This isn't the California I married...

[NNadir]

This is the title of an article in a recent New York Times piece: This isn't the California I married

Subtitle: The honeymoon’s over for its residents now that wildfires are almost constant. Has living in this natural wonderland lost its magic?

Like the authors of this piece, I got married in California, the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe actually, but as soon as we hitched we returned to the California side for some fabulous skiing in deep powder. The first nine years of our marriage were very much invested in enjoying California, first from the South Bay Beach Cities of LA County, then in San Diego. As often as we could get away we went to Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, Big Sur, skiing Mammoth, skiing even in the San Gabriels... We went morning runs on Torrey Pines Beach for years.

It was a special place to deepen our love...

It was a quarter of a century ago that we left, and my wife actually wept when we crossed the border to go East. As we settled into New Jersey we never regretted leaving, but that is not to say that we didn't retain a special love for the State.

According to the authors of this piece - the title struck me because of our history there - it's no longer the California she married.

...Climate change...

Some excerpts:

Early in my two-writer marriage, my husband and I joked that we should add a silent third spouse who worked in venture capital or practiced corporate law. But really, we already had a bonus partner: California. The state was dramatic and a handful. But she was gorgeous, and she brought into our lives, through the natural world, all the treasure and magic we’d need. The beaches. The mountains. The clean waves at Malibu. The seal pups at Año Nuevo State Park. This was not just our relationship to California; this was everyone here. The implicit bargain was that California would protect and deliver to her residents the earth’s own splendor. In return, we’d spend a stupid amount of money on housing and tolerate a few hazards. We stowed an earthquake kit in the basement of our tiny house and, even prepandemic, cached boxes of N95 masks under the sink. Why live anywhere else? My human spouse hung photos of El Capitan in the entrance hall. We propped a bright red surfboard against the living-room wall.

In hindsight, it’s clear that this romance between California and her citizens was fundamentally unstable, built on a lousy foundation and crumbling for years. But when you’re enmeshed, even the troublesome patterns are hard to see. All Californians tell their stories. Ours, courtesy of privilege (race, education, a house purchased in the 1990s), are mundane. Police escorted us over flaming hills as we tried to return home from backpacking trips. I woke up to texts from friends: HAVE YOU HEARD FROM YOUR PARENTS? ARE YOUR PARENTS OK? after their neighborhood in Napa burned. My parents — thank God — were already with me. Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest utility, started turning off power to millions of residents in an attempt not to ignite (more of) the state. We all knew these so-called public-safety power shut-offs were an appalling sign of a diseased empire. You couldn’t just abandon basic functions and duties, could you? But it turns out you can.

The dominant story in California these days is that the orange, dystopian smoke-filled sky that blanketed the state on Sept. 9, 2020, was proof that our beloved was corrupted and had been for some time. We were in the midst of the worst wildfire season in the state’s history, and the evident wrongness traumatized us and shook us awake. Living in California now meant accepting that fire was no longer an episodic hazard, like earthquakes. Wildfire was a constant...

Sigh...

It once was a marvelous place to live, expensive as hell, but well worth the price.

One of my sons has applied to graduate school at UC Berkeley's nuclear engineering department. There was a time I would have looked very favorably on that, and hoped for him to go there, getting California into one's soul while learning what good one could do for the world. Now I hope he doesn't go there, that he stays away.

According to these authors California's becoming a futuristic dystopia. I can't help agreeing, even as I have shed tears for old passed nirvana.

[Mr.Bill]

1. A few points here.

Climate change is not only happening in California, it is global. Just ask the people of Kentucky about those tornadoes, or people freezing to death in Texas last winter.

Not everywhere in California is expensive. We don't all live in Malibu or San Francisco.

As far as California vs New Jersey, I never had to wake up in the morning knowing Chris Christie was my governor.

[NNadir]

3. I had to wake up in the morning knowing Ronald Reagan was my Governor, Pete Wilson, George...

...Deukmejian were my Governors. I managed to miss "hydrogen Hummer" Schwarzenegger.

I also had to wake up in the morning knowing that Randall "Duke" Cunningham, now a convicted felon, was my Congressperson.

I will concede however, that in General, New Jersey has had a horrible record of selecting Governors. Maybe bad Governor luck follows me. Until Phil Murphy came along, the only New Jersey Governor of whom I thought highly was Jim Florio, who was a one termer defeated by Christie Todd Whitman who actually was the worst EPA administrator since James Watt, since she signed on to climate denial.

I am acutely aware of the international nature of climate change. My Journal here is filled with commentary on the subject, a recent entry being this one: Roundup of the Weekly Readings at the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory in 2021.

I will say this, California's climate policies are ineffective, and with the planned closure of Diablo Canyon, California's climate policies are going to make things worse, not better.

[Mr.Bill]

7. No single state can have that much effect on their climate. Like I said,

it's a global problem and it will take every country to make a difference. As far as our policies being ineffective, California since the 60s has led the way on vehicle emmisions reduction. Now we are leading the change to electric cars. A new law to be phased in requires separating all food waste for trash pickup, where it will be composted to reduce methane in landfills. We known this can be done because San Francisco has been doing it for 25 years.

As far as Governors, I present four terms of Jerry Brown.

[NNadir]

12. Every human being is involved. That said, Americans hold, by far, the largest share of historic...

...carbon released into the atmosphere.

I wrote about it here: Interested in the per capita CO2 emissions of every country in the world since the 18th century?

