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56 votes
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CA: Metrolink will add midday trains for nontraditional workers, tourists
21 votes -
‘Paper or plastic?’ will no longer be a choice at California grocery stores
32 votes -
California fails to track its homelessness spending or results, a new audit says
21 votes -
Silversun Pickups - The Royal We (2009)
6 votes -
Linkin Park - The Emptiness Machine (2024)
22 votes -
Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla — and they might tow it.
28 votes -
How to plan a transit network for the future
6 votes -
The hidden engineering of landfills
17 votes -
Winnetka Bowling League - America in Your 20’s (2024)
2 votes -
The pot farm next door: Black market weed operations inundate California suburb, cops say
18 votes -
California hits new milestone with EV chargers: 40% increase in one year
16 votes -
As California dam removal wraps up, river flows for first time in century
17 votes -
California lawmakers pass bill allowing Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes
30 votes -
San Leandro tech startup to sell drones the size of several cars, flying 600 miles at a time
21 votes -
Buy burned land
Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California. There is...
Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California.
There is no end in sight for this transition. So what can we do to at least mitigate the worst of its effects? I think the time to play defense over pure "wilderness" is long gone. The forests that haven't burned are still beautiful, but they're riddled with disease and so overgrown the ecosystems are permanently distorted.
Every year there is less pristine forest and more burned land. I'm a fourth generation Californian and the Portuguese side of the family still owns a ranch in the foothills from 1893. But I own nothing and the prospect of being able to afford land in California has forever been beyond my reach. Burned land needs to be rehabilitated in a thoughtful manner. I'm hoping once my daughter finishes college and our life starts a new chapter, that I can find a few acres where I can make the best environmental impact, such as a headwaters, then invite experts onto the land to teach me how to best heal it.
Every year I have this idea, and every year more areas become available (in the worst sense). I don't need to live on this land. I don't expect it to be much more than grasses and saplings for 20 years. I'd get out to it one or two weekends a month, rent some equipment and hire some folks as I could. I also understand that my original thought that this would be immune from future fire seasons is wrong. But at least the land can be designed to be as fire resistant as possible, with a clear understory and single large trees. And that is another part of the allure. This acreage would come with its own challenges for sure, but in some sense it is a blank slate. The permaculture people could show us how to remediate and reconstruct the land from the bones up.
I know this project would be an aggravating money sink, and even perhaps an unrealistic and irresponsible fantasy by someone untrained in forestry management. But there is so much burned land now. Every year another giant 4% stripe of California goes up in smoke. Yet this idea just doesn't catch on. It entails a lot of patience and work. I know it's not what most people want to hear. They want their idyllic cabin in Tahoe or nothing. But that time is quickly coming to an end and learning how to revive the forests that have been devastated is our only real choice.
Whenever I've tried to get serious about this, though, I learn that there is no market in burned land because there is hardly any profit to be made. No real estate agent that I can find is specializing in this because their clients are having to sell ruined land and burned buildings for pennies on the dollar. I've been advised that the best way is to find a specific spot, do my research, and approach the owner directly. But, again, there is so much burned land now I hardly know where to start. The Santa Cruz Mountains? The Sierra adjacent to Yosemite? Crater Lake in Oregon?
Any thoughts or ideas or resources would be appreciated.
25 votes -
California is giving schools more homework: Build housing for teachers
19 votes -
California’s restaurant industry can keep its controversial service fees
34 votes -
Californian police can’t stop sideshows. Solution: Make the streets more annoying.
28 votes -
No-car Games: Los Angeles Olympic venues will only be accessible by public transportation
34 votes -
Forest Service orders Arrowhead bottled water company to shut down California pipeline
53 votes -
Evaluating the significance of San Lorenzo Village, a mid-20th century suburban community
4 votes -
Tell San Mateo County: Stop for-profit tech companies denying mail to incarcerated people
23 votes -
San Francisco becomes first US city to ban automated rent-fixing technology
66 votes -
New details on LA Metro's K Line northern extension to Hollywood
5 votes -
Los Angeles police department warns residents after spike in burglaries using Wi-Fi jammers that disable security cameras, smart doorbells
42 votes -
California’s largest wildfire explodes in size as fires rage across US West
42 votes -
Governor Gavin Newsom orders homeless sweeps throughout California
38 votes -
What it's like to live in a Californian tourist attraction being swallowed by the sea
17 votes -
California Forever pulls measure to build Bay Area city
16 votes -
How Kamala Harris rose as a California moderate
15 votes -
Elon Musk says he’s moving SpaceX and X from California to Texas, blames new trans privacy law
28 votes -
California grid meets and surpasses demand during the day in heat wave due to renewables, batteries
49 votes -
A celebrated bike path might revert to being a breakdown lane for cars
20 votes -
He secretly changed this freeway sign, helped millions of drivers
17 votes -
Dozens were sickened with salmonella after drinking raw milk from a California farm
42 votes -
Patelco makes minor restorations but no end near for crippling credit union cyber attack
21 votes -
"Radical, in a different vein": The "Abundants" and supply-side progressives
17 votes -
Los Angeles’s mayor was contemplating a mask ban. She just got Covid.
38 votes -
San Francisco home selling for $488,000 but you can't move in until 2053
23 votes -
State Farm asks for huge California home insurance rate increase, signaling financial distress
15 votes