California Wildfire: How Large Can the Losses Be?

California's increasing wildfire losses are examined, focusing on major historical events, potential extreme urban conflagrations, and the rising risks associated with population growth and wildfire suppression policies.

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will explain how Americans in some of the most populated regions of the country have put themselves at particular risk, exposing a pattern of shortsighted policies that encouraged people to settle in vulnerable parts of the continent. It will show how decades of economic policies have favored some Americans over others, polarizing the country furth

Abrahm Lustgarten • On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America

in April 2019, “There’s something that is truly Californian about the wilderness and the wild and pioneering spirit.” And so, every taxpaying Californian was asked, realizing it or not, to finance the protection of homes built in places where fire was sure to burn.

Rosecrans Baldwin • Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles

Since those deadly fires four months ago, federal clean-up crews have cleared the sites of some 4,000 former properties around LA. But while they are removing the top 6 inches of soil due to the inevitable presence of contaminants, they are controversially not testing the soil that they leave behind—seemingly in an attempt to speed up their work. S... See more

We risk losing the lives we have made if we don’t take better account of nature.

Green Biz • We need to value natural capital | Greenbiz

As fire ecologist Richard Minnich has said, "You can send an arsonist to Death Valley and he'll never be arrested."

Mike Davis • Let Malibu Burn: A political history of the Fire Coast Mike Davis : LA IMC

Fire suppression without provisions for the inevitability of California’s fire cycles is, simply put, the pursuit of uniformity with the result of catastrophe. What if we saw fire not as a crisis to be managed, but as an epistemological break – a regular call to rethink our relationship to prediction, adaptation, and climate governance? What if we ... See more

Abrahm Lustgarten • On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America

Rosecrans Baldwin • Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles

Green Biz • We need to value natural capital | Greenbiz

Mike Davis • Let Malibu Burn: A political history of the Fire Coast Mike Davis : LA IMC

Sublime Zettels March 2025