“Think globally, act locally.” — René Dubos, Pulitzer prize winning biologist, humanist, and environmentalist
By John Earl
On April 16, 2023, I asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT the following question about SoCal Water Wars:
John Earl writes a newsletter called socalwaterwars.substack.com. Please explain his writing style.
The response was:
As an AI language model, I cannot make subjective judgments about a person's writing style, but I can analyze their writing patterns based on the text available.
Based on a brief analysis of socalwaterwars.substack.com, John Earl's writing style appears to be informative and analytical. He provides detailed insights and analysis on the ongoing water crisis in Southern California, focusing on water management and policies, as well as environmental and social issues related to water scarcity.
His writing is generally straightforward and factual, with occasional personal opinions and insights. He uses charts, graphs, and visual aids to support his arguments and enhance readers' understanding of complex issues.
Overall, John Earl's writing style seems to be focused on delivering accurate, in-depth information and analysis to his readers, rather than entertaining or engaging them with a particular writing style or voice.
If I may say so, it appears that artificial intelligence is a lot more intelligent than I first thought it was.
But here are the details, in my own words.
I am an investigative journalist who has reported on Southern California water-management issues for over 16 years. I was the only journalist during much of that time to report in-depth on local (Orange County) water districts and their obsession with the proposed Huntington Beach, CA., Poseidon Ocean Desalination project.
My extensive and exclusive explanatory and investigative reporting on that topic (please browse the archives of this newsletter) informed and motivated public citizens to act, and influenced mainstream media reporting, helping to defeat one of the world's great water-project scams.
Socalwaterwars.substack.com evolved from the Surf City Voice, a local investigative news blog I started from Huntington Beach in 2010, and before that the OC Voice, a print newspaper that I co-owned and edited from 2006 - 2009.
SoCal Water Wars covers water-management issues, including climate change, drought, government/corporate transparency, and environmental justice through a Southern California lens but within the context of related state, national, and international events.
Stories in SoCal Water Wars usually emerge from three overlapping and often conflicting areas of Southern California water management:
the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and member agencies;
in Orange County, the Municipal Water District of Orange County and the Orange County Water District; they are listed as one because their work directly overlaps;
the San Diego County Water Authority and member agencies.
But SoCal Water Wars is about more than conflicts between water districts—over water rights and management policies. It’s about the conflicts between their shared business model—some experts call it a death spiral—and the natural environment that sustains all life on the planet Earth, including human beings.
SoCal Water Wars is about how we in Southern California try to limit and adapt to the effects of human-induced climate change in a just, equitable, and sustainable manner or suffer the consequences of refusing to change our ways.
Growing SoCal Water Wars
In the past year, subscriptions to SoCal Water Wars have more than doubled to almost 700 and will reach 1,000 in the next few months at the current rate.
Combined with non-subscribers referred by sharing on social media, there are up to 1,000 readers viewing (reading) each article published.
Detailed research shows that over 90 percent of subscriber and non-subscriber readers are highly targeted; that is, they include water-management officials (elected and staff), other local elected officials, appointed state officials, environmental and other ratepayer activists, academics, industry consultants, farmers, and other journalists—mostly from throughout Southern California but also some from Northern California and the Four-Corners states.
My current goal is to publish at least one or more articles every week, but that isn’t always possible due to the intense amount of research required for most of the stories I publish.
How wonderful it would be to afford paying for additional qualified environmental journalists on a freelance or full time basis.
But for now, my main concern is keeping myself with food, clothes, and shelter so I can just keep researching, writing, and publishing stories about water that matter.
So, please, if you like the content of this newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. If you’re interested but still not sure, simply click the button below and sign up for a free subscription to try it out.
Yours,
John Earl
