Environment & Wildfires | California Policy Center

Cleaning Bay Source Pollution Will Enable More Delta Diversions

On February 21, the California State Water Resources Control Board waived environmental regulations in order to permit more storage in Central Valley reservoirs. This came a week after Governor Gavin Newsom temporarily suspended environmental laws that prevent reservoir storage if flow through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta falls below 58,000 acre feet per day. A guest opinion piece...

By Edward Ring

The “Net Zero” Delusions of California’s Ruling Class

Last week, I attended an event in downtown Sacramento produced by an industry trade association. One of the highlights of this event was a plenary session where a high ranking state politician addressed the crowd. The participants shall remain anonymous, because who they were doesn’t matter. What was said, and how it was received, was...

By Edward Ring

Solar Farms Should Not Displace Prime Farmland

Successfully coping with severe droughts in California and the Southwest requires tough choices, all of them expensive and none of them perfect. But taking millions of acres out of cultivation and replacing them with solar farms is not the answer. California produces over one-third of America’s vegetables and three quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts –...

By Edward Ring

California’s Unelected Tyrants

Zeroing in on “unelected tyrants” in a state as dysfunctional and regressive as California is not easy. There are too many targets. Even California’s elected state legislators, as they cook up and pass countless tyrannical intrusions into our lives and livelihoods, are themselves “elected” only so long as they pledge obeisance to a powerful coalition of special interests...

By Edward Ring

Questions About Water for Governor Newsom

Borrowing a page from the More Water Now campaign, which unsuccessfully attempted earlier this year to qualify a water funding initiative for the November 2022 ballot, Governor Newsom announced a new water supply strategy on August 11. Perhaps with the presidency in mind, or perhaps because he really means it, Newsom’s remarks were surprisingly accommodating towards those of us who...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 15: Our Fight for More Water

Editor’s note: This is the fifteenth and last article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” There are plenty of ways to ration water, and California’s state legislature is pursuing all of...

By Edward Ring

How Much Fossil Fuel is Left?

Fossil fuel powers the economic engine of civilization. With a minor disruption in the supply of fossil fuel, crops wither and supply chains crash. With a major disruption, a humanitarian apocalypse engulfs the world. Events of the past few months have made this clear. Without energy, civilization dies, and in 2020 fossil fuel continued to...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 14: Infinite Abundance

Editor’s note: This is the fourteenth article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” From the inaugural Stanford Digital Economy Lab gathering in April 2022, noted venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson posted the following quote to Facebook:...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 13: The Lords of Scarcity

Editor’s note: This is the thirteenth article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” One of the farmers who supported our attempt to qualify the Water Infrastructure Funding Act for the November...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 12: Fighting Scope Insensitivity

Editor’s note: This is the twelfth article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” Scope insensitivity happens whenever a statistic has huge emotional impact but in reality has little relevance to the...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 11: The Desalination Option

Editor’s note: This is the eleventh article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” On May 12, the California Coastal Commission Board of Directors voted 11-0 to deny the application from Poseidon Water to build a desalination plant...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 10: Time to Stop Wasting Wastewater

Editor’s note: This is the tenth article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” If there is any source of water that ought to be optimized, it is the wastewater produced by...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 9: Can Reservoirs be Part of the Solution?

Editor’s note: This is the ninth article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” In May 1957, Harvey Banks, then director of the California Department of Water Resources, submitted “The California Water...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Choice – Part 8: The Union Factor

Editor’s note: This is the eighth article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” The moment we met Robbie Hunter, then president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council, we knew we...

By Edward Ring