150 BILLION to rebuild LA ~ where's the money going to come from

[LaurieFairyCake]

That's HUGE amounts right?

I can't even conceive how much money that is is it more than our gdp?

Musk no longer lives in California. He lives in Texas, and reports are that he has sold all of his California residential real estate.

That's a naive view to take. Any internationally trading UK business will be exposed through their insurers.

Elon Musks only interest in anything is to hinder and disrupt - because any idiot could help.

The Biden administration went after Silicon Valley with regulation and taxes, so the tech industry responded by turning away from Dems. Musk moved from California for several reasons - primarily tax incentives. I don't see why he is personally responsible for this when the Democrats run California and have done since time immemorial. I guess it's a bad idea to alienate someone with the resources & scale to solve big engineering and environmental problems regardless of how much of a twat they are.

I'm wondering if it's wise to rebuild, at least on the previous scale.

There's going to need to be a huge change in the type of housing (less wood, not as close together) or else it could all happen again.

It might not be so attractive to live there either. It's horrific, like a war zone right now. That's going to put a lot of people off.

I was referring to the country as opposed to the locality. He’s messing about in UK affairs, he should concentrate on the US.

As the richest person in the world (we’re told), he shouldn’t care if it’s California or Texas or any other state.

The "Piper Alpha" oil rig fire in 1976 ruined thousands.

Yes and also the bottomless pit of asbestos claims.

He's now a Texan MAGA type. Texan MAGA types regard the rest of the US (especially the Democrat-voting states) in much the same way that UKIP types regard the EU.

Piper Alpha was 1988

This happens globally all the time. Japanese tsunami, Christchurch earthquake, hurricanes through swathes of America every year.

These places get rebuilt

Surely they won't rebuild without making major changes to the area? The new properties would be uninsurable, and who would want to live in a house at risk of burning to the ground again?
I imagine the richer neighbourhoods will be mainly rebuilt but designed to be much more resistant to fire, and divided up with buffer zones so it's more difficult for fire to spread as far.
I expect the poorer neighbourhoods will be left to rot and the people will all have to relocate.

I would think the big celebrities who lost homes would have the money to rebuild .

I was listening to radio 4 news one day this week. They were talking about the insurance industry in America and how a lot of them are in trouble and will find any way possible not to pay out

Elon?

There are a lot of very wealthy people in that part of the world, let's hope they help out those less fortunate

To give you an idea on scale of cost, brexit knocked £140 billion per year off of the UK's GDP.

The US have to pay for a brexit once, we have to pay for it every year forever.

Would also point out an American billion is $1000million whereas a UK billion is $1million million.

Changing designs (and the associated expense) will be resisted strongly by people who think climate change is fake news.

I’m interested if people will rebuild or not

With reguards to the insurance companies then reinsurance themselves, that's been mentioned, on the thread, is that like the credit default swaps from the 2008 financial crisis ?

"Fixing" climate change isn't just about money. It's about persuading every powerful nation to make changes and become more sustainable and many simply have no vested interest in doing so. (We're not that good at it in the UK beyond using fewer fossil fuels and more sustainable resources). I expect more likely we will have to learn to adjust to climate change - well, we already are to an extent.

There are many factors. Bit of a Swiss cheese effect. Hopefully they will learn from this latest wildfire, and stop bickering.

‘Pre-1800, when the area was much more forested and the ecologymuch more resilient, 4.4-11.9 million acres (1.8-4.8 million hectares) of forest and shrubland burned annually.[1] California land area totals 99,813,760 or roughly 100 million acres, so since 2000, the area that burned annually has ranged between 90,000 acres, or 0.09%, and 1,590,000 acres, or 1.59% of the total land of California.

Since the early 2010s, wildfires in California are growing more dangerous because of the accumulation of wood fuel in forests, higher population, and aging and often poorly maintained electricity transmission and distribution lines, particularly in areas serviced by Pacific Gas and Electric.[3][4][5]United States taxpayers pay about US$3 billion a year to fight wildfires, and big fires can lead to billions of dollars in property losses.[6]‘

I'm wondering if it's wise to rebuild, at least on the previous scale.
There's going to need to be a huge change in the type of housing (less wood, not as close together) or else it could all happen again.

Ive been to Beverley Hills/Hollywood, you do actually get quite a large sq ft and grand house for your money compared to say central London. I’m not sure the inhabitants will want smaller houses as they tend to build quite out into the plot if that makes sense and how suitable is brick in earthquake zones. Presumably brick and concrete will be much more expensive.

You can't "fix" climate change, any more than you can "fix" the earths orbit.

What you can do is accept the climate is changing (who cares why) and deal with what that means. None of which prevents you from protecting the environment anyway.

After all, when firefighters turn up at a fire, they don't spend decades on investigations into why there is a fire, and whether it was caused by accident, malice or alien invaders. They put the damn fire out.

That was a flippant comment of mine. Of course it can’t realistically be “fixed” but I meant in theory you could stop burning poisonous gases tomorrow and force the transition to 100% renewables and thereby mitigate some of the future environment effects. Ain’t gonna happen clearly.

And yes sadly all the money in the world will not make any significant difference unless there is political will