In Peter Schrag’s column from today’s Bee, we see the benefits from the work of the California environmental community, government, and the nation's manufacturing community, which encouraged and created the technology that has resulted in cleaner air and water; as well as using other resources efficiently, in creating the quality of life Californian's treasure.
Important as these gains are, there is a continuing need to utilize technology wisely, and not allow one side of the equation to skew our vision, and see the natural growth which responds to migrating population increases to slow to the point of not being able to adequately support its evolution.
Here is an excerpt.
Peter Schrag:
Gas prices, infrastructure bonds and pander politics
By Peter Schrag -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, May 10, 2006
While the pander bears on Capitol Hill were falling all over each other last week with proposals for gas tax moratoriums, $100-pass-go checks and other silly ideas purportedly designed to ease the pain of the great gasoline crisis of 2006, California offered a simple lesson: Use less.
Washington's dumber ideas were quickly dropped, but much of the California lesson seems to be lost - even on our own representatives.
Californians, according to the state Energy Commission, burn less gasoline per capita than drivers in all but eight other states. We use less electricity per capita than people in any other state - barely more than half the national average (in 2001).
We consume less water than we did in 1975, even though our population is 60 percent larger and our gross state product is 2.5 times greater.
In at least two of those three examples, the shorthand explanation for this remarkable, though still imperfect, record is policies fostering conservation.
