California: Running On Empty (VVDH)

PJ Media ^ | 6-21-2015 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Sir Napsalot]

The air in the San Joaquin Valley this late-June is, of course, hot and dry, but also dustier and more full of particulates than usual. This year a strange flu reached epidemic proportions. I say strange, because after the initial viral symptoms subsided, one’s cough still lingered for weeks and even months. Antibiotics did not seem to faze it. Allergy clinics were full. Almost every valley resident notices that when orchards and vineyards are less watered, when row cropland lies fallow, when lawns die and blow away, when highway landscaping dries up, nature takes over and the air becomes even filthier. Green elites lecture that agriculture is unnatural, without any idea why pre-civilized, pre-irrigated, and “natural” California was an empty place, whose dry, hazy climate and dusty winds made life almost impossible. The state is running on empty.

(snip)

We suffer in California from a particular form of progressive immorality predicated on insular selfishness. The water supplies of Los Angeles and the Bay Area are still for a year longer in good shape, despite the four-year drought. Neither area is self-sufficient in water; their aquifers are marginal and only supply a fraction of their daily needs. Instead these megalopolises depend on intricate and expensive water transfer systems — from Northern California, from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and from the Colorado River — that bring water and life to quite unnatural habitats ......

Why then do those who have access to water delivered in a most unnatural way seek to curtail supplies to others? In a word, because they are either ignorant of where their own water comes from or they have not a shred of concern for others less blessed, or both.

[Mariner]

"I believe he looks to empty it of its population, one judgment at a time."

If it rains this winter, what then?

Does that mean all those folks will have repented?

[rockinqsranch]

“It was a place I’d never heard of - Mountain House”

The article said upscale, which of course can mean multiple things, but to me could indicate it’s heavily Republican.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“Looks like Caliphonia is no longer going to be “The Land of Fruits and Nuts”. It is heading toward being a barren land of wealthy leftist and poor thirsty, starving peons. Just what the elitists ordered.”

Cali will then become the land of dehydrated fruits, nuts, and flakes!

[Patriot777]

We’ll see if it rains or snows in the mountains; I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t.

I really believe the Lord God is sending California a strong message, which could very well be repeated in other states that are similar in thought and deed.