“No matter what decisions anyone makes now, everyone hooked up to the grid in Northern California is likely going to receive worse service even as we all collectively pay more to harden the system against fire. This is what runaway technical debt looks like.” The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal on The Toxic Bubble of Technical Debt Threatening America. Like the Infrastructure Week that never comes, we put off paying the financial and political price to upgrade our systems until it’s tool late. We’re seeing the downside of that strategy (or we would be seeing it, if the lights were on) across California right now. But don’t worry about missing out. This problem is coming to a city near you.

+ Related: More than three times more people are at risk from rising sea levels than previously believed, research suggests.

+ In NorCal, thousands of firefighters are holding the line near Sonoma. In SoCal, the Reagan Library is in danger. Here’s the latest on the California fires from The Guardian and CNN.

+ “It is a huge honor. But the climate movement does not need any more awards. What we need is for our politicians and the people in power to start listening to the current, best available science.” NPR: Greta Thunberg Rejects Major Environmental Award.