In 1972, when I was 10 years old, my dad accepted a job transfer. We packed up our belongings and drove 3,000 miles to our new home. We left the deep snows of Buffalo behind forever and settled in sunny California. My dad rejoiced that he would never have to shovel another driveway. (Forty-three years later, he still rejoices about that.)
When we arrived, we learned California had just surpassed New York as the most populated state, and we joked we had tipped the balance. We were delighted to be in our new home. California was seen as a sort of utopia, a golden state of endless sunshine and endless opportunity.
That was then; this is now.
As the years went by and I became an adult, I grew to dislike California. It was too crowded, too dry, too hot, too expensive and too crime-ridden. In 1992 my husband and I shook the dust from our feet and departed, leaving behind our families and many beloved friends who still reside there.
Now that we're no longer experiencing California on a daily basis, we can look at the Golden State from afar and worry. You see, California is in a lot of trouble. A lot.
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Aside from the fact that California is often the vanguard of bizarre and disturbing progressive trends, right now the state is in the grip of a murderous drought. A staggering 99.85 percent of the state is "abnormally dry." At the moment there is only about a one-year supply of water left in its reservoirs, and groundwater is rapidly disappearing. Additionally, 65 to 70 percent of Southern California's water is imported.
"So what?" some people say. "That's California's problem."
Anyone who has driven through the vast interior of California will come to appreciate how critical the state's agriculture is to the food supplies in the rest of America. Ninety percent of the country's broccoli comes from California. So do 99 percent of walnuts, 97 of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and the list goes on and on.
And while you can claim you don't eat broccoli, walnuts, kiwis, plums, celery, garlic, cauliflower or spinach, please try to look at the larger picture: Without California agriculture, the American diet would be very, very different. And without water, California can't have agriculture.
You think food prices are high now? Imagine what they'd be if California didn't grow it. The state is literally the "fruit and vegetable basket" of the nation.
Then there's the population issue. California's population has nearly doubled from when we moved there in the early 1970s, from about 20 million to about 40 million. "In Southern California and L.A.," notes climatologist Bill Patzert in LAMag, "the average rainfall is 15 inches a year. That supplies enough water for about 5 million people, but right now there are 20 million people between San Diego and Santa Barbara."
Do the math. Simply put, there is too much population and too little water.
"The 20th century, which is when we built our civilization in California, was one of the wettest in 2,000 years," Patzert continues. "It was an anomaly. We know this from tree ring records. We have built a civilization, which is the sixth- or seventh-largest economy in the world, based on imported water in a wet century. … We have built a civilization in an extremely dry place. The limiting factor in any civilization is primarily water. Look at all the great civilization collapses. … One of the primary determinates of human civilization has been drought: natural climate variability. We've seen this is our history. The history of the world is written in droughts."
With stats like these, you'd think California would be in intense conservation mode. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. A report "found that, rather than conserving water, Californians are using more in 2014 … than in any of the past three years."
When Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency in January and urged residents to reduce their water usage by 20 percent, a Water Resources Control Board survey found those savings haven't been achieved anywhere in the state. "Overall, usage was up 1 percent in May compared to the average for 2011-13, driven by an 8.4 percent increase in coastal Southern California cities. The northeastern part of the state, a region stretching from Mono Lake to the Oregon border, saw a 5 percent increase."
Historically speaking, California is on a relentlessly downward trajectory in terms of water and all the businesses (and comforts) associated with it. Though there may be wet years to come, it appears California is re-establishing its normal rainfall pattern of quasi-desert conditions. The state – and the rest of the nation – will simply have to brace for impact.
Drought affects the rich and poor alike. For the wealthier, there are an estimated 1.1 million swimming pools in California, and each uncovered pool loses 20,000 gallons to evaporation per year. The poor will lose their tap water sooner, but eventually drought catches up to everyone.
Then there's migration. If people are forced to leave the Golden State, where will they go? Take it from me, Californians carry a big enough stigma as it is, since too many of them "Californicate" other places with their brand of hard liberalism.
But if there is no water, people must leave. Can the 49 other states absorb millions of people? And can you imagine the change of political climate that will occur in other states as Californians disperse?
Oddly, its history of progressive politics may help doom the state. In a world where pandering to the masses is the only sure way to keep a seat at the political table, where satisfying peoples' "wants" is a greater priority then meeting their needs, and where the population has been trained since birth that "feeeeeelings" trump facts, a simple reality re-emerges: There are too many people demanding things go on as before, and too few people taking personal responsibility for their wasteful ways.
Droughts happen. Climate changes. Despite what most people think, their relatively short life time is "not the way it's always been." Those whose families were generationally closer to the land understood this. In the days of our pioneers, no one pointed fingers if there was a drought – you simply fought on and didn't try to blame the government, conservatives, or climate deniers. If the world handed you lemons, you made lemonade.
In California, land of the fruits and nuts, no amount of denial will change that recipe.
Media wishing to interview Patrice Lewis, please contact [email protected].
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