The extreme grey

It is very grey outside today, as it has been for so much of the last few weeks, which hasn't really helped. Meanwhile, Natalie has flown north after a long and lovely holiday break, and we took down the Christmas tree. As if in honor of all of that, I find myself in my finest charcoal grey outfit of flannel, chamois, and sweats, waiting for the plumber to call to come fix our water heater, which keeps breaking.

Intensely interesting story in today's Journal about Northern California's utility PG&E, and all the things that have put it in trouble (a subsequent story says that it is already filing for bankruptcy). Basically, the fires in Northern California -- and insurance claims related to them -- have bankrupted the firm. So many themes come together: climate change, population density, control of people's land (not wanting to let utility on to cut down trees in danger zones) etc etc. Utilities are an intensely-regulated business, and they are not able to easily change rates to price things properly, that runs through California's state house.

But ultimately, we are talking about the utility that serves the Bay area and its hinterlands, a place creating a lot of wealth and innovation that is intensely dependent upon electricity. Apple, Facebook, NetFlix, SalesForce, Google, and so on ad infinitum. There is a lot of money there, and they will figure out how to pay for this, it just won't be fun.

But understanding what's going on and getting buy in around the structural changes that need to happen to make a solution workable, that is a political problem, and people on both sides of the aisle, and who watch all the major cable news networks, need to be brought to understand what's going on. The right needs to accept that climate change is happening. The left will need to accept greater flexibility in rate-setting mechanisms. Everybody is going to have to suck it up and let utilities cut more trees on the property to which they hold title.