Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Carly Fiorina blames "liberal environmentalists" for California drought:



Is the Drought Making Us Dumb? - Joe Mathews/Fox&Hounds

Untrammeled growth? Unbridled growth? Endless growth?

Good grief.

I’m a child of the first Brown administration—back in the ‘70s, which was already an era of limits. The California I’ve known for four decades is one of unmet infrastructure needs, limits on growth, limits on taxes and limits on spending. In Los Angeles, we have fewer payroll jobs than we did 25 years ago.

The only unbridled things this California sees are broad, overwrought claims about California somehow being “unnatural.” If only snow in the Sierras was as common as such claims.

The drought is a big deal. So is climate change. We are going to have to change how we live. We are already making some changes. But let’s not pretend this is the fault of some supposedly “endless growth.” One of the problems we face has been a lack of growth, of underinvestment in water infrastructure.

It’s a real question whether Californians are prepared to spend and invest in such infrastructure. And that question is not because of growth; it’s because Californians have been so skeptical of growth, and so determined to limit it.