Nearly two-thirds of California residents are concerned about the water supply in their region and the increase of wildfires and drought due to climate change, according to polling data released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The institute’s 21st annual environmental survey polled 1,569 state residents, including 937 likely voters, earlier this month on environmental issues and concerns.
The survey found that one-quarter of participants said water supply and the state's ongoing drought are their top environmental concerns, followed by 17% saying wildfires, 13% saying climate change and 6% saying air pollution.
Water supply was a concern for a majority of survey participants in each area of the state—the central valley, Inland Empire, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties and the San Francisco Bay Area.
However, just under 60% of those polled in Southern California said their region's water supply was a big problem, while 67% of those in the central valley and 70% of those in the Bay Area said it was a big problem.
“It’s also the most important issue for Democrats and independents while Republicans are equally likely to say the drought or wildfires are the biggest issue,” said Rachel Lawler, a survey analyst with the PPIC.
At least 69 % of participants in each geographic region said they’ve taken steps to reduce their water use to some extent, with 90% of Bay Area participants saying they've done so.
The survey found that 68% of all adults said the state is already dealing with the effects of climate change, including 82% of Democratic respondents.
Just 44% of Republicans, however, said the same and 20% of Republican respondents believe the state will never feel the effects of climate change, Lawler said.
“I think Republicans in California are different than, maybe, Republicans in other states or nationwide, but as far as that goes, I think a majority across the notion that it is happening, just to some different degrees,” she said.
Republican survey participants were also far less likely than Democrats and independents to support three of the state's policies to combat climate change: banning new fracking permits by 2024, banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 and conserving 30% of land and water by 2030.
Only the land and water conservation received majority support from Republican respondents at 51%, while 93% of Democrats, 7% of independents and 76% of all adults said they supported it.
Democrats were the only partisan group with majority support for the gas-powered vehicle ban, which Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last fall. The survey found that 69% of Democratic respondents supported the policy while 14% of Republicans, 42% of independents and 49% of all adults supported the ban.
A majority of respondents said they supported the ways in which both Newsom and President Joe Biden are handling environmental issues, with 59% approving of Newsom and 61% approving Biden.
It would be wonderful if at least two-thirds of Californians vote to recall Gavin Newsom on
September 14, 2021. Be on the look out, ballots will be mailed out on August 16, 2021. Vote “Yes” to recall Gavin Newsom. Check out recallgavin2020.com. Let’s elect a real Governor who can fix California’s biggest problems, not create them!!!
There’s a pretty simple solution to the water shortage: Stop discharging 80% of our freshwater to the ocean and the problem is immediately solved. However, in California we’d rather start water rationing and instead dump our water into the ocean.
Before y’all hate on them evil almonds or rice, as at least one local guy likes to, recall if you can that half the water use in the state is environmental. Next is ag at 40% (“80% of water used,” as certain people say all the time), then urban at 10%.
Reform environmental uses, raise Shasta Dam and build Sites, dam North Coast rivers if needed later. Otherwise it’s dishonest to say nothing can be done.
Support the RECALL GAVIN NEWSOM Effort! We need to put CA Priorities above Liberal Elite (Getty Funded) politicians who push feel good pie in the sky promises to get elected. The problem with Newsom’s priorities for California: housing, health care, education, & child care is that this way “Out Of Depth” GovNew(TAX)som has NO PLAN for the most obvious chronic problem facing CA, WATER SUPPLY and ignores other problems like: RELIABLE Energy supply, Infrastructure DECAY (poorly maintained roads & bridges), Traffic Congestion, and devastating & deadly FIRES through poorly managed rural lands.
“Notice how Newsom’s Priorities are SOCIAL PROGRAMS aligned with Special Interests.
If you replace “housing, health care, education, and child care” with “the homeless industrial complex, taxpayer subsidized health insurance, and teachers unions (childcare a subset of that), you get the picture.
Liberal Elites like Newsom main focus is special interest groups like the Sierra Club. For example, one solution to the Water Supply problem is additional Storage Capacity, which is opposed by environmentalists and Eco-terrorist groups (ie. Sierra Club, among others).
“New Poll Finds Two-thirds of Californians Concerned about Water Supply, Wildfires”
Wow, what a headline. If they had added in those against kitten juggling, they could have reported that well over 90% are “concerned” about blah, blah blah.
Who, exactly, is not concerned about wildfires? What group of miscreants support wildfires? The San Jose Inside needs to track these people down and summarily punish them. Either lashes or time in the stock seems appropriate to me.
California is a semi-arid region state. If you want to stop the water shortages, we have to build additional storage or develop expensive desalinization.
