For the love of God build some trains and light rail.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
66 points (100.0% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5505 readers
595 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Do the wrong thing to make the good thing happen faster, which perpetuates and exacerbates the destructive thing
I keep bashing my head against the wall because of tripping over my bum leg.
Obviously the correct solution to this is not a wheelchair, it is a bicycle helmet.
Tldr: The mayor waived the requirements for new homes to be all electric (no propane/natural gas/oil, a pretty obvious no Brainerd in a flammable area) and require solar to be installed when built. Very stupid in my opinion.
I'm assuming this is because the lead times for the upgraded grid connections for electric heating and/or volume of solar panels required would be too long?
If so, it would make more sense to allow a grace period between building a house (and letting it be occupied) and installation of solar panels/electric heating, than to just say you don't need them at all. As long as the house is built from the start to take the system, you could put it in later.
For example (and I know the heating systems are probably different in the US), in the UK we have hot water heating systems with radiators, one of the common issues with retrofitting heat pumps in an existing building is that the heat pump produces water at a lower temperature than an oil/gas boiler.
As a result, you need more radiator area and upgraded insulation. So you could just install good insulation and radiators to begin with, and if you can't get a heat pump now just install a gas boiler and run it on a lower setting. Then people get the homes they need and you don't completely fuck the future.
it would make more sense to allow a grace period between building a house (and letting it be occupied) and installation of solar panels/electric heating
This makes sense, It's coastal southern California, you don't really need heating /cooling . There's a reason all the rich people live there , year round you'll maybe have a couple days over 80°F and a couple below 50°F, rest is high 60s low 70s. They should be fine going without heating for a while.
I don't know the specifics here, but when there was a wildfire in my area they did something very similar. It wasn't just the lead time on materials, it's that most insurance only pays to rebuild what you had. You have to have additional coverage for upgrades, I think it's called local ordinance or law coverage, that pays the difference between the value of your house as it was, and the cost of building a new house to current code. Turns out most people don't have enough of that extra coverage to actually meet the expense.
So they made an exception and let everyone build back to the standard they had. Afterwards they changed the minimum for that local ordinance coverage state-wide, and premiums have like tripled since.
I don't think you need upgraded grid connections to support modern heat pump appliances. They're just way more expensive in upfront investment.
And in fact, it seems crazy to me to repair gas connections in a neighbourhood that burned down completely. Just abolish it, and you need to spend less money on maintenance, and the people living there don't have to pay for that utility.
"Let's do that thing that made all of this worse... But faster."
I mean, I guess building tinderboxes that will burn down again every 2 years has at least a little bit more utility than directly throwing money and resources into the Onion's National Money Hole, but not much.
They are not waiving the building code requirements that make newer structures fire-resistant.
I guess 'tinderbox' has a more literal application to building materials, I meant it more metaphorically...
From the article:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order on Monday to ease rebuilding nearly 3,000 houses destroyed in Pacific Palisades. The order suspends an ordinance that would have required replacement homes to be all-electric, which would have greatly reduced the use of natural gas in a high-risk fire zone.
I'd dunno if nat gas cooking fires are more or less likely than electrical cooking fires, or exactly how common home nat gas caused vs home electrical failure caused fires are, but I am fairly sure a nat gas leak caused explosion is not something that can be caused by a home electrical carastrophe.
Gas lines are buried underground, but in a fast-moving wildfire, if a gas line inside the house connected to an appliance breaks, that “could intensify a particular structure fire,” according to Alan Murray, a professor and principal investigator at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Wildfire Resilience Initiative. “Coupled with high winds, this is not good.”
Also, in an absolute disaster, failure of infrastructure maintenance scenario, nat gas lines themselves can ignite and explode. It's happened before.
Also nat gas is a fossil fuel, electrical power at least has the possibility of being generated by something that doesn't contribute to the chance of wildfires going up.
On Thursday he announced an executive order fast-tracking approval of temporary housing, such as accessory dwelling units and trailers, that can be placed on burned properties so residents can return.
I'm not 100% certain, but I'd be willing to bet ADUs don't have as stringent safety requirements as actual, proper, zoned as a home or apartment or condo... and these are being fast tracked, which usually means even less due dilligence.
Competition for contractors, laborers and materials could further drive up the cost of rebuilding. “If we’re looking to rebuild in a sustainable, resilient way, the number of contractors that know how to do this is 1% to 2% and they’re going to get booked up,” said Ben Stapleton, executive director of the US Green Building Council California. “That market is going to be completely busy for the next three to four years.”
Pacific Palisades resident Steve Kalb, a retired entertainment industry lawyer, said he’s determined to rebuild but acknowledges the cost could be prohibitive for longtime residents who bought their homes decades ago. Places like Pacific Palisades may “become even more of an enclave for the super-rich,” he said.
Yeah, this is a subsidy to rich people so they can quickly rebuild their mansions by ignoring some modern building standards, I bet all the wagies in Altadena aren't going to get any such favors.
Yes, you're correct that the new homes have to be built properly with fireproof cladding and materials, but rich people get to ignore other climate and safety minded regulations, and get placed first in line for access to the small number of contractors that know how to build up to modern codes that do still apply to them.
... Which may or may not be negated by their old school, nat gas appliances going up in flames when the next wildfire gives LA a bearhug.
The point of not burning gas is to avoid the CO2 released when it burns, and the inevitable leakage of ~3% of the methane from the distribution system. This helps to limit the amount of warming we get, which reduces fire risk.