Tag Archives: californians

Defending California Once Again

by yq7izr Posted on February 21, 2017

Mother Jones

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Here is Mike Males in the LA Times this morning:

President Trump has cast California as “out of control” because of proposed legislation that would make the entire state a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, who, he says, “breed crime.” But in reality, as California’s immigrant population has grown, its crime and violence rates have plummeted.

Let’s start with the demographics….Over the last two decades, California has seen an influx of 3.5 million immigrants, mostly Latino, and an outmigration of some 2 million residents, most of them white. An estimated 2.4 million undocumented immigrants also currently live in the state.

….And yet, according to data from the FBI, the California Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control, the state has seen precipitous drops in every major category of crime and violence that can be reliably measured. In Trump terms, you might say that modern California is the opposite of “American carnage.”

It’s true. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a picture:

Apologies for the ugliness of the chart. Edward Tufte would be appalled. But here’s what it shows. The foreign-born share of the population has increased from 9 percent to 27 percent since 1970. However, from 1995 to 2015, violent crime in California has declined at a faster rate than in the US as a whole.1

So do immigrants cause an increase in violent crime? It doesn’t really look like it, does it? And yet, Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the current House majority leader, continues to warn his fellow Californians that they should be nicer to President Trump. At the same time, Trump continues to justify hiring 10,000 new immigration agents and changing the deportation rules based on the idea that it’s important to get rid of anyone who’s committed even a minor infraction. That might make the base happy, but it’s not going to make anybody safer.

1I was lazy and only looked up the crime rates for every five years. I imagine I could also dig up crime rates by state earlier than 1995 if I really tried, but I didn’t try very hard. If anybody has them, I’ll be happy to pop them into the chart.

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Defending California Once Again

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Now you can use Google to organize your neighbors around solar.

by RRIAbraham Posted on November 4, 2016

Following an exceptionally dry winter in 2015, Gov. Jerry Brown mandated that cities cut back on water use by 25 percent. Californians responded by letting their grass turn brown, or replacing it with artificial turf and less thirsty plants.

Sod suppliers, landscapers, and conservation activists now say that lawns are coming back into fashion, the Guardian reports. California did away with mandatory water restrictions in June, which may have sent the wrong message to residents. In August, urban water consumption had risen nearly 10 percent from the previous year.

Before it dropped these restrictions, the state spent $350 million on rebates for those who tore out their water-sucking grass. Anti-lawn campaigns emerged, such as “Brown is the new green,” and the media drought shamed those who maintained lush, grassy expanses.

It seemed like these efforts were working: One major lawn supplier saw orders plunge from 500 per day to 80 during the height of drought shaming.

The orders have now crept into the hundreds — despite the severe drought conditions that persist. Another dusty winter would send California into its sixth straight year of drought.

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Now you can use Google to organize your neighbors around solar.

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Finally, a Little Good News on the California Drought Front

by GeneCrusedgeupd Posted on July 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Finally, some good news on the California drought beat: Californians reduced their residential water usage in May by a whopping 29 percent compared to the same month in 2013, according to a report released today by the State Water Resources Control Board. That’s the steepest drop in more than a year.

Californians may have been inspired to reduce their water use by the mandatory, statewide municipal water cut of 25 percent that Gov. Jerry Brown announced in April, though those cuts didn’t go into effect until June. (Those 25 percent reductions did not apply to agriculture, which uses an estimated 80 percent of the state’s water, though some farmers have faced curtailments.)

“The numbers tell us that more Californians are stepping up to help make their communities more water secure, which is welcome news in the face of this dire drought,” said State Water Board Chair Felicia Marcus in a press release. “That said, we need all Californians to step up—and keep it up—as if we don’t know when it will rain and snow again, because we don’t.”

In May, California residents used 87.5 gallons per capita per day—three gallons per day less than the previous month. Big cities that showed the most dramatic cuts include Folsom, Fresno, and San Jose. But water use by area varies drastically, with places known for green lawns and gardens, like Coachella and Malibu, using more than 200 gallons per person per day. Outdoor water usage is estimated to account for about half of overall residential use.

Officials are cautiously optimistic. Board spokesman George Kostyrko says Californians “did great in May and we are asking them to keep doing what they are doing and work even harder to conserve water during these critical summer months and beyond.”

