RUTHFULLY YOURS

Misguided environmentalist policies were major contributors to the California fires. The first policy led to a self-inflicted shortage of water, the second policy led to the buildup of tinder in California’s forest, the third to the large number of EVs that exploded. Additional environmental policies were indirectly responsible for the self-inflicted shortage of firemen, fire equipment, and powerlines that desperately needed to be fireproofed.

The first major factor that contributed to the massive fires was lack of water. Southern California has more than enough rainfall to put out fires. However, the majority of rainfall occurs during the rainy season. In order to avoid out-of-control conflagration during the dry season, such as the one that just took place, that water should be stored in reservoirs.

Why hasn’t this been done? In the last century California built dozens of dams creating the reservoir system that supplies the bulk of the state’s drinking and irrigation water. This century California has been unable to complete even one. The Sites reservoir was planned in a remote corner of the Sacramento valley for at least 40 years. One reason is that environmentalists blocked it with lawsuits and another is the difficulty in getting permission from the environmentalist state water board to use Sacramento River water to fill the reservoir.

Another reason more reservoirs have not been built is that nearly half of California is protected land and so is off limits for reservoir building. One of the objections to the Sites reservoir was that it might increase greenhouse gas emissions due to the breakdown of submerged organic matter. The environmentalists ignore the fact that algae that grow on lakes and sink to the bottom when they die capture the carbon that environmentalists are so worried about. In addition, any such possible increase in greenhouse emissions is dwarfed by the emissions of fires that water in reservoirs could put out.

Another option to get water to Southern California is to have it flow via an aqueduct from Northern California to Los Angeles. Victor Davis Hanson wrote that Governor Newsom:

has systematically ensured that water out of the Sacramento River and the watershed of Northern California would go out to the sea, rather than into the aqueduct, so Los Angeles didn’t have sufficient amounts of water.

Why didn’t Newsom divert Sacramento River water to Los Angeles? Because the environmentalist expressed concerns about how diverting water would affect the smelt fish.

Another source of water besides rainfall is the ocean. Israel, a country that used to be short of water, keeps the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) full with water from its desalinization plants, and has enough water to irrigate fields that produce food for both Israel and for export to other countries. Israel also has to put out fires set by its enemies. If Israel can do it there is no reason that California can’t.

Several desalination facilities produce drinking water along California’s coast but environmentalists make it difficult to build new ones. Poseidon Water proposed a $1.4-billion desalinization plant in Huntington Beach. The environmentalist Coast Commission rejected the plant despite  Newsom’s vocal support of the project. Their excuse was, in part, because of risks to marine life.

The second major reason for the out-of-control fires is that the state of California won’t clear brush in its forests due to environmentalist objections. In fact, California will punish people who clear the brush on their own. A family in San Diego found that out the hard way when they cleared brush to reduce the risk of wildfires to their home. They were fined $53,367 for doing so.

The third major contributor to out of control fires in California are electric vehicles, that are pushed on Californians by environmentalists. Not only do California firefighters have to fight an apocalyptic wildfire, they’ve got thousands of exploding EV lithium batteries to worry about. It can take up to ten times more water to put out an EV fire than a gas-powered vehicle fire. Even if an EV fire seems to be out, it can reignite later.

The fourth major contributor to the out-of-control fires in California is the shortage of firemen, a shortage which is an indirect result of environmentalist policies. Environmentalist policies are making Los Angeles go broke. Authorities forced utilities to spend billions on wind and solar projects, money that could have otherwise funded such desperate priorities as fireproofing power lines and paying fireman salaries. Mayor Karen Bass cut $17.6 million from the fire department budget in order to provide funds for the increasingly massive homeless population of Los Angeles. The high rate of homelessness is a result of factors such as drug addiction, Los Angeles designating itself a sanctuary city, and the ever-increasing cost of housing. The high cost of housing is in part a result of environmentalist policies which make half the land in California off limits to builders. It is also the result of inflation which in part, is the result of the misguided environmentalist policy of reckless spending of the Biden administration to fight global warming.

Tragically, the environment of California is a lot worse as a result of misguided actions by environmentalists to protect the environment. Wildlife has lost its habitat. It’s hard to breath in Los Angeles and the emissions which the environmentalists were so keen to reduce have skyrocketed due to the raging fires that their policies contributed to.