“You have to think like a fish,” my husband says as I”m casting out into Clear Lake for the first time.
“What do fish think about?” I”m thinking as my line flies a pathetic cast 15 feet out from the boat. Our friend had taken us out on the lake over the weekend and it was the first time I”d been out on the ancient body of water that looks so pristine from the highway. So far, the boat”s propeller had caught too many of the weeds in its arms and we had to stop to pull them out twice in the 40 minutes we”d been cruising across the lake.
I feel a tug and jerk up a little.
“I think they”re bitting!” I say as I reel my line back in. I had recently read that Clear Lake is known to have more fish per acre than any other lake in the country, so I was optimistic about my chances despite my lack of fishing experience. The end of my line comes into view and I realize I”ve just caught a glob of weeds. I cast out again. And again. And again. Each time I feel tugs and pulls and each time I reel in long strings of weeds. I”ve never been so confused fishing.
“Looks like we”ll be eating vegetarian tonight,” our friend jokes.
We start moving along to other spots in the lake, trying to find an area without weeds but have little luck. We always end up drifting into another patch of them, and at some point, when we raise the propeller to clear them out, it won”t drop back down into the water. We”re stuck in the middle of the lake, waiting for a couple of hours for our friend”s friend to tow us back to the north shore.
Like I said, I don”t know much about fishing or how pervasive Clear Lake”s aquatic weeds have been in past years. But from those that do have more experience with the lake that I”ve talked to, the problem is a lot worse this year than it has been in the past and it”s not going to get any better as the season progresses; with the drought causing lower water levels, the weed growth is on the rise.
I really expected Measure L to pass on June 3. None of the concerns that I had heard really had much weight in my opinion, and on a $10 purchase, 5 cents extra didn”t seem like much to ask considering how important the lake was to the economy of the county, and how environmentally-conscious the people in Lake County seem to be. After attending one of the Measure L town halls, I really thought it was a no-brainer.
I was so disappointed when Measure L failed to pass. Because Lake County is a more environmentally-conscious area than a lot of other parts of the country, I took Measure L”s failure as a sad indicator of where our country”s priorities are; we care more about our money and clinging to our current way of life than we care about facing the reality of how our way of life is causing irrevocable and life-threatening damage to our home. We”re not taking responsibility for how our lifestyle affects the world around us and we”re already on a slippery slope toward sending the climate system into a tailspin within the next 35 years.
By 2040, the world is on track to exceed the globally agreed upon temperature target of 3.6 F, beyond which the risks of “dangerous” consequences of global warming escalate, according to Andrew Freedman”s summary of the report published by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
What”s so ludicrous to me is that so many people are putting off making changes now to help prevent those disastrous changes to our planet (or even addressing the problems that are already coming about in the case of Clear Lake”s invasive weed problem). We still have people in our government and society at large who deny that global warming even exists. But in two more generations, scientists are talking about massive floods, droughts, heat waves and stronger hurricanes that will reshape the only planet we can currently live on.
While a sales tax to help Clear Lake”s future isn”t going to save the planet from global warming, it”s a small and simple step toward taking care of our responsibilities as a community that we owe toward our environment. In the face of California”s serious drought, it”s truly sad to watch our community fail to take care of our home and proceed with business as usual just like the rest of the country.
I don”t want to be taken as a doomsayer. I want people to start thinking about what they”re doing to the planet before the consequences suddenly become all too evident and nothing can be done to reverse them. I want them to consider the responsibilities they owe to their grandchildren. I want them to take these consequences seriously and realize that they must be part of preventing them.
Lake County can do better.
