From the Globe and Mail. Put simply: California’s economy sucks. The central valley, some of the most fertile ground in America (and place where half of Americas veggies are grown), has seen a three-year drought. California is in dire economic straights, and needs everything that can be productive to be productive. So what is California’s solution? To shut off water to the central valley to protect a 3-inch fish.
Mendota, population 10,000, was once famous as the “cantaloupe capital of the world.” Today, it is the jobless capital of America, with an unemployment rate of 41 per cent. … Towns like Mendota are already emptying out. What began a trickle now feels more like a torrent, and as people leave, Fresno County’s tax revenue evaporates.
Yeah, good plan.
I’ve always boggled at the cognitive dissonance of a water shortage in California. California, after all, has an extremely long border… with the Pacific Friggen’ Ocean. Here, for example, is an Israeli desalination plant:
My proposed solution: divert all inland or mountain water sources (including the sadly neutered Colorado River) away from coastal cities, redirect back to inland cities and farms. Tell the coastal cities that if they want water… there it is. Build some desalination plants and some nuclear reactors to power them, and problem solved. If they don’t want to do that – which they will *have* to do anyway, given grown trends – then they can feel free to dry up and blow away like Fresno.
9 Responses to “EnviroGreenie success story: Fresno”
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X2. Just when you think the left has set the record for idiocy they raise the bar.
Funny, and aircraft carrier, Nuke of conventional, can desalinated a BUTT LOAD of water during 24 hour period, but LA, SanFran etc etc can’t figure out how to meet their potable water needs. Clor me underwhelmed. Cut them off at the knees and tell them to f–k off. Stop importing food into them, too. See how fast their governmental policies change.
I live in soCal and the thing that actually concerns me is that we’re way overdue for another big earthquake (knock on wood)
If I could live anywhere, it’d be Lake Tahoe. Only a few ways in that could be blocked off, enough fresh water to cover all of Cal with 6″ of water, lots of fire wood, tasty animals in the forest and you could spend you free time riding bikes, gambling and just breathing fresh air.
And without the tourists, its a pretty nice place
50 yrs went into the planning of this “water shortage.” Check this out: http://www.myspace.com/marlalk4
Amazing what climate change and global warming is doing to the world’s climate, now isn’t it?
> Amazing what climate change and global warming is doing to the world’s climate, now isn’t it?
Not really sure how that comment is relevant to the article, since what is being discussed isa region of California that was a desert before irrigation was introduced, became an agricultural garden after irrigation was introduced, and is returning to a desert now that irrigation has been shut off.
I think that was his point.
Yes it was. Irrigation is robbing Peter to pay Paul, stealing water from one area to another. When the scheme to do this was established, it was obvious that Area A had more water than Area B. Now, both areas have no water. Your solution is a short-term band aid. Address the root cause of the problem – anthropromorphic created global warming. Stop polluting the planet and the climate will be fixed.
> the root cause of the problem – anthropromorphic created global warming.
Ummm… NO. As I said, the area was a desert before the farmers showed up. That means, before the 20th century. The only thing that made it *not* a desert was mankind “polluting” the place with irrigation.
In any event, global warming is causign the deserts to turn green (such as the Sahara). Increased temperature = increased evaporation = increased rainfall. The greatest eras of desertification in the last million years have been the eras of global *cooling.*
But hey, if you want to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions, great. Crank back on the socialism and crank out the nuclear reactors. Doign stupid things like Cap and Trade causes American business and manufacturing to collapse, which means it gets picked up by the likes of India and China, places with much worse environmental records.