Rational thinking needed in California

Having toured much of the state recently, one can readily observe the pall of smoke blanketing our state from the (mostly) California wildfires. The wildfires, producing smoke, ash and other particulates, are one way that Mother Nature and Father Time redistribute the earth’s natural resources – just look at your windshield each morning to see the evidence of this redistribution. All that dust comes from somewhere, not just our often windy weather.

Though tragic through the loss of life and property, the wildfires do have a beneficial effect on states downwind. The prevailing winds blow in the fire residue, dust and ash settling to earth, providing additional nutrients to our soils and waterways. Alas, this beneficial aspect of the fires has been completely overshadowed by politics, particularly from the extremist left.

The governor of California has cited the fires as more evidence of “climate change” (a.k.a. global warming), and that this change must be accepted as the “new normal.” The President has partially blamed the wildfires on California’s radical, far-left environmental laws precluding usage of river and reservoir water to contain the fires and keeping it in rivers to save the Sacramento Delta smelt (for one example). Both have opposing opinions, with one citing computer-modeled theory (climate change) and the other citing established state (California) law. Which one can be believed and supported?

I choose the law over the radical opinions of the far left. Just look at our own state. Logging is allowed here, especially to remove the trees killed by the pine bark beetle infestations. True, the state suffered a large fire down by the Colorado border (another state controlled by the politics (i.e. Democrats) and environmental fervor of the far left), a fire which I believe started in that state and spread to Wyoming. Our state has suffered few fires this season, while California burns. Their laws have pretty much shut down the logging industry there, destroying thousands of timber industry jobs, while protecting dead trees from harvest so they can be recycled into the earth, and other activities by the radical environmentalists who seem to want all people to disappear and return the land to its pre-people natural condition.

I wish California well. My daughter and her family live in San Francisco. I only hope that someday some sane, rational thinking will overcome the idiocy of what is going on now in that state.