Such a huge part of climate change revolves around water. Superstorms absorbing greater volumes of sea water as surface temperatures rise, slowed in their progress by the increased weight, vastly more intense in their power and flooding/surging impact. Premature melting sends raging floodwaters beyond river and lake banks, flooding plains, cities and farms. Polar thaws, glacial contraction, coastal erosion by the millions and millions of acres. That’s all on the wet side.
Drought (cyclical) has become desertification (permanent) all over the sun-drenched world. Land lost forever. Farms no longer able to produce food. Farmers and their families forced to abandon multigenerational homesteads. Mass migrations. Dust. Conflicts over still arable land. Water and still productive farmland generating more value than even petroleum rich tracts. Forests literally drying up, lush greenery become kindling when become unending fire seasons. Severe wildfires swallow entire forests, now consuming homes and towns in their wake. Heat, heat and more intolerable heat. Today is about that dry side, more particularly a continuing examination of the rising possibility of massive collapse of life as we know it. Today, I will look at the richest and most productive region in the United States: California. Environmentally sensitive California?
California has none of that red state skepticism about climate change and efforts to combat its clear and present ravages. The state is increasing willing to confront businesses who continue to shift the burdens of their imprudent failure to contain their own toxic and otherwise dangerous emissions to the general public. Alternative energy is the rule. California leadership winces at red states (like oil-rich Oklahoma) that actually tax those emboldened enough to install solar panels. Petroleum-based vehicles will not be sold in California after 2035.
Governor Gavin Newsom has requested that Californian reduce water consumption. Meanwhile in his state, wildfires rage. Vast tracts of farmland lie fallow. And lakes and reservoirs recede to perilous levels. Is this too little too late? Can any one isolated jurisdiction make a difference to a problem that requires massive global cooperation anyway?
Writing for the July 15th Los Angeles Times, Ari Plachta observes: “When Gov. Gavin Newsom asked Californians to voluntarily conserve water last week [second week in July] as he stood in front of the retreating shoreline at Lopez Lake in San Luis Obispo County, some must have had déjà vu.
“It was only six years ago when his predecessor Gov. Jerry Brown stood in a field near Lake Tahoe that was bereft of normally plentiful snow and called for water restrictions amid the state’s punishing years-long drought… But by that point, Brown was done asking. In April 2015, he ordered cities and towns across the state to cut water use by 25%, the first mandatory statewide water restrictions in California history that browned lawns and shortened showers to the tune of more than 500 billion gallons saved that year.
“As Californians wonder when mandatory water restrictions might be coming, officials and experts including those who played roles in addressing the 2012-2016 drought say the pace and strategy of Newsom’s current response sufficiently incorporates insights gained from the past.
“The governor’s approach, however, has also frustrated some scientists who consider his actions too little too late as record-high temperatures intensify the water shortage, particularly in northern and central parts of the state.
“Newsom, who is facing a September recall election, called on Californians on July 8 to voluntarily cut their water use by 15% compared with last year and expanded his regional drought state of emergency to 50 counties, home to roughly 42% of the population… ‘We’re optimistic that Californians are going to step up as they have in the past,’ said Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot. ‘And if the drought persists and conditions get worse, we’ll obviously have to contemplate other actions including mandatory restrictions.’
“Conditions already appear to be outpacing the previous drought: Scant winter rainfall led to minimal snowpack on the Sierra Nevada mountains, and spring heat evaporated much of the runoff that was expected to flow into reservoirs.”
If conditions worsen? We know it is just a matter of when. Even though there have been momentary respites as rainfall has increased, with decreasing frequency in recent years, do we really believe we are just dealing with a drought, a lower-level repeat of the Midwest dust bowl of the 1930s, or is this a continuing and possibly unstoppable march to permanence. Not a drought. Desertification? And what exactly happens to large cities and even small towns when access to water simply trickles away? If this is environmentally conscious California, what about red states that simply do not care much at all?
I’m Peter Dekom, and if you haven’t noticed, younger Americans have placed climate change, the legacy their parents seem to be leaving them with, at the top of their political priorities; I wonder why.
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