Los Angeles: Managing societal issues and implications for combating climate change

I’ve just returned from a visit to Los Angeles. At first the warm sunshine and brightly colored flowers put me in a vacation mindset. That quickly was replaced with a sense of foreboding as I realized that what I saw, as I moved through the city, was a window on the world. Los Angeles’ problems are emblematic of the problems the world faces in dealing with climate change, water conservation, and plastic pollution among others.

As the plane went into final approach for the Los Angeles (LAX) airport, the scenery below was dusty colored, the dry vegetation parched by the sun and a prolonged drought. Summertime in California is typically the dry season, but the state of dryness today is epic, and the fire season is well underway. On May 11, the LA Times reported that a fire fueled by intense ocean winds burned at least 20 homes in Laguna Niguel, “the latest sign of the drastic effects that climate change and drought are having on California fire danger.” Flying into Los Angeles I’d also seen   nearly dry canals tinged green by algae that lingered in the rapidly evaporating moisture. This parchedness contrasted with the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific Ocean just off the state’s coast, the lush green of the well-watered golf courses and the turquoise swimming pools that dot a metropolitan landscape that stretches for miles upon miles upon miles of urban and suburban sprawl.

The thirsty landscape isn’t a new phenomenon. It has been in the making for considerable time, however, according to a CNN report, “California is facing a crisis. Not only are its reservoirs already at critically low levels due to unrelenting drought, residents and businesses across the state are also using more water now than they have in seven years, despite Gov. Gavin Newsom's efforts to encourage just the opposite…It was the highest March water consumption since 2015.”

Water

Acceptance of the severity of the shortage and the actual impact of the water crisis throughout the state of California is uneven. Rural areas are faced with an immediate, dire lack of water that urban communities have yet to know. Los Angeles residents have been asked to act, but the actions feel more of an annoyance rather than serious business. They’ve been asked to reduce the frequency with which they water their lawns, down to one day a week while rural communities are facing a situation where in which there is to be no water – not for showers, not for dishwashing, not even for drinking. The difference is that rural communities “use private groundwater wells. The big concern is that during extremely dry conditions, the state's groundwater levels sink while more is pulled up for agriculture and other uses.”  As the groundwater is depleted, wells aren’t deep enough to access water. Folks that depend on wells for their water find faucets no longer deliver water and digging deeper wells isn’t a feasible or long-term solution.

Water issues have long been a problem for Los Angeles. The water dilemma began in the late 1800s. As the city experienced growth, it began to outgrow the local water supply. Rather than seeking ways to manage the growth of its population to align with water availability, Los Angeles chose an alternate solution. It acquired rights to water in the eastern part of the state and built an aqueduct to divert the water to the thirsty city. Within a little more than a decade one eastern lake had run completely dry. Those who know California history have identified this time as the beginning of a water war.

Los Angeles has continued to divert water for its needs causing additional and increasingly severe problems for areas that provide their water resources to the thirsty metropolis. Even today, Los Angeles has yet to effectively manage water use and find solutions that will eliminate a growing deficit. Most recently, as an example, the California Coastal Commission rejected a $1.4 billion desalination plant that could have converted ocean water into municipal water for residents of Orange County.

Energy

Transportation issues in Los Angeles, like water, has been a long-standing problem. Traffic has grown in magnitude to a point where any effective solution would involve enormous sums of money and disruption to commutes. The situation is far from conducive to non-partisan action.  Case in point, the I-405 freeway, running along parts of Greater Los Angeles from Irvine in the south to near San Fernando in the north, is one of the busiest roadways in the nation and the busiest in California. The freeway's congestion is legendary despite more than 12 lanes for traffic but it also is by no means the only roadway in Los Angeles with dense traffic.

I experienced Los Angeles traffic firsthand on my visit. The 15-mile journey from LAX to downtown Los Angeles, even after taking a route indicated as the least congested, took more than an hour. While the city does have a public transportation system, it is woefully inadequate to handle the movement of more than 10 million people who live within the Metro’s 1,433-square-mile service area. Traffic gridlock and the nearly $7 per gallon price I saw listed at stations didn’t seem to ignite a push for change.

Unlike its lack of water, Los Angeles can claim an abundance the of oil. The presence of active oil wells is visible on the ride from the airport to the city center. Oil production and refinement are not without problems and have contributed to many. Besides reducing air quality, the consequence of production can be catastrophic. There have been incidences where buildings constructed over old oil fields have experienced the explosive and toxic buildup of methane gas. Methane mitigation systems such as subsurface barriers, ventilation systems, methane detectors and alarms to vent the methane are now used in thousands of buildings. Methane gas is also a problem on a larger scale. It is the primary contributor to ground-level ozone, a hazardous air pollutant, and a potent contributor to global warming.

Plastics

Another issue Los Angeles has been unable to curb is plastic pollution. Like many other communities, the city has taken small steps to combat a massive problem. Grocery stores exact a fee for customers who choose to use plastic bags. Takeout food containers are partially made of recyclable materials. The bottoms are made of compostable material, the tops made of clear non-recyclable plastic. Some water containers rather than being made of plastic were in the style of milk cartons but the drinking spouts and lid on the waxy containers were made of plastic. I even saw compostable eating utensils and straws. Yet, everywhere I went I saw plastic cups, bottles, signs, clothes, and more. I read that Los Angles has a good recycling record as compared to other large US cities; however, much of the materials collected as recyclable are not in fact recyclable and thus end up in a landfill. None of these problems are unique to Los Angeles. Plastic has become the fabric of the American lifestyle, both literally and figuratively.

Conclusion

Problems inherent in cities, like cancer, become more difficult to deal with the longer they are left untreated. The history of Los Angeles water use has been far more than a century in the making. There seems no solution in any foreseeable future. The same also can be said about Los Angeles transportation issue and a serious reduction in plastic usage. The status of these things leads to a sobering conclusion, one that does not bode well for the need as a country and for the world to half our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2020.