Unfortunately either of these options would be opposed by every environmental group known to man. (and all of their intersectional allies) And, these environmental groups would make certain that nothing would get done for decades. So, we need to start yesterday.
Gavin Newsom is out of his depth and lives in a bubble populated by his friends, supporters, and special interests. His failure to take any steps to address California’s chronic problems is the most glaring example. Asking CA residents to reduce water use by 25% is a joke and will not markedly improve any drought conditions.
“50% of California’s water supply goes to Environmental uses, 40% is converted to the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and the remaining 10% is for urban use.
Families did not waste their way into a water shortage and cannot conserve their way out.
Saving 25% of a 10% use equals 2.5%.
Ongoing water releases continue to put fish over people, and both are suffering.”
Meanwhile CA has been letting water out of reservoirs for months – and it’s not going to farmers, growers, ranchers or urban use. Environmental policy says the water “flows” from reservoirs are necessary to produce a rebound of endangered Delta smelt and Chinook salmon. But these policies are a failure as neither species have been collected in all of the latest trawling surveys, where they spend several days a month searching in more than 200 spots. The reservoir water flows are not saving fish at all, Gavin Newsom says we are heading into a multi year drought, but continues to release water through the Delta, and into the Pacific Ocean anyway.
and yet the state is paying $250m to put in a 1.7 acre garden with some studio condos stapled on that “aim” to grow 20000 lbs of food by volunteers and professional vagrant chasers, genius
News flash! Trump is no longer the president! Read all about it!
The Republicans haven’t run CA since the Terminator (a Dem in Reps clothes) was elected in a recall of G Davis in 2003. Gee, a recall, that sounds familiar.
Change forums if you don’t like. Or, in the alternative, at least stop your braying.
StevenG, Well at least we agree that former President Trump was looking out for Poorly led one-party liberal states such as CA, but the decades of special interest catering and one (mis-guided) party leadership has done such severe damage that takes more time to correct in one or 2 terms.
The issue at hand is the current failed leadership of CA that would squander the budget surplus on social programs that are not sustainable while failing to provide the proper infrastructure for long term water and energy sustainability.
You must have moved to CA after the 2017 drought breaking rainfalls that were flushed to the oceans due to dam removals (due to eco-terrorist environmentalists) and broken/ failing dams and gates that could not contain the rains due to decades of infrastructure neglect.
Bait & Switch DEMs like Gavin New(TAX)som directly SPIT In The FACE of CA Voters when he redirected the increased 2017 SB 1 (Road Repair and Accountability Act) Gas Tax & vehicle fee dollars to his pet projects like railways to nowhere. instead of the “advertised” purpose to fix freeways, bridges, local roads… various infrastructure projects around the state.
“Gov. Newsom’s Executive Order Authorizing Theft of Voter-Approved Gas Tax Money
Order violates Prop. 69, while eliminating highway expansion and repair projects”
We need a Governor who can produce real solutions for California’s problems. I’m tired of being told when I can and can’t use water. I’m tired of being told when I can and can’t use electricity. This is not a viable solution. Vote to recall Gavin Newsom.
Goodness! People need to stop siding with one party of their choice and start using their common sense to make an educated decision. Majority of these politicians are in office for their personal interest — and they have problems of saying things that are mostly false. It’s like story telling to them.
Look, whether you’re Republicans, Democrats, Independent, or Green party, just use your common sense. I know Gavin has a lot of issues I disagree, but his mask mandate and business to temporarily shutdown during the pandemic is the RIGHT CALL.
I definitely DISAGREE with him regarding immigration and releasing inmates last year, BUT you win some, you lose some.
Democrats vs. Republicans — pick one of the lesser evil. At the moment, Republicans have a serious issue in which make George W. Bush’s Iraq Invasion is brilliant.
Regarding the water crisis, mandate the rich to stop hogging all the water. We know they can afford it. We know if California rises the water bill, they still can afford. SO, the only way to make these people to stop wasting water is to mandate them to STOP or face jail time. I am referring to the rich in LA and the BAY AREA.
This country definitely need a daddy to put down the hammer. Republicans are acting like a spoil brats, and Democrats aren’t much better.
NWS, Bait & Switch Politician Gavin New(TAX)som is focused on catering to his Special Interest groups to Buy his way out of RECALL – it will only get worse if he retains office.
“California Gov. Newsom Using Stimulus To Buy His Way Out Of Recall”
Gavin Newsom trying to “..expand the Golden State stimulus relief package to include $600 stimulus checks for households making up to $75,000.
He also plans to give an additional $500 to families with children as well
as $500 to ILLEGAL immigrant families.”
Tea Maker, Residential water use is not the cause or solution for CA’s natural drought cycles.
