'NIMBY' Leaves
California Cold
''La-La Land,'' we call it. More nuts and flakes around the breakfast table than on it, we snort. Where animals are people and people are animals, your cat is your ''non-human companion'' and the day just isn't off to a decent start until you've read the funnies to your ficus plant.
California: Home of the Cause, be it dolphin-safe tuna, tree-safe paper, or cow-safe hamburgers.
California. Where you don't show up at the Oscars or the Golden Globes without the obligatory solidarity-ribbon-du-jour prominently adorning your Halston original.
California. Where freeways, Wal-Marts and tract houses are fine, so long as they're situated in ''NIMBY'' -- ''Not In My Back Yard.'' Same goes for sanitary landfills, refineries and ''gentlemen's clubs.''
And power plants.
No, no, no, really -- don't snicker. We laugh at California a lot, but bless their li'l tree-hugging hearts, when it comes to standing by their convictions, you have to hand it to them.
Along with flashlights and fresh batteries. (Now STOP that!)
Yes, the folks out in the Golden State are running out of electricity. All the power plants they didn't want in their backyards 'way back in the 20th century are now not producing the electricity they desperately need in the 21st.
Last Wednesday, California Gov. Gray Davis had to declare a state of emergency as electricity demand soared due to unseasonably cold weather, which overwhelmed power plants, forcing the state cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people in ''rolling blackouts'' lasting from 60 to 90 minutes.
The blackouts came with little or no warning, stranding people in elevators, snarling traffic at busy intersections, darkening homes and offices, shutting down computers and ATMs.
Gray signed an executive order authorizing the state Department of Water Resources to buy electricity from as far away as Canada, and called on lawmakers to use funds ''to keep the lights on as long as possible.''
Now, you've got to wonder what went through all those folks' minds, as they sat there in the dark, warming their hands over the guttering flames of their aromatherapy candles.
They certainly couldn't claim they were caught unawares.
California, it seems, has not built a major power plant in 10 years.
And the state's surging economy and burgeoning population, which now stands at 34 million, finally overwhelmed the power grid.
I mean, surely they did the math, back in that decade that they were not building all those ugly power plants, of explosive population and industrial growth vs. available power. They had to realize that if they wanted the lights to come on reliably when they flicked the switch -- well, windmills looked good on PBS, but to run a megalopolis they'd eventually have to build REAL power plants.
That meant plants fueled by gas, coal, nuclear reactors, or hydroelectric turbines.
But gas is expensive and not getting any cheaper, and coal might besmudge the pristine California air with unsightly smoke. Those huge hydroelectric dams spoil the view and make it hard for the little fishies to swim upstream and breed, and as for nuclear power -- well, that be the Devil's own unholy fire and they will have none of it.
And then, there are all those tacky high-tension towers marching across the landscape and buzzing with cancer-causing electromagnetic radiation.
So, the noble folk of California made a decision. They steadfastly refused to inflict upon their environment the generating capacity a power-hungry 21st century would require.
What were they thinking?
Maybe they supposed their lofty principles would somehow trump the logical consequences. Maybe they thought the Environmental Correctness Fairy would magically charge their power lines during peak demand periods. Or maybe they sincerely thought wind farms, solar arrays, deep-ocean heat-transfer tubes, and other nascent technologies would suddenly burst into glorious flower and take up the slack.
And now, the lights are going out.
It's dark. It's cold.
But at least the salmon can spawn.
