Hi Steven, in the spirit of California conversation, I wanted to let your readers know that we posted a response to your essay and to some of the broader questions that you raised. Here’s the link. I’m also pasting it in here so readers can see it.
California’s struggle with drought has been the subject of a series in The New York Times, “The Parched West,” that began shortly after Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory reductions in water use on April 1 for the first time in California’s history.
One of the aims of the series is to draw reader comments, and a number of readers have shared with me Steven Johnson’s essay, “Apocalyptic Schadenfreude,” disputing the nature of the challenge that this state is facing. While his essay is initially presented as a critique of (yet another) instance of East Coast condescension toward California, it seems actually to be taking on the notion that the water crisis signals that the time has come for California to accommodate natural limits on growth.
This was a point made very strongly by Gov. Jerry Brown, who said “people should realize we are in a new era” as he announced the mandatory rationing, as well as by Kevin Starr, one of California’s pre-eminent historians. And far be it from me to get between Mr. Johnson, Governor Brown and Mr. Starr.
Mr. Johnson may have overlooked some of our more recent stories, on agriculture’s risky use of groundwater, for example, but there are many powerful and instructive arguments in his essay. Still, in the spirit of conversation and discussion, allow me to make a few points about his contention that California’s struggle is being misconstrued as a battle against green lawns, or an attempt to scold everyday Californians for overuse.
Lawns vs. Agriculture
“The average Times reader sneering at those desert lawns from the Upper West Side might want to think about the canned tomatoes, avocados, and almonds in his or her kitchen before denouncing the irresponsible lifestyles of the California émigrés.”
Clearly, there is much debate about who uses too much water, and whether agriculture is assuming a fair share of the burden in responding to the drought — and the role of farms and food is an issue that The Times will be examining as we move ahead with this series.
But while urban consumption is not the main culprit here, it may be wrong to suggest, as Mr. Johnson does, that lawn watering is incidental to the problem. I don’t know what it’s like up in Marin County (or Brooklyn!), the two places Mr. Johnson calls home, but I have spent much of my time in recent days traveling around Southern California reporting this series, and I have been struck by the vast expanses of lawn I’ve seen (with this newfound sensitivity) in Beverly Hills, Cowan Heights and Palm Springs, just to name a few of the more obvious culprits. Some of these lawns may be benefiting from recycled wastewater but what Mr. Brown and other water officials have been saying is that cracking down on water-wasting ornamental lawns is important, in terms of wasted water, but also because of perceptions as they try to rally the state to deal with this problem.
Why, officials are asking, should any Californian — be it a farmer being forced to fallow a field in Porterville or a family with children brushing their teeth in Riverside — pitch in to deal with this crisis if some communities seem to be permitted to pour gallons of water to keep ornamental lawns green?
California vs. Manhattan
“First of all, Mother Nature didn’t intend for 2 million people to live on Manhattan Island either. Mother Nature would also be baffled by skyscrapers, the Delaware Aqueduct, and the Lincoln Tunnel.”
I take Mr. Johnson’s point on the idea that our society is a pioneering one, always looking for ways to open the most inhospitable areas for human habitation. And it’s true, as he notes, that New York City is also a feat of modern engineering. That said, I’m not sure I buy the comparison of California with Manhattan. Electricity and water are not the same kinds of resources, in terms of transportability, or of quantity.
As someone who lived, worked and grew up in New York City and Westchester and Putnam Counties, I spent a lot of time around the reservoir system (including, I now confess, illegally swimming as a teenager in more than a few of the prime ones). Let me state the obvious, at least from my own experience. There is a lot more water in New York State and it seems a lot easier to get it to Manhattan than to move water from Northern California to Southern California. And the drought California faces is not a short-term problem, like a bad winter; it’s a very challenging long-term problem that is, at least for now, demanding a change in human behavior.
There is probably no bigger booster of (and expert on) California than Mr. Brown, so I’ll let him speak here: “For over 10,000 years, people lived in California, but the number of those people were never more than 300,000 or 400,000. Now we are embarked upon an experiment that no one has ever tried: 38 million people, with 32 million vehicles, living at the level of comfort that we all strive to attain. This will require adjustment. This will require learning.”
Or as Dr. Starr, a lifelong student of California, put it to us: “Mother Nature didn’t intend for 40 million people to live here.”
That said, that is not the only view here, as Mr. Johnson makes clear in his essay (and as other people argued in our article).
East Coast vs. West Coast
“There’s a certain kind of story, and a certain kind of tone, that runs through the recent history of the East Coast writing about the West Coast. Call it apocalyptic schadenfreude.”
Finally, as to the story itself, I hope that we in the Los Angeles bureau of The Times have avoided falling into the trap of writing a stream of condescending East Coast articles about California, in no small part because that is not the way we view this endlessly interesting place we live in and are honored to cover for this news organization.
One of the key themes in our article about the challenge to the California Dream was the opposite of Apocalyptic Schadenfreude: that this state has faced huge challenges of every kind over the years, and in every case, has figured out a way not only to overcome them but to come out stronger in the end.
You do not have to be from the West Coast to appreciate the abundance of intelligence, innovation, invention, capital and natural resources that can be found within these borders; no wonder people like Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, told us he is confident that this state will overcome this. And you do not have to be from the East Coast to appreciate that the state is facing an enormous challenge right now. We intend to cover it with all the energy and resources we have.
Adam Nagourney is the Los Angeles Bureau Chief for The New York Times