Electric cars are an unsustainable fantasy. They are not clean, not sustainable, mostly because of the requirement for the unsustainable mining of metals like cobalt in particular, although the nickel mines of Siberia are considered one of world's greatest environmental disasters, but also because electricity, despite much popular daydreaming to the contrary, is generated increasingly from dangerous fossil fuels and because electricity is a thermodynamically degraded form of energy.

I wrote about the environmental impact of the world's largest nickel mine here: Nickel oxide is literally green, which is good for your very "green" electric car that's saving...

The metal impact of these types of energy fantasies are going to leave an even more horrible legacy to future generations than all the stuff that went before.

California is very, very, very, very good at embracing pop energy ideas without thinking them through. Of course, much of the rest of the world is as well. Whatever it is we think we're doing, it's not working. The rate of the dangerous fossil fuel waste accumulations on this planet has been rising, dramatically, through all of the 21st century. The second derivative of carbon dioxide accumulations has gone from around 1.80 ppm/yr^2 to 2.46 ppm/yr^2 in less than 20 years.

I note that the impact of climate change on California - and the rest of the North American West - is probably more dire than we face in New Jersey, although our hurricanes have not been a source of climate amusement here. We are definitely experiencing extreme weather along with the rest of the world.

I've heard in this forum that remarking on the fires and extreme temperatures in California is right wing propaganda. One hears these things, but really doesn't want to believe them possible.

[padfun]

2. Seriously??

California is doing just fine.

Stop listening to the right-wing bullshit.

[NNadir]

4. I don't consider it right wing bullshit.

[padfun]

5. To us in California, we hear that NJ is a hell hole

And there are people in Arizona who think California is going to fall in the ocean and they will have beachfront property.
and there are obviously people in New Jersey who think California is a hell hole.

I've heard crap for 50 years and things are just fine here. Except the virus stops me from going to Yosemite or go eat at good restaurants in San Francisco. but the virus is everywhere.

[hunter]

6. Not giving up here yet.

This is, after all, the land where Devin Nunes' got kicked in the balls by a cow and resigned to sing soprano for Trump.

If Berkeley ever called me back offering nothing more than a cot in some disused closet, a bathroom down the hall, and any food I could divert from the dumpsters, I might still be tempted...

[onecaliberal]

8. I love this state. I was born here and have lived here my entire life.

It is expensive to live here, some places more so than others. The adventures and beauty have a price of admission. That being said, it is nothing like it was in my youth. The north side route to Yosemite is all torched. It was a very depressing sight.

[cally]

9. This is ridiculous

I think many of us in California have suffered with the drought and fires, but we still live in a wonderful state. Climate change is everywhere, Berkeley is a great school, and this state is gorgeous.

Quit bashing one state only when the entire west had massive droughts and fires. New Jersey does not appeal to me at all, but I would never post one article and post that the entire state is bad

[Boxerfan]

10. I drove down to Ca after 12 years in Oregon.

A friend had died & I went to his wake.

I had seen the weather shift already in the Portland area where I lived. But seeing all the trees browned & pretty much gone from a prevalent green to a deeply stressed forest areas. And the Shasta Lake was just a ribbon waaaay down the canyon. I hope it has recovered to full but it was pretty bad (back in 2013).

That and the over development. They are doing that up here in Oregon last 10 years so that is just the way things are going.

[spooky3]

11. I will always love California. Nt

[oioioi]

14. +1

[Pobeka]

13. I have heard they are pushing hard to get prescribed burning again.

For centuries (literally), native americans would burn many of the forests, which would allow the mature trees to live but promote new undergrowth. This encouraged browsing animals, and as a side affect reduced fuel loads in the understory considerably.

One thing environmentalists got wrong was to eliminate prescribed burning. That, plus total fire supression for nearly all of the 20th century, plus climate change magnification of heat and drought has made the "perfect storm". Reducing the understory fuel load is a must. I just hope there are plenty of safe weather windows in the winter for prescribed burns to make a significant impact.

[NNadir]

18. I fully credit what you say. I once attended a "campfire" lecture...

...at Yosemite on the role that fire plays in the life cycle of Giant Sequoias.

It appears they require fire to produce seeds, if I recall correctly through the years.

This said, climate change and dense population near wild spaces places a new wrinkle that is sure to generate controversy.

[Bobstandard]

15. I sure hope everyone reading op agrees

To crowded, to expensive, too dangerous; don’t come!

[inthewind21]

20. Nonsense

California was, is now and will always be the state with EVERYTHING. Beaches, Mountains, Forests, etc. and the best weather ever. Next best state, Nevada, because of it's proximity to California!

[BlueCheeseAgain]

22. I think Bob is being tongue-in-cheek.

Doesn't want other people overcrowding California.

[Raine]

16. If I hadn't been born here, lived here all my life and have family here

I would move, this is not the California it used to be. It's expensive, crowded, people are getting ruder and less and less civil, crime is spreading along with the homeless being left on the street to fend pretty much for themselves. It's still has a special beauty to it but the negatives for me are beginning to outweigh the positives.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

17. Article is paywalled.

But one day of orange haze about 15 months ago is the "dominant story in California these days"? I'm pretty sure that's not the case among the people I know.

[BannonsLiver]

19. Meh

The author of the piece seems whiny and entitled. Go whine in South Dakota or Tennessee.

[inthewind21]

21. Or Texas