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Finally, a Little Good News on the California Drought Front

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Not even Jesus is going to save California from this drought

by SusanneSweatt Posted on July 30, 2014

El Niño flakes out

Not even Jesus is going to save California from this drought

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California is looking pretty thirsty these days, having gotten less than half the historical average rainfall over the past year. But a few months ago the state began think that a great wet hope might step in to save them: El Niño, the weather system named after Jesus himself. Now the forecasts have changed, however, and it looks like Californians are SOL.

Back in April, scientists said there was a close-to-80 percent chance that an El Niño would form this year. Some believed that all of the pieces were in place for a particularly strong one. And while this would’ve raised certain flavors of meteorological hell, at least the boy would have brought copious amounts of much-needed rainfall.

But over the past few months the probability of an El Niño forming has decreased. And if one does form, it’s becoming clearer that it won’t be a strong one — meaning that it probably won’t bring Californians the break they were hoping for.

From The Economist:

Even if an El Niño does emerge this autumn, it is no longer thought likely to pack the punch needed to bring relief to California. Certainly, no-one expects it to be anything like the “Godzilla of El Niños” that doubled the region’s rainfall in 1997. “The great wet hope is going to be the great wet disappointment”, Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune recently.

Shoot. Maybe that’s why Californians make so much wine, because they know Jesus isn’t gonna to be around to turn water into the stuff. Even if he were, the drought might make it hard for him to preform those kind of miracles, anyway.

Still confused about what El Niño is? Check out the video from my explainer last month:


Source
The Pacific’s wayward child, The Economist

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.

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Not even Jesus is going to save California from this drought

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Here Are The Things California Water-Wasters Can Now Be Fined For

by JuliannChristma Posted on July 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published in Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Here’s a list of things that could now get you fined up to $500 a day in California, where a multi-year drought is sucking reservoirs and snowpacks dry:

Spraying so much water on your lawn or garden that excess water flows onto non-planted areas, walkways, parking lots, or neighboring property.
Washing your car with a hose that doesn’t have an automatic shut-off device.
Spraying water on a driveway, a sidewalk, asphalt, or any other hard surface.
Using fresh water in a water fountain—unless the water recirculates.

Those stern emergency regulations were adopted Tuesday by a unanimous vote of the State Water Resources Control Board – part of an effort to crack down on the profligate use of water during critically lean times.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) asked the state’s residents to voluntarily conserve water in January, but they didn’t. Rather, as the San Jose Mercury News reports, “a new state survey released Tuesday showed that water use in May rose by 1 percent this year, compared with a 2011-2013 May average.”

Californians use more water on their gardens and lawns than they use inside their homes, as shown in the following chart from a document prepared for the board members ahead of Tuesday’s vote. So the new rules focus on outdoor use.

Extreme drought is now affecting 80 percent of the Golden State. Some 400,000 acres of farmland could be fallowed due to water shortages, and water customers in the hardest-hit communities are having their daily water supplies capped at less than 50 gallons per person.

The California Landscape Contractors Association sees an upside, though. It expects that the threats of fines could convince Californians to hire its members to replace thirsty nonnative plants in their gardens with drought-hardy alternatives. “If the runoff prohibition is enforced at the local level, we expect it to result in a multitude of landscape retrofits in the coming months,” association executive Larry Rohlfes told the water board in a letter dated Monday, one of a large stack of letters sent by various groups and residents in support of the new rules. “The water efficient landscapes that result will help the state’s long-term conservation efforts—in addition to helping the state deal with a hopefully short-term drought emergency.”

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Here Are The Things California Water-Wasters Can Now Be Fined For

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Californians Want to Fix the Drought—Without Spending Any Money

by 4q4cv8v Posted on June 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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Californians agree their state’s drought is a big problem, but they’re not enthused about spending money to alleviate it. That’s one of the takeaways from a just-released University of Southern California/Los Angeles Times poll. Some other findings:

Big problem, getting bigger

Just prior to California’s last gubernatorial election in November 2010, 46 percent of voters agreed that “having enough water to meet our future needs” mattered “a great deal.” The proportion of people who care a lot about water issues has crept up a lot since then:

Last September, 63 percent of voters called the drought a “crisis or major problem.”
89 percent of voters call the drought a “crisis or major problem” now.

Save us some water, just don’t send us the bill

Californians are notoriously tax averse, but even what may be the worst drought in 500 years is apparently not enough to get most voters to agree that the state should improve its water infrastructure:

36 percent of voters said the state should improve water storage and delivery systems, even if it costs money.
52 percent said the state should address these problems without spending money, by taking measures like encouraging conservation.

