Not too long ago, California was a cornucopia of freedom and prosperity, envied by the entire world, as well as many Americans. Over the last 20 years though, big government loving politicians and bureaucrats have so trashed the state's economy that it has become a banana republic, teetering on financial collapse - a golden dream turned into a nightmare, so-to-speak.
The rapid California decline can be directly traced to the state's progressives/liberals/leftists embracing any issue that calls for greater government regulation, control and taxation. Global warming is such an issue and because of big government spenders and regulators, it promises to make life even more miserable for individual taxpayers and for the small and medium-sized businesses.
The literal craziness of California's global warming fears has resulted in the anti-prosperity legislation known as AB32, and anti-choice regulations, such as banning black paint for new cars. For those paying attention, it is more than obvious that government control and tax revenue sources are the motivations driving the "global warming" laws and rules, not actual California warming or saving the world.
(click on images to enlarge) The graph on the left depicts the total cumulative global emissions (about 1.1 trillion tons) from 1946-2009, and the average California annual temperature over the last two decades. Clearly, California does not have a "global warming" problem caused by humanity's large increase in CO2 emissions. In addition, "global" warming is actually regional warming, and the U.S. is a major region that is not warming at all.
IPCC and climate alarmist scientists inform us that every human CO2 molecule stays in the atmosphere from hundreds to thousands of years, incessantly causing temperatures to increase. Thus, per the IPCC scientists, per the AGW theory and per the global temperature data (NCDC global temperature data), the cumulative 1.1 trillions tons of CO2 has caused an actual global temperature increase of about 0.44 degrees Celsius since 1945. That translates into an increase of 0.0000000000004 degree per ton of human CO2. With a little more arithmetic, we can then calculate what will happen to global temperatures if all 400 million tons of annual California CO2 were reduced to zero - the answer is nada, zilch, zero and nothing. The chart on the right reveals the impact of the California CO2 reductions on global temperatures.
(For more information about the trivial impact of CO2 reductions on global temperatures, go here and here for more information.)
So, the California politicians and bureaucrats are fighting the imaginary global warming problem, which does not exist for California, the U.S., nor many large regions of the globe. For the citizens of California, fighting this and other imaginary problems for the sake of empowering and enriching the state's elites has had terrible consequences, as documented below.
Above left chart source; right chart source.
Above left is 'C3' chart; right chart source.
Simply put, California's big government, big green and big bureaucrat elites have single-handedly changed California from the envy of the world to a laughingstock. Not only is unemployment in California terrible - it has gotten so bad that even '60 Minutes' is claiming that California unemployment exceeds 20% - California also has the 2nd highest home foreclosure rate and easily the worst credit rating in the nation. Did we say 'banana republic'?
Despite the gross incompetence of California's ruling class, they still enjoy the support of the wealthy and privileged. As a result, many of the world's largest CO2 spewers are in favor of the economy destroying AB32 - they know full well that they themselves will be able to avoid CO2-spewing restrictions because they are favored by the existing left/liberal big government ruling class.
Fortunately, Californians have the opportunity to seize control from the incompetent elites by voting for the suspension of the "global warming" AB32 regulations and voting out the big government politicians who have facilitated the total economic disaster that California is headed for.