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Rating: 
Summary: Can we keep the California Dream alive?
Review: This book addresses some of the most important issues facing California in light of the population growth and new demands for water projected for the decades ahead. Discussions of population and growth control are often difficult, but in Drowning the Dream David Carle brings a new, strongly reasoned approach to the table. In the process, Carle takes on the ultimate questions of California water politics: What kind of state do we want to live in? How much more growth does California really need? Can we keep the California Dream alive? California is naturally limited by its water supply and, therefore, water can be the tool to limit the state's future growth naturally--once we finally abandon the untenable proposal that more water can always be found. Also, Drowning the Dream is more than a policy book; Carle paints a rich picture of California historical natural resources from presettlement days to the present, using a wide range of historical documents and illustrations.
Rating:
Summary: Paying for the Past
Review: This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in California; although expensive, it is worth every penny. Mr. Carle has a clear, uncomplicated style of writing and an eye for the cogent quote and the key fact. The result is a lucid, highly readable overview of California water history from days of the Spanish missionaries to the present which shows how early settlement patterns in a very real sense created the present situation. The only area where this reader would liked to have seen more relates to hard data regarding immigrant and emmigrant flows into the state historically and the assumptions regarding those flows and ethnic-group fertility rates as it relates to population projections for the future. Without understanding those elements, I suspect it won't be possible to surface the policy issues now hidden behind smoke and mirrors at the Federal level which in the end will probably determine what happens in the state. It would be nice to be able to think that refusing at the state level to increase the water supply would suffice to limit population growth here; regrettably, the Government in Washington is already so involved in our policies that anything we do in isolation would most certainly be overturned.
Rating:
Summary: Paying for the Past
Review: This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in California; although expensive, it is worth every penny. Mr. Carle has a clear, uncomplicated style of writing and an eye for the cogent quote and the key fact. The result is a lucid, highly readable overview of California water history from days of the Spanish missionaries to the present which shows how early settlement patterns in a very real sense created the present situation. The only area where this reader would liked to have seen more relates to hard data regarding immigrant and emmigrant flows into the state historically and the assumptions regarding those flows and ethnic-group fertility rates as it relates to population projections for the future. Without understanding those elements, I suspect it won't be possible to surface the policy issues now hidden behind smoke and mirrors at the Federal level which in the end will probably determine what happens in the state. It would be nice to be able to think that refusing at the state level to increase the water supply would suffice to limit population growth here; regrettably, the Government in Washington is already so involved in our policies that anything we do in isolation would most certainly be overturned.
Rating: 
Summary: Adolescent Utopian Thinking That Would Ruin the Environment
Review: This is an apparent Sierra Club republication of the author's book Drowning the Dream: California's Water Choices at the Millenium published in 2000. I found the book to be an adolescent-like approach to California's water issues - if we only rolled back history and never built the Los Angeles Aqueduct and everyone still lived an idyllic rural existence on farms the physical environment would never have been ruined by the water grabs of arid Southern California, or so the author tells us. If such was the case most of us would still be living with premature death, disease, and an existence of daily grueling labor and the physical environment would be ruined by everyone having need of at least 160-acres for farming - witness China. What apparently biologist author David Carle can't grasp - because it is beyond his professional competence - is that it wasn't necessarily large industrial water projects that ruined the pristine California environment, but the choice to socialize water and thus make it available at such a low price that about 80% of water consumed by cities is exploited for the non-essentials of living - lawns, gardens, and swimming pools. Moreover, Carle never factors into his assessment that there has been a trade off from natural flora and fauna to man-made gardens in the cities surrounding everyone's home. His solution to just say no to new water and to politically blockade the use of existing water supplies by environmental lawsuits to control population is wrong headed, naive, and bound to failure. Such policies don't stand much of a chance of success if it results in telling urban homeowners that they can't have rose gardens or lawns. A better solution would have been to privatize the water system in the first place in which case urban dwellers wouldn't have been as prone to exploit water because it would have been too costly to do so. However, a kudo to the author for assembling a good bibliography which resulted in this reviewer assigning two stars to the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful, easy primer on the California water crisis
Review: This is as interesting historically as it is politically -- how we got ourselves into this mess is at least as interesting, err, dumbfounding, as the potential ways out. This is as much a history of California as it is a history of California's water problem and being relatively new (10 years) to the state, I learned a great deal. I didn't realize, for instance, how the byproducts of the 49ers (quicksilver/mercury) are still flowing down out of the mountains and into the bay even today after heavy rains. Whodathunkit. The look at the political machinery that got us here was fascinating, though I will have to say the policy presciptions for getting us out seemed pretty linear -- I was expecting some more imaginative thinking from such an authority on the subject as Carle, but then again I didn't really buy the book to have the answers spoon-fed to me. If the answer was simple, you know, Gray Davis would be jumping all over this one, and he ain't. It's a pretty easy read -- a fun read, actually -- and the maps were indeed helpful, in fact I'd like to see even more maps in future books like this, especially of the rivers in the north that feed our agriculture machine. The photos were also helpful. (Ed note: give reviewer extra points for acknowledging he likes books with photos.) Final thought: no mention of California's huge bottled water habit. A bit off topic, but funny it wasn't in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Useful, easy primer on the California water crisis
Review: This is as interesting historically as it is politically -- how we got ourselves into this mess is at least as interesting, err, dumbfounding, as the potential ways out. This is as much a history of California as it is a history of California's water problem and being relatively new (10 years) to the state, I learned a great deal. I didn't realize, for instance, how the byproducts of the 49ers (quicksilver/mercury) are still flowing down out of the mountains and into the bay even today after heavy rains. Whodathunkit. The look at the political machinery that got us here was fascinating, though I will have to say the policy presciptions for getting us out seemed pretty linear -- I was expecting some more imaginative thinking from such an authority on the subject as Carle, but then again I didn't really buy the book to have the answers spoon-fed to me. If the answer was simple, you know, Gray Davis would be jumping all over this one, and he ain't. It's a pretty easy read -- a fun read, actually -- and the maps were indeed helpful, in fact I'd like to see even more maps in future books like this, especially of the rivers in the north that feed our agriculture machine. The photos were also helpful. (Ed note: give reviewer extra points for acknowledging he likes books with photos.) Final thought: no mention of California's huge bottled water habit. A bit off topic, but funny it wasn't in the book.
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