisdictions well. I often feel like much of our policies are written by people who think the rest of America is New England and don't understand the needs of arid climates. Just look at how little we care about preserving aquifers versus preserving forests to see the bias.

But in CA you risk being sued even if you have a timber harvest plan on Federal land, and then you need to deal with california district courts. Do you think the Ohlone, when they burned millions of acres each year, cared about whether there was a red-legged frog in one of the areas they were burning? But when you need to drag botanists everywhere to check on each tree and measure the girth of the tree and note all the species around it, it becomes hard to do what you need to do, which is get rid of hundreds of millions of trees every single year to keep these pests in check.

Then there is the issue of local government, which while it doesn't control a lot of land, certainly controls a lot of land around cities, which is relevant for safeguarding lives and property. Take a look at what it takes to cut down a tree in Marin county - god help you if the tree is near a stream or if it is on a lot someone owns

https://www.marincounty.org/-/media/files/departments/cd/pla...

[wahern]

I live in San Francisco and am well aware of the insane amount of red tape and stiff penalties. I learned that the hard way after having to pay $3,000 in penalties and fees for removing a small tree the Friends of the Urban Forest helpfully planted directly atop my water line before we bought the property. (I was misinformed by a contractor about my ability to do so without first obtaining a permit.)

But these things aren't responsible for the systemic problems in this state. They're just what people are familiar with, and what drive the familiar refrains in communities across the world.

Zoning powers do contribute to systemic issues, but that's a different matter and varies locally. When zoning powers matter, it's when the local policies permit easy challenges. In both cases--zoning and CEQA--the fundamental problem is abrogation of Due Process--the orderly and equitable application of the law. Whenever a government makes a decision they're supposed to do so according to the commands of the law (including whatever specific statutes and regulations were promulgated beforehand), and do so in a strictly prescribed manner. Even if the fees are insane and the process slow, it's basically a fixed cost like any other. If the costs of a project pencil out, you proceed; if not, you move on. If too many people move on, it's relatively clear to policy makers and the electorate which hurdles (e.g. anti-logging laws) likely need adjusting. In theory the transparency and predictability make for a self-correcting system.

But when random citizens can interject themselves into the legal process, introducing arbitrary delays and costs, that's an entirely different matter. It creates tremendous uncertainty, much like if you had a capricious king making every decision. Time is money. Even if you know with absolute certainty the final verdict, if you don't know when you'll get that verdict you have no idea what your real costs are. Maybe you can placate the challengers w/ this or that concession or exaction. Either way, going in and until you get a court's final imprimatur, your risk is open ended. So not only do your direct costs increase, indirect costs like financing increase, and in general the uncertainty disrupts capital allocation, whether you're a homeowner or a billion dollar business. Every potential project, no matter how vanilla, turns into a high-risk, speculative venture.

Regulatory litigation over land use and development projects is the biggest problem facing California, IMO. The impact of everything else is relatively small. Other jurisdictions have the luxury of debating substantive policy. California's basic pathology is on a higher dimension altogether--a regression in the basic operation of orderly society; a government of men, not of laws.

You can see how this plays out w/ companies like Uber. Uber operates in a market not subject to this pathology. And despite their market being otherwise riddled w/ the same degree of red tape and costs, they do just fine. Whether they obey the law or break the law, they know their costs. (Indeed, often breaking the law is the cheaper option.) They could make more revenue w/ fewer regulations, and if the regulatory burden were drastically increased they might need to quit (like they said they would if they couldn't operate their drivers as contractors), but they enjoy an intrinsically business-friendly environment relative to markets dependent on land use and development.

FWIW, here's an example of some anonymous person(s), operating through an unincorporated association, using CEQA to prevent controlled burns in Mill Valley: https://www.marinij.com/2019/12/07/dick-spotswood-lawsuit-to...

[petre]

I always wondered about those dead forests in the US. Like why aren't they pruned or cleared up or and used for making cardboard or something useful rather than looking like a bleak wasteland? But the ones I saw were in Oregon which gets a decent amount of rainfall from what I know? Even more puzzling.

[rsj_hn]

Trees can die because of diseases in addition to droughts. But in California the main culprit is drought(1), and those droughts are not going to stop. It's an arid climate, prone to droughts, so if you don't cut the trees down during wet years, they will burn down during the dry years. So many decades of limiting clear cutting and controlled burns, combined with an unusually wet 20th Century, has turned the state into a tinderbox. It's estimated that the state would need to remove forests equal to the size of Maine to get back to a tinder load comparable to what it had prior to the arrival of settlers, when native americans routinely burned millions of acres each year in order to reduce the forest sizes. History will not look kindly on those who romanticized California's forests.

(1) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-californias-dr...