Unlike a lot of LA, we’re still here, unscathed by the damnable Socal weather. In another 12 hours or so all the Red Flag warnings and power shutoff threats will be lifted here in San Diego County. Different and much worse story in LA.

So much to think about with this. Is the vaunted Socal “weather tax” now a joke? Will anyone be able to insure a home in Socal? Will the next generation(s) who occupy this space simply rebuild or will they do something different, something smarter?

There *are* solutions to this. First, let’s solve the Socal water problem. Instead of piping water from eastern states across a single canal and pipeline, let’s do desal in a big way.

1. Build gigantic solar farms in the desert. I mean big, 2-3 gigawatts per farm.
2. Run new transmission lines to the CA coast, where we build a dozen or more desalinization plants. Desal plants use tremendous amounts of electricity to pump salty water through filters.

Get serious about it, and Socal could be water-rich in only five years. That changes *everything*. Plenty of water for agriculture, people, landscaping, etc. And plenty of electricity for industry.

Next, let’s change the way we build houses. No more wood homes in Socal. Period. Only brick, steel, and stone. Tile or metal roofs. Even better, LOTS of packed earth homes. Adobe, a type of packed earth structure, is essentially fireproof. Native Americans knew this. And every single home and structure must be equipped with an external sprayer system, a fire suppression system, using all the water we just freed up from the ocean.

This won’t be as fast as solving the water problem. This will take a generation, maybe two. We’ll have to condemn and raze the old-style structures at some point. That’ll be painful, but what do you call the present situation?

I could go on. There are changes needed in the entire infrastructure of our Socal cities – power, water, communications, sewage, garbage. But it’s all doable if we just think long-term instead of simply repeating the past. The climate and weather are changing, and we have to change in response or vacate the premises.

I wish I could be around to lead some of this – it would be a revolution I could get excited about. But I only have time to toss the ideas out there and hope the next generations get busy and act on them.