The Great Smokey Valley

On the front page of the Local section today there are four maps showing the possible scenarios of growth in the San Joaquin Valley over the next 40 years. According to the article, the population in the valley is expected to double. The maps show a cluster of little orange and yellow dots spreading out from centers like Bakersfield and Fresno. It kind of looks like a bad rash.

On the front page of the Business section there’s an article describing how more and more people are buying BIG trucks – the four-door kind. All the people buying houses on what used to be farmland now need a truck to haul their kids and their crap around.

Basically all this means that as more and more people move into the valley and more and more of them drive around in their BIG trucks, Hummers and SUVs the air quality around here is going to become more and more unhealthy.

We might as well just all start smoking.