Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” (Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles)
Sowell is right, and it’s playing out in California’s San Francisco Bay. The Bay is beginning to resemble a toxic waste dump. One of the chief culprits is Heterosigma akashiwo, an organism responsible for one of the biggest threats to aquatic life in the Bay. It feeds on wastewater rich in nitrogen and phosphorous which streams into the Bay from the area’s sewage treatment plants and storm drains. The subsequent algae bloom suffocates the natural plant and animal life in these waters. One would think that the millions and billions shoveled out to fashionable victims’ groups (illegal immigrants, etc.), abortion tourism (anyone from anywhere gets an all-expenses-paid trip to end unborn life on the California taxpayers’ dime), the dole, and the Sierra Club’s greenie utopia could be redirected to cleaning up the Bay. Sorry, in this case, ecotopia cancels real ecology, the ecology of the Bay. A classic tradeoff: eco-calamity in exchange for the progressives’ dreamland.
That’s right, a tradeoff is actually about how one thing subsidizes another. Not covertly, but in reality. More money for one thing is less money available for something else, like updating and maintaining the area’s sewage treatment plants, and getting the region’s homeless off the streets and keeping them from turning the sidewalks, gutters, and storm drains into a huge open toilet. That stuff gets directly flushed into the Bay. And they used to say about Mexico, “Don’t drink the water.”
The Bay area’s descent into pre-modern times is what the residents unknowingly – and maybe knowingly – voted for. They chose in their elections to be distracted by a progressive pseudo-nirvana and into boom-and-bust electricity, and therefore blackouts, massive wildfires from eco-crazed forestry practices, and decaying infrastructure in everything from some of the nation’s worst roads to its overburdened aqueducts and empty reservoirs. Eco-nirvana makes it easy to pillage public safety in campaigns to defund the police – oh, I mean “reform the police”. Crime spikes and smash-and-grabs frighten retailers out of the state. The regulatory strangulation of the state’s housing industry has created a supply for the 20 million of the 60’s and not the 39.2 million (and rapidly declining) of today. This was a broad political choice to trade prosperity for devolution. The classic tradeoff.
Don’t blame “climate change”. Be honest, the science is unsettled, and, anyway, California can’t do squat about it. 2.8 billion in India and China, and their cheap electricity, cancels the Golden State’s mere 39 million (and rapidly declining) and its EV’s and expensive and unreliable juice. It’s amazing that Newsom retains approvals in the 90’s among the state’s Democrats, who easily double the registration share of Republicans in the state. Lunacy is popular.
The cause of the Bay’s aquatic predicament is something very simple: If you’re going to have 7.75 million people packed around the Bay, an upgraded sewage treatment system is a necessity to match the 2 million flushing toilets and the expansive open-air john that is the preferred choice of its huge drug-addled, mentally disturbed constituency on the streets and in the parks. Don’t hold your breath waiting for something benign to happen. The necessary upgrades could double or triple property taxes and water rates. There’s one thing that these people are: they are overwhelmingly lefties, yes, but they like to keep as much of their money as anyone on the farm. They are already the most heavily taxed population in the nation, if not the planet. On top of everything else, I don’t think they’ll be in a mood to be taxed into the poorhouse, which is what will have to happen if they are to have their eco pseudo-heaven and a healthy Bay.
Something will have to give. How about exchanging some of the eco-nuttiness and giveaways for a healthier Bay? Sorry, San Francisco and California, you can’t suspend tradeoffs, or have it both ways, unless you’re in the mood for rapid depopulation. People still have to balance checking accounts.
You can read more on the issue here:
* Read about the decline of the Bay at “Poop and pee fueled the huge algae bloom in San Francisco Bay. Fixing the problem could cost $14 billion”, San Francisco Chronicle, Tarra Duggan, Sept. 5, 2022, at https://archive.ph/hAhrn#selection-137.0-137.104.
* Further reading on the problem can be found at “Wastewater, Not Climate, Fueled Massive Algae Bloom in ‘Epicenter of Supposed Environmentalism’”, Ryan Mills, National Review, Sept. 23, 2022, at https://www.nationalreview.com/news/wastewater-not-climate-fueled-massive-algae-bloom-in-epicenter-of-supposed-environmentalism/.
* An account of San Francisco’s descent can be read at “San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide”, Michael Gibson, founder of the venture-capital 1517 Fund, National Review, April 8, 2019, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/san-francisco-decline-failed-government-policies/.
* California’s designation as having the nation’s worst roads (tied with DC) can be found in “These States Have the Worst Roads”, US News and World Report, Dec. 4, 2020, at https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-04/these-states-have-the-worst-roads-in-america.
RogerG