Given my profession, I’m incentivized to freak out about drought. If I thought it wasn’t a big deal, I’d have to find something else to write about. But in darker moments, I wonder if I’m overdoing the freakout. Chris Austin’s writeup of Ellen Hanak’s comments at this week’s California water bond hearing raise the question …
From the California state water contractors, a new framing. It’s not that stupid little fish, or those pesky environmentalists: Limits on pumping operations are an ongoing issue due to the Delta’s outdated water delivery system. “Earlier this year, storms came through that could have provided a substantial boost to our water reservoirs, but we simply …
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Apart from the specific contributions which mining made to agriculture in California, farming has always resembled mining in this state. The soil is really mined, not farmed. Carey McWilliams, California: The Great Exception
The interplay between human water use and natural systems has always been a ratchet, and when the environmental conversation began in earnest in this country, the ratchet was already cranked down tight. By the time, for example, that we began having a conversation about preservation of environmental values on the Lower Colorado River, Hoover Dam …
Continue reading ‘“The environment has always gotten the short end of the stick.”’ »
Via the economist Tyler Cowen, I learned today that the artist Ed Ruscha is from Oklahoma. When I mentioned this to Lissa, she wisely observed that many of the people we think are from California are not. That’s one of the central points of Carey McWilliams’ classic “California: The Great Exception”, which I am rereading. …
To say that it is unpopular in northern California when the state ships water from north south is to understate things. So here’s a fun little bit of history on the willingness of the Record Searchlight, in Redding, to buck the will of its readers. From Bruce Ross, the paper’s current editorial page editor, great …
Continue reading ‘On the unpopularity of peripheral thingies in northern California’ »
Lingering at my sister Lisa’s dining room table this evening after dinner, my eye drifted to this casserole on a shelf opposite. My memories of childhood are vague, and I often depend on Lisa for the sort of specifics I can’t quite grab hold of. But neither of us could remember the casserole’s story, other …
I often don’t know what to make of California, despite it being the state of my birth and a source of endless study and fascination. Jerry Brown was the governor when I was a teenager, and I respect him as one of the nation’s great politicians. I mean something specific and respectful by the term …
From the Joe Mozingo at the LA Times: The marijuana boom that came with the sudden rise of medical cannabis in California has wreaked havoc on the fragile habitats of the North Coast and other parts of California. With little or no oversight, farmers have illegally mowed down timber, graded mountaintops flat for sprawling greenhouses, …
I love the way “atmospheric river” has now entered the public weather discussion lexicon: Enjoy the dry, cool days that mark the start of this week in the Sacramento area. Then get ready for an “atmospheric river” late in the week that will bring perhaps 3 inches of rain to the Valley, the National Weather …
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