to governments to define priorities!
http://geographiesenmouvement.blogs.liberation.fr/2020/01/23/californie-horribilis/
source: Liberation, January 23, 2020
author: Gilles Fumey
translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise
A BAD TURN FOR CALIFORNIA
While President Trump is chirping away from Davos, Californians count their hundreds of victims and thousands of hectares lost to fire. This American state which proclaims itself the 6th economic power in the world by boasting of its its GDP gets unhinged on the waterfront (in the spring) and in flames (in the fall). Follows a humble assessment of the failed harvest in Sonoma County in 2019.
A good hour's drive from the very rich San Francisco, in Santa Rosa, it's time for taking stock. Several hundred dead, nearly 200,000 people evacuated from a vineyard which was planted in 1836 by a Russian-American company, fifteen thousand hectares ravaged by fire. Never in the Old Mediterranean world has there been such a trauma. Worse, in California, some vines had been planted to serve as firewalls around cities. In 2017, the prestigious Napa Valley was hit. PTrump may know how to twitter but he does not yet know how to stop fires.
First target: drought . Is it exaggerated by climate change? Bathed by the cold Pacific current, the coast is usually rather dry. Have the winds been more violent this year? In the event of a fire, they are always assessed to be more powerful than they usually are.
Second suspect in the case: the electricity company Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and its facilities dating from Mathusalem, and known to be responsible for half of the fires. Fires start largely due to the collapse of pylons on trees where short circuits take place. The New York Times previously reported similar facts in 2017 in Napa. In 2020, it was the aptly named Paradise, more than 200 kilometers from San Francisco, which was threatened by the fall of a cable from an old centenary pylon and paid a tribute of 86 victims. Explanation: PG&E is almost bankrupt and powerless. Who should take over, Mr. Trump, from these private bankruptcies if not the State of California ?
Third to be accused: local agronomy which recommends no-till to limit erosion in the heavy spring rains. Result: the grass that dries in summer becomes a flammable doormat.
To limit the spread of fires, PG&E stops distributing electricity. In the richest country in the world, thirty-six counties were plunged into darkness for almost two weeks. Only the richest properties have generators. Couldn't Silicon Valley, champion of the entertainment industries, do better by focusing on a sustainable ecology?
We would come to compare California to Egypt which had to undergo ten abominable plagues to leave the Hebrews in peace. Because Ange Salerno who investigated in California (1) points to a fourth accused: cannabis has become a plant competitive to the vine . Otherwise more profitable, attractingting part of the Mexican workforce from the better-paying vineyards (up to $ 22 an hour). Paranoia takes hold of the locals: what if the Mexican cartels manipulated the workforce? While waiting for Hollywood to seize the subject…
(1) The thousand torments of the Californian vineyard , La RVF, n ° 638 (Feb. 2020)
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PS. The excellent site Atlantico questions the agronomist Bruno Parmentier about the industrial methods of producing almonds, of which California provides 4/5 th of the world's needs by pumping 10% of its water resources for this production alone. Such anomalies highlight the deadly logic of capitalistic agriculture degrading the environment: thus, almost half of the 3 million hives pollinating the 400,000 hectares of almond trees saw their bees die under the effect of pesticides and parasites like Varroa destructor .
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The prestigious Soda Rock Winery (Healdsburg) in flames
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But is it Art. Not sure, but it is fine carrot cake. Shopping with Lyse
this afternoon...
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