Poorer people and Latinos are feeling harder hit

The poll found:

11 percentof people making more than $50,000 annually said the drought had a “major impact” on their lives.
24 percent of people making less than $50,000 annually said the same.
29 percent of people making less than $20,000 annually said the same.

It’s worth noting that some of California’s poorest people are Hispanic farm workers. While 25 percent of Latinos surveyed said the drought had a “major impact” on teir lives just 13 percent of people from other racial groups said the same.

Climate denial

A recent study has linked the drought to climate change, but some Californians still aren’t so sure about the connection. While 78 percent of Democrats said climate change was “very or somewhat responsible” for California’s water trouble, only 44 percent of Republicans agreed.

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Californians Want to Fix the Drought—Without Spending Any Money

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Billions of barrels of new reasons to not frack California

by GraigWYNhldpon Posted on May 22, 2014

Billions of barrels of new reasons to not frack California

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The health, environmental, and climate impacts of fracking haven’t been enough to convince California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to curb the process. Even as Brown urges California restaurants to limit servings of water to help conserve during a drought, oil drillers are gearing up to use the water-hungry practice of fracking to suck more crude out of the vast Monterey shale deposit.

But now the federal government has drastically downgraded its estimate of the amount of oil that could be fracked from the deposit, spurring environmentalists to demand yet again, and even more loudly, that Brown support a fracking moratorium in the state.

First, here’s an explanation of the downgrade from KQED:

Federal officials with the Energy Information Administration are reportedly downgrading their estimate of how much oil could be pumped out of the formation. Just a few years ago, the agency projected that oil companies could retrieve 15 billion barrels of oil. Now, it’s down to 600 million.

Just to clarify: these numbers don’t reflect how much oil is underground in California. Most geologists agree that there’s still plenty down there. The EIA is attempting to estimate how much could be pumped out with current technology.

Environmentalists quickly seized on the news. They didn’t want that oil drilled to begin with, and now that much of it may not be extractable, they argue that fracking would be even more wasteful than previously thought. “The myth of vast supplies of domestic oil resources and billions in potential revenue from drilling in California by the oil industry has been busted,” San Francisco billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer told the San Jose Mercury News.

Here are highlights from a letter that a coalition of environmentalists called Californians Against Fracking sent to Brown on Wednesday:

We urge you to move quickly to halt fracking and other dangerous oil-recovery methods in California in the wake of today’s news that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will be reducing their estimate of the amount of recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale by 96 percent. …

The EIA’s massively revised estimate for what is currently recoverable is a perfect illustration of the dangerous uncertainty surrounding fracking for oil. On the other hand, what is clear is that fracking, acidizing and other oil extraction techniques are putting Californians at risk today. Communities urgently need protection from fracking and drilling and we are looking to you to provide leadership and relief to these communities.

It seems disingenuous for Brown to tell residents to reduce their water use while allowing frackers to operate in their water-wasteful ways — and that disconnect only grows more glaring with the news that fracking won’t even deliver the oily goods that he had been hoping for.


Source
California’s Monterey Shale: Bonanza or Bust? Nobody Really Knows, KQED
Fracking: New Monterey Shale oil estimate rocks California’s expectations, San Jose Mercury News

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Billions of barrels of new reasons to not frack California

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Meet the new California, where Paris Hilton isn’t cool but walking, biking, and transit are

by AlvaroZDDysb Posted on March 26, 2014

Dream of Californication

Meet the new California, where Paris Hilton isn’t cool but walking, biking, and transit are

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Oleg

California was full of regrettable trends in the early aughts: Paris Hilton, Juicy Couture tracksuits, chockers, screamo, and, apparently, everyone driving 89 percent of the time. But a recent California Household Travel Survey shows some Golden State residents have thankfully traded in their Ugg boots for transit passes.

Californians now walk to their destination twice as much as they used to; the proportion of their trips made by foot is up from 8.4 percent in 2000 to 16.6 percent.

The study, which is based on the behavior of 109,000 people from more than 42,000 households over the course of 2012, also shows that more Californians are biking and using public transit to get around. In total, the amount of carless trips went from 11 percent in 2000 to 23 percent.

“Californians are increasingly choosing alternatives to driving a car for work and play,” Mart D. Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, said in a recent press release. “That’s a shift with real benefits for public health that also cuts greenhouse gas emissions and smog-forming pollution.”

