From Watts Up With That

By Sunrise’s Swansong

Caleb Shaw

Pacific storms have been crashing into the west coast, and another his drenching them this evening (February 4, 2024.)

This will likely cause some mudslides, but is nothing like the terrible floods of 1862 which shut down Sacramento.

Amazing floods struck California back then,

The people in charge of maintaining California’s infrastructure have to take the possibility of such a storm into account, when planning, at the same time as tax-payers don’t want to pay for the levees and dams and culverts and spillways necessary to handle what was, after all, a “once every 1,000 year event.” The attitude seems to be, “We still have 838 years to go before it happens again. Let those future taxpayers deal with it.” However the people in charge know weather doesn’t obey man’s logic. In 1969 I saw two “once every hundred year” storms hit New England in February, and in 1978 it happened again. In any case, the people in charge (who will bear the blame if things go wrong) in California call the worst-case scenario of a repeat of 1862, “The ARcStorm”, and confess that, despite all the technical advancements of modern science, they can not prevent major flooding from occurring.

I suspect that there are some who hope to profit from increasing the public’s awareness of the possibility of an ARcStorm. For example, the man who sells really big culverts.

However this is nothing, compared to the people who hope to profit from the fantasy of Global Warming. When trillions of dollars are involved, some people behave in a very foolish manner. These people seemingly like to misinform the public, behaving as if a perfectly ordinary rainstorm was the ARcStorm, and that furthermore the disaster is all your fault for not buying an electric car.

We need to remind these foolish people that only a year ago they were predicting a mega-drought, and stating it was all our fault for not purchasing an electric car. Where is that drought now?

There is almost no drought to be seen in California. What happened?Did the entire population rush out and buy electric cars?

No. California weather just did what California weather is notorious for doing, which is to fluctuate between floods and droughts. No big deal. It is something people learn to live with. It is something described by Steinbeck in “Grapes of Wrath” and “To a God Unknown”. It is old news. Yet, if you bring up this old news, the politically correct get offended that you are daring to defy their new news. But their new news is balderdash.

Where is this mega-drought they were so crazed with worry about, a year ago?

According to the Old Testament, once a prophet is proven to be false, they are to be taken to the edge of town and stoned to death. This seems a bit extreme to me. However, as I have faced the outrage of the politically correct, and been “shadow banned” and have experienced other unpleasant aspects of “cancel culture”, I do think “turnabout is fair play”. Maybe it is their turn to feel what it is like to be “cancelled”.

This is not to say California doesn’t need to think hard about how it uses water. Roughly a billion gallons of water each day is slurped from the Colorado River to feed the thirst of San Diego and Los Angeles. If the population of California is roughly 40 million, that means each person guzzles 25 gallons each day. Something to think about. How much goes to stupid lawns which people never even use? How much goes to growing food that feeds 49 other states?

P.S. The level of Lake Mead is rising.

What is interesting is how little is being sucked out of Lake Mead (“outflow”) to water Southern California’s crops, because the rains are blessing California’s fields.

It is important to count our blessings. I remember to thank California (and our Creator) every time I enjoy an almond.