Despite worsening drought emergency, California leaders are doing too little, too late
Last week, a New York Times report on Utah’s shrinking Great Salt Lake revealed a new, disturbing climate reality: If drought conditions continue, Salt Lake City could be afflicted by poisonous arsenic-laced dust clouds.
A threat of seemingly Biblical proportions, Utah’s “environmental nuclear bomb” could very well go off unless there is “drastic action,” Utah state lawmaker Joel Ferry told The Times.
Closer to home, California’s State Water Resources Control Board recently ordered the city of San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley farmers to stop pulling water from Valley rivers — the latest sign of worsening drought conditions. Yet Californians, now facing our third year of severe drought, have not taken heed of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for a 15% voluntary water cutback. Instead, according to new figures from the state board, we have reduced our water consumption by just 2% since last summer.
Nationwide, the U.S. Drought Monitor predicts that drought conditions will persist in half the states, including virtually the entirety of California. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Republican Party announced a frighteningly ludicrous six-pillar climate plan that merely reaffirmed the GOP’s continuing commitment to fossil fuel production — and, thus, climate destruction.
Apparently, after a whole year of work, the party’s Energy, Climate and Conservation Task Force decided that to mitigate inevitable climate catastrophes, the U.S. must focus on the effort to “beat China and Russia” — which is, no joke, an entire pillar of the Republican plan.
The Republicans’ advocacy for producing more fossil fuels is in fact a policy of worsening climate change. Even the Ivy League-educated Republican Assemblyman Kevin Kiley of Rocklin can’t seem to grasp the basic idea that lessening climate catastrophe will require making necessary sacrifices and changing the way we plow through our planet’s resources.
“There’s absolutely no reason Californians should be forced to cut back on water and change their lifestyles,” Kiley tweeted just two weeks ago.
The governor’s voluntary target of 15% less water use, which Kiley views as Democratic dictatorship, is in fact not even close to what Californians need to be doing to counteract severe drought conditions.
Hydrologists have a term for the drought denialism afflicting countries all over the world: the hydro-illogical cycle. The term refers to the pattern of inaction associated with drought, which we tend to ignore until it’s too late. Only when we’re faced with a climate emergency do we act.
This cycle has played out under California’s Democratic leaders, who understand that many of the serious dangers of climate change — including severe heat and drought — are already happening. Democrats, including those here in Sacramento who have delayed the city’s climate action plan for over 18 months, are unwilling to take the bold, urgent action needed for Californians to survive climate crises.
Democrats’ incremental approach to mitigating climate change is better than the inaction proposed by the Republican Party. But small solutions to massive problems won’t cut it. The Sierra Nevada snowpack is approaching nonexistence; outdoor events are proving dangerous amid worsening summer heat; and did I mention the poisonous arsenic-laced dust clouds?
When will we get serious about climate change? We must break the pattern and act as if our lives depend on it. Because, oh yeah, they do.