Flirting with disaster in era of mega-fires

Flirting with disaster in era of mega-fires

The state Department of Insurance predicts by 2100, an average of 77% more acres will burn annually across California. This report warns that insurance companies “may withdraw from offering insurance or raise premiums to unaffordable levels.” The 2022 Chico Community Wildfire Protection Plan reports the northern and eastern edges of Chico are most exposed to wildfire hazards, especially the Valley’s Edge area. To learn your wildfire risk, go to RISKFACTOR.COM and type in your address.

I spoke with residents of Belvedere Heights, next to Valley’s Edge, who related the terror of evacuating because of the Camp Fire and the back burning to save their homes and the City of Chico. The Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) buffer zone where Valley’s Edge will be built is critical for protecting Chico from wildfires. The Valley’s Edge proposal will eliminate the buffer zone and enlarge Chico’s WUI, increasing the potential for wildfire disasters. Thirteen of California’s most destructive wildfires have occurred in the past five years. The Camp Fire cost $16.5 billion, killed 85 people, almost entered Chico and was the most destructive.

Mega-fires are the new phenomena increasing in WUI areas. The Camp Fire was a forewarning for Chico to get ready! The mega-fires are going to continue, and Chico will burn, the question is only when and how severe. We can ignore science and history or make wildfire safety our top priority. The Valley’s Edge area needs to remain a WUI buffer zone to protect Chico and help keep our insurance rates down.

— Dave Garcia, Chico

Believing promises of our politicians

The Egyptian Religion of antiquity was based on universally accepted truths that unseen gods and goddesses ruled humanity; Pharaohs and religious leaders were therefore empowered by societal acceptance of these “truths.”

Such acceptance was essential when it came to controlling the large populace. Those beliefs also worked to convince lesser folk of the necessity of building expensive pyramids and tombs to ensure that some elite members of Egyptian society would live for eternity after their death. Their religion was mythology, of course, but for thousands of years, copious wealth was used to construct expensive, elaborately-decorated tombs to house dead elites, who were mummified to preserve them as they awaited future re-animation.

Of course, their religious beliefs were false, re-animation didn’t happen, and those desiccated human remains reposed in their tombs waiting for a resurrection that would never come. What fools they were. On the other hand, we Americans aren’t fools. We’re not controlled by anyone. Our leaders, governmental, political, and religious, assure us our deities are genuine; politicians and governmental elites exercise benign control on our behalf, our endless wars are just and necessary, and we’re completely free.

Our politicians and our government wouldn’t dissemble, would they? No control for us! Unlike those deluded ancient Egyptians, we accept as an unassailable truth that our politicians put our interests first, not those of the elites and wealthy, and our unquestionably-true religion guarantees us eternal life. We’re well governed, we can avoid death, and one day we’ll float away and live forever. ‘Struth!

— Michael Herman, Chico

Tanks with no depleted uranium armor

Recently a writer seems to have conceded that the Abrams tanks we are sending to Ukraine do not have depleted uranium armor, as Linda Furr recently asserted. This writer moved on to ammunition and the shells that these tanks could use.

Yes, any tank can use DU shells and when questioned recently a White House spokesperson refused to say if DU shells in Antitank weapons were being supplied.

This is unrelated to the impending Abrams tank shipments to Ukraine. They will not have DU armor, as described well in this Forbes article:

But DU shells? The history of DU shell use in Iraq and other war theaters is a tragedy.

Russia and the US and others have DU shells in their arsenals, and many believe that Russia currently may be using them in Ukraine. The Russians certainly seems to have no qualms about using munitions, which use is considered a war crime, when dropped on civilian areas. These include thermite and phosphorous incendiary bombs. So, one can assume they will use the DU shells in their rapidly depleting arsenals, as they continue their destructive war on Ukraine.

Ukraine deserves all our support. It does not deserve to have UD ammunition used, either supplied by the US or other countries, or delivered to them by Russian weapons.

Call on our “Representative” LaMalfa and our Senators to outlaw use of DU munitions.

