We all believe in climate change. And we all care about the environment.
As we know, the climate has been changing for millions of years and will, presumably, continue to do so for millions more.
The issue isn’t whether Mother Nature is being messed up. She ultimately has the power and authority to decide whether and where it rains. Or how hot or cold a location will be. She’s absolutely in charge and as the old Chiffon margarine commercial quip reminds us, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. The problem is environmentalists think they’re smarter than she is and are trying to take over her job.
Supporters of today’s environmentalism are not our friends or friends of the environment. It’s become a religion.
The recent fires have brought this truth to the forefront and have opened the eyes of many who probably hadn’t even thought about it before but have now become enlightened. From when the flames first erupted, the story blossomed from “hundred-mile-an-hour winds” to “Where’s the water?” Then it mushroomed into “Where’s the water for the entire state and how come fire prevention measures had ceased years ago?” Environmentalists and the Monarchy of the California Coastal Commission (CCC) are the criminals indirectly responsible for the large fires and lack of water by making illogical decisions and creating regulatory roadblocks.
Growing up in Santa Barbara, the Forest Service used to carry out controlled burns in the Los Padres forest. Granted, a couple did get away from them, but it was a long-term plan to prevent major fires from occurring. This happened everywhere in the state. And it worked.
The massive fires we get today have absolutely nothing to do with climate change. They’re nearly all man made. What happened is we allowed the environmentalists to dictate how to manage things by doing nothing rather than using common sense. The result is decimated forests, thousands of dead wildlife, the eco system shot to hell, mudslides, clogged creeks. And I’m just talking about the wilderness. We just witnessed (again) what the unmanaged woodlands nestled up to homes can do. We’ve seen it over and over. And yet we’re being forced to drive electric cars charged by energy produced from coal to keep the air clean. I guess toxic smoke is organic.
Humans Now the Endangered Species
The hippies have created such a stranglehold on developing new water storage they have tightened the noose to within a breath of killing agriculture in one of the most soil-nutritious valleys in the world: the San Juaquin. At one time you could drive up I-5 and the surrounding landscape as far as the eye could see was green. Or driving across Hwy 46 you’d see large trailers filled to the brim with cotton. Most of the view along that highway now is just dirt.
A hoax we allowed the hippies to get away with was enacting the Endangered Species Act. The title sounds good, much as Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act.” How did that work out? The ESA gave so much power to those determined to strongarm oil companies, farmers, and even homeowners. If there was so much as a midnight sighing of a salamander, red-legged frog, or a tiny greasy two-inch fish, boom, shut down. There literally was nothing you could do to move the meter to get your project to move forward. Any attempt to reason with the Coastal Commission, or the hundreds of environmental groups or God forbid the California bureaucracy, is the equivalent of trying to have a serious conversation with a drunk. They don’t care what you have to say.
The recent fires were terrible but in a roundabout way a silver lining of sorts. It exposed all the failures. Suddenly the reality of how badly managed California is – under the guise of climate change and “environmental protection” – was revealed to those who wouldn’t ordinarily care or even pay attention.
CCC Spending Money Like It’s Water
You can point the fingers at people like LA Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, and we should, because they had the power to be proactive, but liberal politics in California always takes precedent. Two property owners in Cambria have tried for twenty years to build a house on their respective properties. Despite having county approved building permits, the spiteful CCC didn’t like it and therefore had all the power to say no. Recently a San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of Al Hadian and Ralph Bookout. It only took two decades. However, at the same time the state of California is requiring – forcing – the building of thousands of new homes to house the illegals in this sanctuary state.
Everyone else is leaving.
When the CCC was born in 1973 it had annual expenses of just under $400,000. In 2023-2024, it spent over $35 million! Are you kidding me? Go to documents coastal.ca.gov and see how all that money is spent.
It’s such a bizarre and crazy thing when we have a drought, we’re all told to cut back on our water use. The state was negligent in its duties, but we pay the price.
As I said above, the fires have opened eyes. Having President Trump in office has been the biggest blessing this state and country have seen in quite a while. I say that because he’s come back even stronger and better than four years ago. With him on our side, maybe, just maybe, we can abolish the CCC and start getting rid of thousands of regulations designed to give control to the enviro left.
Like Trump cleansing Washington, it’s time California sanitizes her own house. Get a handle on all the ridiculous regulations and go back to managing our forests, building dams if that’s what it it’s going to take and capture and develop as much water as possible.
The state and super enviros have such an upside down, backwards way of thinking. You allow fires to pollute the air. You have no water to put them out. We don’t have enough water for farming and homes, but little fish, frogs, and lizards, who aren’t even aware, are wreaking havoc on the humans.
Next time you dance around with flowers in your hair on Earth Day, take a moment to thank yourself for the scorched lands and the diminishing water supply necessary to make the tofu.
I agree with you Mr. Schulte in your abysmal assessment of our environmental affairs here in California. Yes, the CCC possibility had good intentions during its inception, but has morphed into a radical, Marxist Junta which has collaborated and conspired with radical left wing environmental activists as those in the Sierra Club, EDC, Green Peace and Surfrider. It should be obvious to all, the environmentalists have destroyed our state in having radical views concerning agriculture, water policy, forest management and fiscal stewardship. The CCC is corrupt and should be investigated by the Trump DOJ, in fact the entire state should be under investigation for its incompetence and negligence in addressing the destruction caused by wild fires, which was foreseeable and preventable!
Trusting the CCC with public funds is about as ridiculous and absurd as public funding for Black Lives Matter, oh wait, that actually happened!
Yes, the environmentalists continue lobbying efforts to take farm land and convert it to “land trusts” which we see here locally, thereby removing huge swathes of Ag land off the tax roles and closing public access…what a scam!
Of course illegal immigration is non negotiable with the green movement, despite the massive amounts of pollution, disease and environmental destruction. We see now where local “warriors” are aiding, abetting, interfering and thwarting federal agents from making arrests of illegal criminal aliens. “805Undocufund” is busy locally, tipping off and printing license plate numbers of federal agents in an effort to obstruct removal of illegals. These perpetrators should be jailed immediately!
Great article. May I add a few comments?
CARB California Air Resources Board prevents most control burns from happening. It is so ironic that CARB stops these smaller, less destructive and less intense fires from occurring in favor of more destructive hyper intensity soil destroying huge conflagrations More polluting smoke comes out of these fires than a century worth of control burns
In conjunction with smoke, did you know that recently the vintners are now stopping most control burns?????
Why?? Because it damages the taste of their wine. So save the wines but burn down your homes. Hmmm?
On a closing note, I had a very well respected retired local city fire chief state the a fact. “If he burns down one home in a control burn he will be fired yet if a hundred homes are destroyed in a wildfire, he is a hero. Hmm? Go figure.