I need to share with you the introductory paragraph of a Joel Kotkin article for New Geography about how California got so messed up.
One is often at a loss to explain California to people from other planets—like, say, earth. This is a state that issues mandates for electrification of everything while reducing its generating capacity. It blames devastating fires on climate change, without taking the blame for forestry practices that helped make the seasonal fires much worse. In California, pot is legal, but owning a car with a gas engine, however clean, may soon not be, and climate skeptics of any stripe face opprobrium, consignment to obscurity, and—if they have assets—court dates.
Kotkin explains how we got into the fix we’re in. Nobody seems to have a clue how we extricate ourselves from the corner into which we’ve painted ourselves.
As a CA native and still part-time resident, I miss the can-do days of Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown - loser Moonbeam Jerry’s dad. He built the dams, aqueducts, universities, and highways we still use, and could use more of (except the universities which we later overbuilt).