“Water in California is shared across three main sectors..roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban”. Despite population growth, total urban (household) water use has also fallen – from 231 gallons per day (GPD) in 1990 to 180 GPD in 2010, and 146 GPD in 2015 in response to drought- related conservation requirements.
And as we learned in the last drought conserving household water just leads to higher bills as water department revenue (based on usage) declines.
“California Water Rates Rise as Cities Lose Money in Drought”
Water departments are increasing rates and adding fees because they’re losing money as their customers conserve in response to California’s four-year dry spell.
There would be no water shortages in California if the government stopped draining all the fresh water into the ocean
According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, statewide water usage averages around 85 gallons per day per person. This is not very much, and yet urban and residential users are routinely ordered to conserve as much water as possible by letting their lawns turn brown and die, avoid taking showers, and washing their clothes more infrequently.
Meanwhile, the state government has opened up the dams to let all the fresh water in reserve flow right into the ocean. It is akin to turning on your faucet and letting it run all day, every day, except your faucet is the size of a canyon.
The hypocrisy is stunning, and yet too few Californians seem to be aware of what is taking place right underneath their noses. There is simply no reason for all this fearmongering about water shortages when the state government is wasting all the water that would otherwise be available in abundance.
“Before our magnificent reservoir projects were built, California never had a steady and reliable supply of water. Now water is being managed as if those reserves don’t exist, by emptying the collected water from storage to the sea, rather than saving it for our routinely dry years,” Diener says.
“Our water projects were designed to be managed for the long term providing a minimum five year supply, but California has now put us on track to have a man-made drought crisis every time we don’t have a wet season.”
As for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $5.1 billion so-called “drought response” package, it does absolutely nothing to fix the problem. All it does is pay off water bills that were made too expensive by the state’s intentional water scarcity scheme.
To learn more about how the state government of California has weaponized the water supply to control the population, visit WaterWars.news.
(Natural News) The Golden State is entering yet another severe dry season and the state government is responding by draining all the reservoirs and dumping all that precious fresh water straight into the ocean.
Shocking new reports indicate that over the past several weeks, the California State Water Board has routed at least 90 percent of Delta inflow right into the sea, leaving farmers with no water to grow their crops.
“It’s equal to a year’s supply of water for 1 million people,” tweeted Central Valley farmer Kristi Diener, along with the hashtag “#ManMadeDrought.”
While California’s reservoirs are designed to hold up to five years’ worth of fresh water for the state’s water needs – and had been filled to capacity back in June 2019 – the state’s water overseers are now flushing all that water down the toilet, essentially.
According to Diener, who is both a farmer and a water expert, fresh water is being unnecessarily dumped from California’s reservoirs at a time when it is most needed, which bodes ominous for the coming summer season.
“Are we having a dry year? Yes,” Diener says.
“That is normal for us. Should we be having water shortages in the start of our second dry year? No. Our reservoirs were designed to provide a steady five-year supply for all users, and were filled to the top in June 2019.”
A data chart from the California Data Exchange Center shows that back in 2019, all of the state’s reservoirs were well over capacity. Now, they are all being drained for some unknown reason.
“You’re looking at our largest reservoirs less than two years ago,” Diener says about the chart.
“They were absolutely teeming with water from 107% to 145% of average! Our reservoirs held enough water for everyone who relies on them for their water supply, for 7 years. We are barely into our second dry year. WHERE DID IT GO?”
NWS, exactly.. the 85 GPD per person in a household does not include outdoor usage. New(TAX)som needs to learn you can’t conserve your way out of a drought, of course he is bankrolled by the billionaire Getty empire. “How eight elite San Francisco families funded Gavin Newsom’s political ascent.” (LATimes)
“His father was a lifelong friend of Gordon Getty, the son of oil magnate J. Paul Getty”.. He has always been “a child of privilege, his path greased by family and political connections and billionaire patrons.”
Democratic control in Sacramento has done little about water resources since the ’70s, but New(TAX)som will Rob the Gas TAX (Roads & Infrastructure Funds) to ensure a high-speed train between Bakersfield and Merced in the soon-to-be dust bowl Central Valley.
Sacramento has to get on board with streamlining the Environmental Review process and invest the budget surplus into sustainable Water and Energy projects. New reservoirs, new and higher dams and water reclamation projects – much cheaper to recycle household waste water than to desalinate ocean water. Gavin New(TAX)som may not care about Water, Fires, and Energy but he will ensure you will be able to go between Bakersfield and Merced in a hurry.
“Many CA dams need infrastructure and operational upgrades. 2/3s of California’s dams are at least 50 years old. More than 90 need major upgrades to better handle large floods or withstand earthquakes.”