What’s Wrong With California in One Map

Remember Barry Goldwater’s famous line that the country would be better off if we sawed off the Atlantic seaboard and let it drift out to sea?  Well, the same thing should be said of coastal California.

This isn’t exactly news of course, but below is a great photo that dramatizes the problem: it shows which California counties have banned single-use plastic bags.  No mystery as to the politics of this.  Of course, plastic bag bans are environmentally as well as economically stupid (that’s usually the case when the two factors are considered together).  FWIW, I always reuse my plastic bags, and even made some custom products with them.  (I’ll show you some time when I get back from my current road trip.) Even my temporary hamlet last year, the People’s Republic of Boulder, hasn’t banned plastic bags: they just put a 10-cent tax on them.  Naturally, California’s legislature has passed a statewide plastic bag ban.  Jerry Brown is expected to sign it, if he hasn’t already.

So we may as well saw off all of California and send it out to sea.  Just give me advance notice so I can move to Nevada.

California Bags copy

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