Jerry Brown is a Prophet

Kiss taking showers and doing laundry at home goodbye and say hello to the world of  regulations designed to micromanaging your life. If you own a business, you already know. If you don’t live in California, you should not think it won’t happen to you, especially if you live in a “blue” state.

The Progressive majority in California’s legislature and Progressive Governor Jerry Brown know what is best for California. They are sure the state is running out of water and they have the sure-fired cure:

(drum roll)

….rationing.

Senate Bill No. 606, Hertzberg, Water management planning requires the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt long-term standards for the efficient use of water and would establish specified standards for per capita daily indoor urban residential water use.

Assembly Bill 1668 establishes a 55-gallon limits on urban area indoor water use for every urban person in California.

The bill, until January 1, 2025, would establish 55 gallons per capita daily as the standard for indoor residential water use, beginning January 1, 2025, would establish the greater of 52.5 gallons per capita daily or a standard recommended by the department and the board as the standard for indoor residential water use, and beginning January 1, 2030, would establish the greater of 50 gallons per capita daily or a standard recommended by the department and the board as the standard for indoor residential water use. The bill would impose civil liability for a violation of an order or regulation issued pursuant to these provisions, as specified.

Keep in mind an average person uses an average of 90 gallons per day. If you are poor and have older water appliances, you will be hit the hardest by this act. For example, older washers will use 40 gallons per load; one load of clothes in the old washing machine and a three-minute shower and you’ve reached your legal limit for water use for the day. Flushing the toilet will have to wait until tomorrow.

So why is Jerry Brown a prophet (or anyone in the majority in the California legislature, for that matter)? I have been reading (off and on) The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World by Charles C. Mann. In the book he talks of two very different men: Norman Borlaug (The Wizard) and Carl Vogt (The Prophet). In the Atlantic magazine Mann writes, “Both men thought of themselves as using new scientific knowledge to face a planetary crisis. But that is where the similarity ends. For Borlaug, human ingenuity was the solution to our problems….Vogt’s views were the opposite: The solution, he said, was to use ecological knowledge to get smaller….we may be able to grow enough food, but at the cost of wrecking the world’s ecosystems.”

Wizards see opportunities for using technology to improve humanity’s lot. Prophets see limits to what the planet can sustain and view technology with suspicion.

Prophet Jerry Brown sees California’s Mediterranean climate as limiting. Perhaps we could supply water for people and agriculture but only at the cost of wrecking California’s ecosystems. So if you disobey the almighty God  state, thou shalt be smote but good…daily.

(1) If the violation occurs in a critically dry year immediately preceded by two or more consecutive below normal, dry, or critically dry years or during a period for which the Governor has issued a proclamation of a state of emergency under the California Emergency Services Act (Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 8550) of Division 1 of Title 2 of the Government Code) based on drought conditions, ten thousand dollars ($10,000) for each day in which the violation occurs.

(2) For all violations other than those described in paragraph (1), one thousand dollars ($1,000) for each day in which the violation occurs.

The poor will be hit hardest by this boondoggle. There are better ways to meet California’s water needs other than punishing people.

But then,I am a Wizard living in the land of Prophets.