California

In the soft warmth of spring the swallows famously return to Capistrano, but in recent years they are followed by what seems inevitable summer power outages and fires. This is not as pleasant an experience for Californians as the return of our favored feathered companions.  read more »

Since intermittent electricity from wind and solar cannot provide continuous uninterruptable electricity, the state continues to rely on the Southwest and Northwest states for its power, and continues to be proud of “leaking” emissions to other states electrical generation so California can claim in-state emission reductions to meet its insatiable electricity demands.  read more »

By virtue of being chosen Joe Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California has reasonable odds of becoming president someday—and probably better odds than the average running mate, given Biden’s advanced years and sometimes shaky public presentation. That’s cause for concern, not because she represents, as some conservatives fret, the far Left but because she will promote the spread of California’s increasingly feudal political and economic order, which undermines the upward mobility that long defined the California experience.  read more »

No state advertises its green credentials more than California. That these policies often hurt the economy, driving up housing costs and narrowing opportunities for working-class people while not even doing much for the environment, has not discouraged the state’s environmental overlords.  read more »

No state wears its multicultural veneer more ostentatiously than California. The Golden State’s leaders believe that they lead a progressive paradise, ushering in what theorists Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca call “a new progressive era.” Others see California as deserving of nationhood; it reflects, as a New York Times columnist put it, “the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society.”  read more »

Many of you will be familiar with Temple Grandin. She’s the autistic woman who designs slaughterhouses from the cattle’s perspective. By organizing the process in a way that’s calming to the animals it improves efficiency. Her primary contribution is the recognition that animals are highly sensitive to small symbolic details: a shadow, a dangling chain, a hose left on the ground, a flapping flag.  read more »

For all the persistent rhetoric from California’s leaders about this state being on the cutting edge of social and racial justice, the reality on the ground is far grimmer.  read more »

To the detriment of those that can least afford expensive energy, California climate policies have driven up the cost of electricity and fuels to be among the highest in the country. The cost burdens of those policies may be fueling (no pun intended) the basis of a rebellion as the state’s climate policies discriminate against minority and low-income consumers.  read more »

For decades, the state that has been dominated by one-party that has been laying the foundation for a budget catastrophe. The concept of having the wealthy bear the responsibility to fund most of the state’s General Fund and the constant efforts to have its residents pay the highest costs for electricity and fuels is about to burst the proverbial ideological bubble.  read more »

From the beginning, California promised much. While yet barely a name on the map, it entered American awareness as a symbol of renewal. It was a final frontier: of geography and of expectation.
—Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream: 1850–1915  read more »