Let’s hear it for GreenBiz and my buddy Sarah Golden. For she wrote a great piece on GreenBiz. Just couldn’t pass it up.
This was the (paraphrased) central question. All of the California Energy Commission’s energy resilience forum in Long Beach this week.
The tone was both realistic and aspirational. The California Energy Commission (CEC) understands the urgency of the situation and gets California’s position of leadership. It wants to lead on the issue. This is as much as an institution can lead in a society that started planning 20 years too late.
The day left me hopeful about the suite of technological solutions available. It also left me reeling over the complexities of bringing them to scale. Here are the four conversations I’d like to tackle to understand how we get there from here.
We’re collectively coming to the realization that climate resilience is more valuable than just the cost of a watt. Last year’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs revealed a sliver of the cost of inaction.
“The effect of wildfires extend far beyond property damage. They also cause a loss of life,” said Adam Rose. He is a research professor at USC’s Price School of Policy. He is also the director of CREATE, an organization that conducts economic analysis of terrorism events. “Business interruptions start when a wildfire begins. But they continue until you’ve recovered.”
Business halting instantly has significant repercussions. Ripple effects occur through the economy. These include supply chain disruptions and loss of productivity.
In conclusion and just as important (but harder to quantify) are the human costs. That’s like displaced populations. Also post-traumatic stress disorder and the rise of illness and disease linked to the fires. All these things add up.
For the entire story from GreenBiz and Sarah Golden!
