Lower Klamath Lake, California

Source: Bigstock

As I write this, L.A.’s in the middle of a weeklong superstorm of biblical proportions. We’re being pounded harder than Lauren Boebert on a first date.

Twelve inches in one night, which breaks L.A.’s record (though not Boebert’s).

Remember the merciless September 2022 SoCal heat wave, when every red-state rightist gyuck-gyucker tweeted “L.A. can’t keep the lights on; they’s a’ havin’ blackouts”—even though we didn’t have a single blackout? And remember what I wrote in my Sept. 13, 2022 column? “If you lived in SoCal you’d know that our blackouts are more often caused by rain than heat, because our infrastructure’s built for the latter not the former.” And guess what—we finally got a blackout last week. Not a long one—only seven hours, but a blackout all the same.

From rain.

Exactly as I tried to tell you people two years ago.

Now, how’d I know that it’s rain that causes blackouts in this county, not heat? Well, if you live in a place long enough, and I’ve lived in L.A. 55 years, which I think qualifies as “long enough,” you develop an expertise. A person who’s lived in L.A. 55 years simply knows the place better than a person who’s never set foot outside Appalachia (and of course that goes both ways; I’m unqualified to lecture Appalachians on their outhouses, stills, and incest).

Covid, and the post-Covid era (Fauci: “We pulled that ‘six feet of separation’ thing out of our asses”), really messed with the concept of “expert.” Who’s the expert? The dude with the Ph.D.? The dude with the life experience? The doctor who’s right 90 percent of the time but called it wrong on ventilators? The pot-smoking alternative-medicine shaman who’s wrong 90 percent of the time but called it right on vitamin D?

So I thought I’d pen a few pieces on the notion of “expert.”

Let’s get back to that SoCal rain. SoCal’s weather is cyclical. A few wet years, a few dry years. It’s always been that way. But then “climate experts” began exploiting the dry years to sow panic that rain was never coming back. After two record dry years in 2014 and 2015, during which the “experts” decreed that rain was over, done, forever, we had a record wet season 2016–2017. At the time, February 2017, I wrote about how, because of the “experts,” California had stopped building reservoirs, because why build reservoirs if rain’s gone for good?

And now, after the record-breaking wet season of 2023 and what’s shaping up to be an even wetter one in 2024, even Gavin Newsom—arguably the most ideologically rigid governor in the state’s history—is finally admitting that the “experts” were wrong and we do need new reservoirs to hold the rain from the wet years so we can use them during the dry ones.

That seems like common sense, but not in an era in which asthmatics had their inhalers discontinued because they were killing the planet but billionaires’ private jets are allowed to fly daily.

Newsom’s fast-tracked a new reservoir. Standing in his way? The climate “experts” who refuse to admit they were wrong about reservoirs, and the drunken Injuns they’re using as proxies. Under California law, a public works project can be halted if “indigenous natives” claim it harms their culture, and a group of liquored-up ugh-amugh-ughs are trying to hold up the new reservoir by declaring that the dam harms their (and this is a direct quote) “spiritually important fish.”

Honestly, if your faith is based on a crappie, your faith is crappy.

Here’s the funny (or unfunny, depending on your perspective) part: As Newsom is lobbying for a new reservoir, the “experts” and Injuns are dismantling the ones we have. While Newsom—this very month—fast-tracked the Sites Reservoir project in Northern Cal, the state—this very month—is dismantling four reservoirs in Northern Cal. Yes, at the same time that Gavin conceded, “We need more reservoirs,” the state is building one and destroying four. The dismantling of the four Klamath dams/reservoirs—which supply water and power to much of the state—is described by the AP as “the largest dam removal project in United States history” and by PBS/OPB as “the world’s largest dam removal.”

And why’s it being done? To “free from dams” (again, in the words of the AP) “fish that are culturally and spiritually important to several Native American tribes in the area.”

If this seems retarded to you—ordering the construction of one new NorCal reservoir to manage water while spending $500 million (which is just the projected cost—expect the final bill to be around $2 billion) to dismantle four because Injuns think guppies are gods, you’re correct; it’s heap big retarded.

But more importantly for this conversation, it’s a contradiction. There are government-sanctioned “experts” on both sides. On one side, the water management people telling Newsom (using hand puppets because he’s not smart enough to understand graphs) “if we store rain during wet years, we can use it during dry years!” and on the other, there’s Stanford’s Newsha Ajami—an Iranian, but not one of the good Beverly Hills ones who fled the Ayatollah in 1979 (Ajami’s not an expat but a young, Iran-raised akbar)—who’s the driving force behind destroying the reservoirs because, in her words, in order to save “aquatic species” we must rely not on water storage but “water reuse and recycling” (processed sewage—“if Third Worlders drink poo, so must you”) and “demand-side management” (a euphemism for “stop showering, infidels. If Arabs smell pee-ew, so must you!”).

