Rudbeckia....

....commonly known as Black Eyed Susans. They flourish when everything is looking wilty and tired and make a nice show as we drive up the driveway.

Every day there is another story about drought and another picture of boats stranded on dry, cracked land, dried up reservoirs and mighty rivers reduced to a trickle. Clearly climate change has a lot to do with it. Each successive year has had more days over 100F than the year before, or ever. We are urged to conserve energy to avoid power shutdowns. Water is being rationed in many cities, although I've not read much about what is being done on the agricultural front which is a big issue here in Wine Country. 

We have a bucket in our shower. Our front lawn is dead. We have solar panels and a solar storage battery, but the power we generate still has to go through the power company which is raising their rates for solar customers at a time when many other components of a power are becoming more affordable. Pacific Gas and Electric Company has a huge amount of debt due to the fires they have caused in their service area. Many people who lost their homes in the Tubbs and Nun's fires in 2017 have yet to see the promised settlement.

But I digress....it seems to me that the elephant in the room, which nobody talks about is too many people. Nobody knows what to do about that, so the state continues to mandate increased housing. There is a fixed number for every county but nobody complies because it is almost impossible. Some counties don't have room for more housing. No county in California has water enough, and many counties don't have the infrastructure to evacuate all those extra people in the event of another fire...a serious consideration here since we don't even have enough for the people who are already here.

People are working on climate mitigation, and novel new forms of generating power. People in some counties are already obtaining wastewater clean enough to use in their gardens, although even if they could do it, I think treated wastewater for drinking would be a hard sell. 
But these things are moving at a glacial pace compared to the rate of global population growth which has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion in 2020.

It seems to me that at this point, the only way to slow population growth, unless people have fewer children, is natural selection and will begin with the poor, the un- and undereducated and those with poor health care. 

I wouldn't call abortion the ideal solution to population growth, but outlawing it is shortsighted and thoughtless.