Governments treat water and money in a similar way - if there appears to be enough then they say "OK looks good let's spend freely!"
They rapidly forget how quickly it runs out.
They rapidly forget how quickly it runs out.
Their particular policies were ill designed, but they at least made us aware of the problem and spurred discussion and what we should be doing.
This really does mirror the state's budgetary attitude and it highly disapponting.
This drought is just one event in a long line of documented historical droughts in California. Yes, it's worse than the other ones in recorded history, but we've only been recording for ~200 years so the sample size is small. We can observe further back via tree rings and other creative forensics, but you also have to factor in the different climate. It's not like California didn't have any major droughts before global warming.
Additionally, humans have gutted the only major rainforest in our hemisphere in just the past 30 years. It's entirely possible that the California drought has much more to do with the Amazon being slash-n-burned than due to carbon emissions (although they both contribute to global warming).