2001 January

Power Shortages

California gets hit by droughts repeatedly and the consequences get worse. We all agree that the traffic infrastructure is becoming less adequate by the day. Now we have the "strange phenomenon" of power shortages. The simple common cause is pervasive, reckless population growth beyond what the state supports. Certainly we could sacrifice the environment and build more power plants. But that is not what life in California is about. I thought our aim is "smart growth": i.e. doing more by the same number of people, or even smarter growth: i.e. doing more with less people.

What is in the brain of the civil servants and politicians that keep on handing out building permits for industry and residential development while we are actually booked full? Are they blind for the quality of life detoriation in our state?

Do we need still more calamities like floods, fires and earth quakes (as in other regions in the world) to drive the insight home that we live beyond what our environment can reliably and comfortably support? Aren't we supposed to be proactive? Let's do the unthinkable: reduce the size of the population and increase the state's output. Everything is downhill from thereon.