[I’m nowhere near the Paradise Fire. I don’t have a dog in that fight. Nor do I want to get sucked into the endless politics of the Left Coast. I lived there for a while. I chose to leave. ‘Nuff said about that. I wanted to write this post because I heard about a politician changing their mind and I’m always supportive when people learn. I tried to write something nice about it. But in the end it’s not enough. If you change your mind but looked away from the underlying situation, you’re missing the point.]
I’d like to talk about this: Gov. Jerry Brown proposes easing logging rules to thin forests. It’s behind a paywall but fortunately (and with an obvious bias) it’s excerpted here: California Governor Jerry Brown Quietly Admits Donald Trump is Right – Proposed Easing Logging Regulations.
I’ll give you a simplified TL:DR version.
- California is tightly regulated; the State plays a role in everything from soda straws to car mufflers. This includes regulatory control over forests; on private as well as State lands.
- One way to reduce and/or mitigate forest fires is to manage forests before they’re loaded with excess biomass and before they are on fire. In California, regulations, whether intentionally or not, make it hard to do certain kinds of forest management which can and do reduce fire risk and severity.
- The Paradise fire is unpleasant. It burned a lot of trees and houses. Air quality is low in surrounding areas. Fighting it is expensive and difficult. It may also have killed a shockingly large number of people (I have not verified that). (I especially hate to see deaths. In our supposedly technologically advanced era I’d rather nobody die in a forest fire.)
There you have it. I summed it up in three statements. All are TRUE. Verifiable, measurably, TRUE. It’s not merely spin or bias… TRUE. The only value judgement I allowed was my concern for lost human life & property.
Regardless of your politics, the human tragedy involved with this fire is heartbreaking. To his credit, Governor Brown is trying to learn from it. (Yes, you heard me correctly. I’m trying to give Governor Moonbeam, a man who’s decisions I thoroughly dislike, credit. He’s trying. It takes gumption to say “this is bad and I had a role it it.” We should be so lucky to have nothing but politicians who are capable of learning.)
Unfortunately, Governor Brown learned the wrong lesson:
“Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing broad new changes to California’s logging rules…”
In one way he’s on the right track. The changes might do some good. In fact I’ve got no problem with the proposal. But in another way he’s completely doomed. It has not occurred to him that there are things he (or the State) ought not do at all:
“Under Brown’s proposal, private landowners would be able to…”
And there you have it. Brown reserves for himself (or the State) the power to manage private landowners. They’re pawns on his chessboard, one interest group among many, a variable in a calculation that happens far from the owner’s backyard.
These citizens are to be managed by Governor Brown, even as tragedy is unfolding. Smoke is still in the air. There are dead bodies that searchers still haven’t found. Burned out homeowners are making due in hotels and relative’s basements. And the Governor has (bravely!) acknowledged his decision-making plays some role in this situation.
So what has he learned. Was it “I suck at this?” Was it “let’s get out of the business of arguing about trees?” Nope. His current decisions left a smoking ruin (literally) so he’ll just have to keep making choices on behalf of private landowners but maybe with a slightly looser leash. Those citizens will be allowed to do more things, or different things, or this thing or that thing… with their ostensibly personal property. But inherently they must remain within the sandbox he (or the State) defines for them. Even as dead bodies are collected from ash coated hillsides, the legislature must be the ultimate decider. A collective group two hundred miles away knows more than the man who’s standing right next to the tree.
- Reams of rules led to this bad situation.
- So the solution is more rules, or better rules, or tweaked rules. The bad rules will be replaced by better rules that will be written on paper in an office in Sacramento and these rules will be somehow imbued with greater wisdom. These better rules, like the ones before them will apply in great swaths from the deserts of Barstow to a fog bank in Eureka. The new arbitrary limits (36″ diameter) will be perfect! Completely unlike the older arbitrary limits (26″ diameter).
- Controlling people with this new and improved set of written documents means everything will be different next time.
I humbly submit that vast hordes of people in suits in Sacramento can’t make perfect decisions for every tree in California. Even if they’re really nice people. Even if they care deeply. No matter how hard they try, they’ll be making blanket statements that fit average conditions for large groups. They will balance the interests of bird watchers and lobbyists and tourists and everyone else who’s got time to join in the political fray. By definition they’ll come to different conclusions than someone who’s house (or family) just burned.
Such is the intractable conundrum of control. Once you control others, you make decisions that are contrary to their individual desires. Governor Brown (or any human) can’t bridge the gap. I wish him luck, but no man can live for the other. California has things like climate and soil that can lead to wonderful forests, but the people and their forests remain a gamepiece in a political scrum.