The Federal Highway Administration has the nation’s trips by foot growing from 8.9 percent in 2001 to 11.5 percent in 2009. We hope this means America is speed-walking to catch up with California, which is often thought of as the national trendsetter for all things green. And maybe the plans in action to get even more Californians to make the habit of low-emissions transit, through initiatives like the Active Transportation Program, will get the wheels turning elsewhere, too. The program plans to distribute $129 million to transportation projects that will get more people out walking and biking – they’re currently calling for proposals to apply to get a piece of the pie.

Next time you Los Angelenos out there find yourselves yet again stuck in standstill traffic on the 405, just think of the possibility that you could be out actually enjoying all that sunshine. Sometimes, it turns out that all you need is a good pair of shoes.

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Cities

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Meet the new California, where Paris Hilton isn’t cool but walking, biking, and transit are

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Thousands of Californians are about to run out of water

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on January 30, 2014

Thousands of Californians are about to run out of water

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All Californians are being asked to cut back on their water use to help the state survive its drought emergency. But for members of 17 communities across the state, such reductions might not be voluntary — they’re in danger of running completely dry in the next few months.

Officials in these communities are considering the very real possibility that they’ll need to truck in water or even install portable desalination equipment.

The 17 vulnerable water systems serve as many as 11,000 residents apiece, though the tiniest serves just 39 people. Here’s the San Jose Mercury News with more:

In some communities, wells are running dry. In others, reservoirs are nearly empty. Some have long-running problems that predate the drought. …

“As the drought goes on, there will be more [communities at risk of running out of water] that probably show up on the list,” said Dave Mazzera, acting drinking-water division chief for the state Department of Public Health. …

Lompico County Water District, in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Felton, has long-standing water supply issues and is exploring a possible merger, but so far has been stymied by nearly $3 million in needed upgrades — a hefty bill for the district’s 500 customers.

“We have been unable to take water out of the creek since August and well production is down, and we didn’t have that much water to begin with,” said Lois Henry, a Lompico water board member.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Examiner reports that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to 2.5 million people in the Bay Area, could be forced to delay water recycling and water desalinization projects — just when they are needed the most.

The agency pipes most of its water all the way from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park — and a project to reinforce its nearly 200-mile network of water pipes and pumps is running over budget, forcing cuts to other projects.

The good news is that California is finally receiving some winter storms. The bad news is that they won’t be nearly enough to quench the state’s dire thirst for water.


Source
California drought: 17 communities could run out of water within 60 to 120 days, state says, San Jose Mercury News
Water supply project costs could halt plans for desalination, water recycling plants, San Francisco Examiner

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Thousands of Californians are about to run out of water

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Pepsi: Cancer for a new generation?

by weask Posted on July 5, 2013

Pepsi: Cancer for a new generation?

By John Upton

Beyonce’s not worried about additives.

Please don’t take this as an endorsement. But when it comes to avoiding cancer while you gulp down a sugar-blasting brand-name cola, Coke is it.

Pepsi has been lagging behind its main competitor in removing carcinogenic meth from its flagship cola product. Well, 4-methylimidazole, to be precise.

The chemical can form in trace amounts when caramel coloring used in cola is cooked. It has been found to cause cancer in rats.

Everybody who drinks corporate soda has been drinking the stuff for years. That was supposed to come to an end after California began requiring cancer warnings on products containing elevated levels of 4-methylimidazole. The new regulations prompted Coke and Pepsi to announce early last year that they would take steps to remove the chemical from their products nationwide.

But the Center for Environmental Health tested colas and found that while Californians are drinking safer sodas than they were before, some of the colas sold outside of California still contain high levels of the substance. From the nonprofit’s website:

If you live in California, Coke and Pepsi products are made without 4-MEI, a chemical known to cause cancer. But in testing of cola products from ten states, CEH found high levels of 4-MEI in ALL Pepsi cola products, while 9 out of ten Coke products were found without 4-MEI problems.

Pepsi swears it’s on it. From the AP:

Pepsi said its caramel coloring suppliers are changing their manufacturing process to cut the amount of 4-Mel in its caramel. That process is complete in California and will be finished in February 2014 in the rest of the country. Pepsi said it will also be taken out globally, but did not indicate a timeline.

You know, Pepsi and Coke, you could also just stop using caramel food coloring in your colas. But, then, clear cola would just be caffeinated sugar water. And that would be much harder to market as a sexy elixir.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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