Now, you’re likely thinking, how can one group of California “experts” be saying “build more reservoirs” while another is saying “destroy all reservoirs”? If there is a “thee science,” why aren’t the water management “experts” concerned that there’s a split in which some experts take one position while others take a wholly contradictory one?

Well, it’s because government-anointed “experts” only like to debunk the bunk from lowlife commoners. Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, etc. And yes, their bunk is indeed bunk. But when one government-approved expert disagrees with another government-approved expert, each can totally live with the contradiction, because a public fight might expose the fact that “thee scientists” can’t agree on “thee science.” Publicizing this inconvenient truth might empower commoner scum to embrace the bunk that isn’t government-sanctioned.

I’ll give you another example of Injuns, water, and experts, this one not in California (because I know you guys; if you read something that’s CA-based you dismiss it as “well, that’s them nutty Cal-ee-fornians; that could never happen here”).

Remember the viral story last month about the William Penn statue in Philly’s Welcome Park? In 1755, Penn’s grandson gave the park to an Injun tribe called the Haudenosaunee (not to be confused with the Hadanosauna, a tribe that never owned a sweat lodge). Last year, a group of six squaws visited the park, and they decided it wasn’t “native” enough. And while the obvious remedy would’ve been to install an open bar and smallpox station, the National Park Service decided to remove the statue of the guy whose grandson gave the redskins the park in the first place.

Reading the actual complaint of the featherheads, their main beef wasn’t the statue, but the absence of water features (ponds, waterfalls, fountains). According to Haudenosaunee leader Wa’kerakátste (star of the hit show Wa’kerakátste Texas Ranger), the lack of water made the Injuns feel “choked,” although that was probably just phlegm from their TB.

But indeed, Welcome Park offers no water. Sure, it can be argued that nothing in 43 percent black Philly should feature anything that might require swimming (when almost half your population can drown in a birdbath, you generally avoid building fountains). But the fact is, across the nation, in the late 1990s up to around 2012, it was a crusade on the part of “climate change” cultists to remove water features from parks.

Even though features like fountains and man-made streams recycle water, the climate loons demanded that they be shut down anyway because the very sight of running water might encourage kids to leave the tap running at home (“we must keep from children the beautiful sound of cascading water, lest they get any ideas!”), and because the motors that operate fountains add to the CARBON CRISIS!

So during that period, late-1990s/early-2000s, “green experts” like Amy Vickers, in-house water-management commissar at USA Today, New York Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, CNN, and NPR (and policy consultant for New York and Boston city government), lobbied for all outdoor water features to be “banned.” Ditto “experts” in Oregon (where it never rains!), who demanded that “waterfalls, ponds, and fountains” be “drained.” Nevada also banned all new water features. Even Florida (pre-DeSantis) restricted water features.

When I was a kid, my mom worked as a director of the L.A. County Museum of Art. And as she’d be working, I’d be exploring the museum grounds. LACMA had a man-made stream in the park behind the museum, with a waterfall and guppies and tadpoles, and it was my favorite place to be (L.A. has great beaches, but not many waterfalls, so it was novel to me).

In the early 2000s, the museum shut off the water and filled the stream with dirt; last time I visited, the stream was a dry weed-ridden ditch.

Because God forbid an American museum ever offer something aesthetically pleasing.

Still, the transition of the beautiful stream to a filthy landfill was necessary to fight climate change.

Except…

Turns out the “experts” were wrong. In a shift in “thee science” that went totally unnoticed by everyone, “climate change” kingpins have now realized that water features don’t contribute to “global warming,” but fight it.

The U.N. (2022):

Fountains can decrease surrounding air temperatures by 3°C and its cooling effect can be felt up to 35 metres away.

The European Topic Centre on Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation (2023):

A water spray from a fountain has an even greater cooling effect because of the large contact surface of the water and air, which stimulates evaporation. Cooling effect by evaporation also occurs when water spray is in contact with the skin, decreasing body temperature.

Institute of Physics (2017):

Fountains are an important part of the measures to create a comfortable, environmentally friendly urban human environment.

World Economic Forum (2021):

Water features make cities more climate-change resilient.

Yep, they took away my childhood waterfall, and deprived today’s children of ever seeing it, for nothing.

So yeah, water’s coming back to Philly because Injuns demand it for spiritual reasons, and it’s being removed from California because Injuns demand it for spiritual reasons. And if this seems like a poor basis for deciding “scientific truth,” it is.

Welcome to “thee science,” which we’re supposed to trust…even though “thee scientists” make decisions based on magical fish.

Next week in Part II, my very personal reason for being skeptical of “experts.”