I have no problem speaking truth to power.
Or at least my opinion to power.
If I’m mad about an legal loophole in an out-of-date law, I’ll say something about it. If I think a local elected official is being particularly boneheaded, I’ll speak up.
The hope is that someone will hear me—or others like me, or all of us together—and plug that hole or de-bone that head, making the world a better place.
In my opinion, of course. Which, if I do say so myself, is a pretty solid one.
I consider my desire to raise my voice in opposition to injustice or apathy or bumbling incompetence or whininess to be one of my greatest strengths, which is why I’m at a loss for words this week.
The thing most on my mind is fire, and I don’t know who to point at when it comes to this one. As tinder-dry grass and trees are engulfed in flames seemingly every week in this area—a reality that kicked in sooner than anyone expected this year—I’m angry and have nobody at whom I can vent my anger.
Sure, every fire starts somehow, and that, I must say, makes for an easy target. Shooting at explosives? Yeah, that’s a good way to hurt yourself, hurt others, and devastate the neighborhood/ecosystem. Playing with illegal fireworks? The same. I’m a touch more sympathetic to the folks for whom a fire simply got out of hand—the campers who left their blaze unattended, the kids getting together to celebrate the end of the school year with some light and heat in the darkness—but still, a little care goes a long way when it comes to preventing raging infernos.
That reminds me—a bear I knew back in college would go around telling people about the dangers of wildfires, warning them that only they could prevent destructive blazes, but he got a cease-and-desist letter from Smokey’s attorneys, so he sort of clammed up about it. I think he went into marketing and hawks breakfast cereal now.
Anyway, I understand that thoughtless people doing stupid things will burn down many a tree and home, but the dry conditions certainly create a less-than-forgiving environment. One stray spark, one errant bit of hot ash is all it takes, and that, to me, seems like something that can happen to anybody.
What I’m perplexedly angry about this week is those parched hillsides. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that our tiny corner of the world is experiencing a moderate to severe drought. Almost half of the state’s rangelands and pastures are rated poor to very poor.
Sure, humans divert water from here to there to make stuff like vegetables and cities grow. And sure the water systems are being overtaxed to the point where farmers, developers, and others are tapping into finite groundwater basins and draining out more than comes in. And of course we all live in an ongoing state of flux when it comes to figuring out how much water we have, who has rights to it, and what it should be used for. Need to see what that looks like? Take a gander at Nipomo. Or Paso Robles. Or California over the last couple hundred years.
But who do I blame for the brittle grass, the cracking tree limbs? Humanity? And how about the gusting winds that breathe life into a fire, making it able to gobble up a thousand acres in a couple of hours? Do I rail at God? Mother Earth? Entropy?
I must admit that writing this week’s column is highly unsatisfying.
But I don’t know where to look for satisfaction.
In early May, Santa Maria Fire Chief Dan Orr said Ventura County’s Springs Fire represented “unbelievable fire behavior.” Andrew Madsen of the Los Padres National Forest, facing a Memorial Day weekend fire in Southern Santa Barbara County, said this May is so hot and dry, it looks like August.
So what’s August going to look like? Mars? I don’t even know what that means. And now that I think about it, Mars doesn’t even have any trees—dry or otherwise—so just forget it.
I heard a few weeks back that Santa Maria is actually pretty good at conserving water. Kudos to you all. People are taking shorter showers, planting native gardens that require less sprinklering, shutting off the tap when they shave or brush their teeth, and doing all those great things that conserve a splish here, a splash there. And while that’s very important, I can’t help but look south—past the Santa Ynez Valley and through the smoke of the currently burning and recently extinguished fires—to Los Angeles. That’s a smoldering heap that will only spread.
But forget it. Forget me. Aside from arguing population control or something—which I’m not going to do—I have no solutions for the ongoing and increasing problem of people needing water, food to feed those people needing water, developments needing water, and the world needing water.
So I’ve become what I hate: Someone whining with no real purpose. Maybe next week I’ll write a column about myself.
Put the Canary out at canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 30 – Jun 6, 2013.
