Why America is Becoming a Second-World Nation and California is in the Crosshairs

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Part 1 of a 4 Part Series

By Marilyn Dudley-Flores, Ph.D
CEO
OPS-Alaska

In a series of four parts (I-IV), I discuss why America is becoming a second-world nation. The United States’ inevitable slide from first-world status is because of an anti-innovation trend playing out within the state and the nation. This is so despite California being an industry leader and at the leading edge of many kinds of innovation. This anti-innovation trend subtracts from the “big science, great policy” innovation it will take to combat global warming’s direct and indirect effects, worsening natural disasters, and the decline side of oil. These are the big guns pitted against human survival.

And, California is in the crosshairs.

 Fact: If the Central Valley of California is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world and the largest in the United States, growing approximately one-third of the nation's food, then the decline side of oil and the directs and indirects of global warming will impact that production in enormous ways. The same goes for California’s forestland that is greater than any other state except Alaska, and the wine industry that encompasses Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, and the Santa Barbara and Paso Robles areas.

In the best of times, the Central Valley has been the most impoverished area of the state, with migrant farm workers making less than minimum wage. Recently, the San Joaquin Valley was characterized as one of the most economically depressed regions in the United States – ranking on par with Appalachia.

 Fact: The Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta is a critical water supply hub for the state. Water is routed through an vast network of canals and pumps out of the delta, that traverse nearly the length of the state, including the Central Valley Project, and the State Water Project. Water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta provides drinking water for nearly 23 million people, almost two-thirds of the state's population, and provides water to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Rising temperatures, a diminishment of the snow pack in the Sierras, rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion, and crumbling infrastructure are direct challenges to this critical water supply hub.