Bold claim: California should focus on storing water, not panic about climate.
After last year’s wildfires ripped through Los Angeles, California politicians and media pointed fingers at oil companies, blaming their product for fueling climate change and drought. Rep. Dave Min, a Democrat from Irvine, asserted that “climate change has wreaked havoc on us” because it dried out the vegetation. He overlooks a string of unusually wet winters that continued this year, with Southern California receiving rainfall well above average.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, representing San Francisco, said the fires illustrate “the new normal in California” and argued for a law letting wildfire victims sue oil companies for damages. Governor Gavin Newsom echoed that sentiment, claiming we’re living in an era of extreme conditions and urging belief in the science — and in what our eyes show us.
At the Munich Security Conference, Newsom spoke of people “burning up, choking up, heating up,” as if wildfires began only after humans started burning fossil fuels. Over the past year, public discussions have leaned toward climate policy as the root cause, sometimes sidestepping other potential factors.
One of the most cited sources in these debates is the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM). This weekly map, created by a collaboration of researchers from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, NOAA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, marks drought conditions across the country. Since its 2000 inception through September 2025, the USDM has shown California experiencing drought conditions roughly 61 percent of the time, a rate notably higher than pre-2000 expectations. Critics argue that such figures fuel aggressive climate policies that can strain California’s energy and water infrastructure, bring higher fuel and water prices, and threaten agriculture.
To test USDM’s conclusions, colleagues Edward Ring and I tried to reproduce their results. We found the process lacking in transparency: the USDM team could not provide an algorithm for independent replication of weekly classifications, stating that there isn’t a fixed algorithm, and that scientists “make sense out of it” when data points diverge. This openness, some say, leaves room for confirmation bias. Our analysis showed rainfall since 2000 is only about 1.4 percent below the 100-year average, and temperature and humidity had virtually no substantive changes. In short, by these measures, California’s climate today resembles the early 1900s in terms of rainfall, temperature, and humidity.
Focusing on Los Angeles reveals more volatility in rainfall since records began in 1877. This pattern aligns with what UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain describes as “hydroclimate whiplash” — cycles of drought followed by heavy rain — a pattern that predates industrial activity and challenges simplistic attributions to climate change. If anything, this volatility suggests the issue is more about water management and resilience than a singular cause tied to fossil fuels.
From a policy perspective, these perspectives have real consequences. If the mainstream narrative leans toward perpetual drought, policymakers may push aggressive water restrictions that burden farmers and urban users alike. California’s leadership has also aimed to phase out gas-powered vehicles within a decade and has encouraged cities and counties to ban gas appliances in homes.
A more grounded path would recognize California’s inherent rainfall volatility and focus on expanding resilient water storage and supply. Practical steps include increasing reservoir capacity and pursuing desalination along the Pacific Coast—measures rooted in reality rather than being driven by a single narrative. These approaches would help buffer drought years and support both farming and urban needs.
Marc Joffe, a visiting fellow at the California Policy Center and co-author of a study on the USDM, advocates for a statistical, evidence-based review of drought data to guide policy more effectively.
Would you prefer more emphasis on water storage infrastructure and desalination, or a broader discussion weighing various climate indicators and their policy implications? Share your thoughts in the comments.