— Bill Monroe, Chico

Books sure to tickle your imagination

I grew up in Kansas grass and weeds, the third generation born and raised within three miles of my Great Grandfather’s original farmstead. So to answer the question of what books shaped my vision of the future and role of Regenerative Agriculture, my perspective starts in the middle of muddy farm ponds, high winds, thunderstorms and pastures deep in the tornado and Bible belts of the US bread basket. Against those experiences the books that tickled my imagination have been judged and measured. Maybe they will tickle yours.

Here, in approximate chronological order as I discovered them: “The Boxcar Children,” “My Side of the Mountain,” “Tarzan Novels,” “Kinship With All Life,” “Huck Finn,” “The Day on Fire,” “The Whole Earth Catalog,” “Invisible Man,” “The Machine Stops (Forrester),” “Desert Solitaire,” “Ishi in Two Worlds,” “John Barleycorn,” “Trout Fishing in America,” “The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow,” “Malabar Farm,” “Charles Kellogg-The Nature Singer,” “Small Is Beautiful,” “Tracker (Brown),” “Standing by Words,” “One Straw Revolution,” “A Pattern Language,” “Memories Dreams Reflections,” “Two Ears of Corn,” “1491,” “1493,” “Progress and Poverty,” “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” “The Invention of Nature,” “Germs Guns and Steel,” “Sapiens,” “The Ministry for the Future,” “The Dawn of Everything.”

Other books took me in other directions, but these seem to have roots tangled in how I imagine the future of Regenerative Agriculture in particular.

Read any good books lately?

— Richard Roth, Chico

Valley’s Edge opponent responds to ‘misinformation’ claim

I am a member of the Valley’s Edge opposition team. As a retired writing teacher who taught students how to create arguments that are detailed, well-supported, thorough, and accurate, I have to challenge Bill Brouhard’s accusation that the Valley’s Edge opposition of spreading “misinformation” and “cheapen honest public discourse,” His “argument” is inaccurate and lacks supporting facts.

The team of people who worked on opposition to Valley’s Edge are well-educated and professional people: educators, a city planner, attorneys, a nurse, environmentalists, and thoughtful people with histories of civic-minded work. We have researched the issues surrounding Valley’s Edge since the announcement of the project. We didn’t make any arguments off the tops of our heads. We read, studied, researched, talked to experts, and presented facts

We responded in detail — both as individuals and with our various organizations — to both the draft and the final Environmental Impact Reports. We attended Planning Commission and City Council meetings, and we presented our information. When we announced that we would launch a referendum, we did so at a press conference and presented our evidence — all well-researched, documented, and fact-based. We created a fact sheet for our petition signature gathers so they could be accurate in their characterization of the project.

Why is Bill Brouhard just now spewing his demeaning response? Because we’ve successfully demonstrated that many, many residents of Chico don’t want his deeply flawed vision.

Rather than seeking to shame opponents of Valley’s Edge, Brouhard should be providing evidence of his outlandish claims.

— Susan Tchudi, Yankee Hill

Risky strategy puts the world at risk

My last letter said that it is going to be interesting to watch what the United States does in response to possible defeat to Russia in Ukraine. The outlines of what that response became clearer over the weekend of February 18-19 because of two developments: Vice-President Kamala Harris’ speech at the Munich Security Conference and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s warning/threat that China should not provide “lethal” military aid to Russia.

The war over Ukraine has always been about the United States’ objective of preventing “Eurasian Integration,” which would tie China, South Asia, Russia and Europe into one energy- trading-investment bloc, linked by China’s infrastructural Belt Road Initiative. If that project were to succeed the United States would no longer be the world’s hegemon.

Thus, interpreting Harris’ and Blinken’s statements, it seems the next phase of United States’ strategy is to: 1.) further coerce Europe to continue its political capitulation to the United States’ project—as growing opposition among the populace there appears; 2.) deepen its involvement in the war over Ukraine, probably bringing in NATO technical personnel; and, 3.) intensify provoking China to militarily respond over Taiwan leading to a “proxy war” with Beijing—the same template used to provoke Russia to intervene into Ukraine.

The United States’ strategy is insanely risky, with the obvious possibility of a world war breaking out, leading to nuclear annihilation. But historically, declining empires have always been willing to commit political suicide, rather than cooperate and negotiate with emerging rivals.

— George Wright, Chico