Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

So you agree it is poor management.

They allowed the population to explode and didn't plan for the environmental impacts of this.

Why have so many people been allowed to live in brush land in a warm climate (California has always been warm, it hasn't suddenly become warm in recent years) which has always had brush fires.

Climate change may is a factor but blaming it for everything is a bad idea as it just allows politicians to not take responsibility for running things better.Climate change isn't going to be fixed anytime soon so wouldn't it be better to prepare for it rather than hoping it would go away and learn to live with climate change.

BTW California's population density is 97 per square km, North Carolina is 86 per square Km (11th and 13th most densely populated states) so they are comparable in terms of the levels of people wanting to live there.

Are you for more big government and 'nanny-state' legislation Jack? Stricter controls on planning regulations, using tax-payers funds for new giant reservoirs, increased taxes for local authorities to maintain infrastructure.

Bit of a change from your previous outlook, but I for one heartily welcome you to the leftist liberal European socialist state type of thinking.

They already shifted goalposts on “24 hours” to “first 100 days”

I'm in favour of common sense and learning to live with our climate rather than pointlessly making things more difficult for people by allowing them live in risky zones and not having a proper plan for dealing with issues.Same reason I'm opposed to local authorities in Ireland giving permission for houses to have been built in floodplains.

Really , please specify where?

So you think they should just accept this situation as it is and pray for climate change to disappear overnight and for brush fires to disappear despite them being part of California and similar climates forever.

Why did california over the decades allow houses to be built in areas that were so at risk (lots of houses are in the middle of the brush), why have the not planned better for it by having back up water to deal with these events.

Sorry for suggesting possible solutions instead of just engaging in pearl clutching.

It can be, but that wasn't the question asked. There are reasons why fresh water is preferable.

Potentially build large reservoirs to store water that is taken from the pacific, if it needs to be desalinated then do it.

I really don't buy the idea that more couldn't have been done over the decades to deal better with this type of scenario.

California is supposed to be the leading technology hub in the world, are you telling me all those tech companies and the talent they have couldn't have been used to come up with some good ideas to prevent this sort of situation occurring or at least massively reduce the impact.

If the Dutch are able to come up with solutions to keep the water out as 25% of the country is under sea level and the rest of the land is very low lying are you honestly telling me California as a state couldn't do better to deal with the environmental risk of it's location.

They were using sea water though. I saw videos of planes refilling from the ocean. They just couldn't fly on the first night because of the strong winds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_1

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-19/skelton-2014-california-water-bond#:~:text=Have%20no%20Prop.%201%20water,Sites%20reservoir%20near%20Maxwell%2C%20Calif.

But people in Califrornia did vote for the state government to fix the water storage issues and they still haven't done anything.

Have a look at the map of California; full of mountains and deserts.

This is the kind of rainfall issues that were happening How do you fix lack of rainfall? And this was in Northern California where they also rely on snow melt, there’s a reason the father of one of the Strokes wrote a song called It never rains in Southern California.
But no, it’s the smelts fault.

Greenland isn't up for sale, not even a price tag is known. The price tag would depend on the natural resources, rare materials and possibly maybe that large freshwater inland lake currently covered in ice and permafrost.

Greenland is already part of NATO, the US already has a large base near Thule, thus the motive of the US isn't military, but economical and natural recources oriented.

The most civilized way would be that an independend Greenland would have a referendum on becoming part of the US and the US would accpet, and the Danish monarch would sign the handover.

That would imply that Greenland would be it's own country or largely it's own country within the commonwealth of Denmark ( let's call it that way in English just for the exercise) but out of 50 K Greenlanders it's hard to even have the right people to adminsiter the country from a civil service point of view.

As far as I know Greenland want's to have more independence, maybe in 10 years time they may consider a referendum on US membership.

Other than and if not the democratic way that the US would have to invade another NATO country.

The US would probably invest more into the infrastructure, market tourism, adventure, wilderness as well as in the military. Denmark doesn't do much in this field as far as I know.

As far as I know there were 2 attempts in US history to get their hands at Greenland, but they never succeeded.

Then there would be the question on what would happen to the citizens of Greenland. I would guess they would have "US national" not "US citizen" status, similar to Puerto Ricans at first. They would also be subject to FATCA, whether they like it or not.

The US may promis the Greenlanders the world and milk and honey to vote for them, if the promises come true or not is unclear.

The case is a bit like Newfoundland and Canada back in 1949. Nfld hat the choice between Canada and the US, but chosen Canada instead in a referendum. As far as I know the choice was between more subsidies ( which Canada promised ) vs. more autonomy on matters like fishing (which the US promised ).