[jurassic]

If somebody is stealing your car do you shoot out the tires with a rocket launcher to stop him? That's what nuking California would amount to.

Launching nukes would be suicidally stupid for a number of reasons. Firstly, we're upwind of the rest of the US and radioactive fallout would be transported to adjacent states. We didn't realize it when we were performing original tests in Nevada, but now we know there was a significant spike in cancers occurring in the people of St. George Utah, for example, as a result of 1950s nuclear tests in Nevada.

A more immediate and practical concern is that California is responsible for a significant proportion of the United States' food supply.