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The editorial board of the Arizona Republic newspaper didn't care for last week's LA Times op-ed essay in which New Mexico environmental author William deBuys argues that Phoenix, already a pretty sucky place, is in the cross-hairs of Southwest climate change: "the convergence of heat, drought and violent winds is creating an ever-more-worrisome situation." In the Republic's editorial, and the accompanying video by two painfully under-prepared homers, the only attempt at a substantial retort seems to be that Phoenix has been banking water underground to prepare for unrainy days. OK cool, doesn't change anything, but good to know. The real objection by the Arizonans, what they call "the genuinely annoying part," is essentially juvenile: that a Los Angeles newspaper dared to let someone write about Phoenix, given LA's own thirst for imported water and the fictional lore of "Chinatown."
The editorial is lame enough, but the video is truly cringe worthy. The male editor, Republic veteran Doug MacEachern, seems to believe that LA gets all of the water moved south from the Sacramento River (not even close.) The proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown for new pipelines around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, in the editorial writer's imagination, is a scheme "concocted" by Los Angeles politicians to "steal" water from up north. Go check it out.
