(the picture above is a link in real time to the UCLA TowerCam at Mt. Wilson, and it's aimed at the fire for now)Well, here we go. Everyone's responsible for shutting off their faucets and sprinklers. Meantime, development expansion and paper water sales continue apace. The California Department of Water Resources is attempting to stem the abuses with a water management plan, but progress is glacial, to use a bad pun. Just like the legislature. A struggle goes on now in the state over the nature of water reform, and shifting it to a conservation-based structure rather than a plumbing problem focused on highest revenue.
Consume and buy. A directive issued by Bush immediately in the aftermath of the 9/11 destruction. A small problem appears, however. The jobs are gone, the big profits have dried up, and there's no financial reserves. California has already blown through a big chunk of its firefighting budget at the beginning of the fire season, another indicator of how overdevelpment and corporate supply chain to consumers (what happened to "people"?) has decimated the processes that provided a temperate climate, fresh air and adequate water to people in this region. This is mirrored in the global picture, as our human-inflicted climate change reduces the resources provided in nature, as well as its diversity.
Backlash to this arson-initiated destruction of the Station Fire has begun; I would expect that it will encompass the larger issues in the Southern California region very quickly. Hopefully it will result in a reaffirmation of the central importance of the natural environment in people's lives, and return the focus from profit to stewardship.
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