Yes. Nobody, including the person you replied to, is disputing that.
But we're scapegoating PG&E for global warming. CA is a tinderbox compared to 20 years ago. Utilities are always behind on brush clearing everywhere. It's only now it's creating megafires. It's not environmentalists either. It's the average summer being 3-4 degrees F hotter than average and increasing.
No. I am not scapegoating PG&E for global warming. With proper line maintenance Santa Rosa would not have had 5 separate transformers start fires. The wind was bad enough that they probably would have also had to cut power to not spark any fires. Climate change is a thing, yes, but PG&E dodging necessary expenses is also a thing.
Ok - so then suffer with power cuts. It is wrong to say that PG&E is a likely worse than any other US utility company. And playing safe than sorry is the natural outcome if we are going to blame them every fire.
California just came out of many years of drought without those fires. The fires happened after an unusually wet year.
It is negligence. Brush and tree clearance are not harder than 50 years ago. There was no sudden surge of trees and brush to cut. They just chose not to do it.
Didn't the preceding years of drought kill a bunch of trees, leaving standing fuel?
Also, wasn't 2017 the hottest summer ever in California at the time, although I think 2018 broke that record, and I think it's on track to break the record again in 2019?
And that brush and tree maintenance is way cheaper than the cost of lost economic activity these intentional outages will generate.
It's a liability waiver shakedown for sure.
But we're scapegoating PG&E for global warming. CA is a tinderbox compared to 20 years ago. Utilities are always behind on brush clearing everywhere. It's only now it's creating megafires. It's not environmentalists either. It's the average summer being 3-4 degrees F hotter than average and increasing.