A thorough discussion of the CA insanity and the current drought.
How could they through away their wonderful agricultural bounty,
and why are they intent on destroying CA farmers, the fertile San Joaquin valley and the inland farmlands?
Elites don’t understand much about the world and reality. They live in a bubble and they are True Believer misanthropic pantheists.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/the-costs-of-the-environmentalism-cult-2/print/
The map on this site says it all.
http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/california/
Due to population density, the voice of anyone with first hand experience in agriculture and irrigation is shouted down by 1000 people that have spent their entire lives in a city where water magically flows from a tap and the only sacrifice they’ve had to make is shorter showers and low-flow toilets.
It goes back a lot further than the last 20 years. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (father of the present CA governor) managed to push through the original “California Water Project” that was established to transport water from Northern California to Southern California. While the initial program was built (the main feature being the California Aqueduct running from the Sacramento River Delta down the Central Valley and over the Tehachapi mountains (huge pumping station) etc., quite a lot was left to do over time. But one by one, political interests (mostly green groups) managed to get one after another proposed reservoir (generally in the Sierra foothills) to be cancelled for any variety of excuses — and the creation of public workers unions set up the flow of state money into union coffers, eliminating many projects due simply to an absence of available funding.
California has some clear regional divisions in priorities … and the dominance of populations in the large cities (the SF Bay Area and the LA Basin + San Diego) allows those regions to overwhelm voters who are more interested in agricultural needs.
The complexity of the political situation in California is rather more difficult that can be explained in a short comment box. In 2012, I escaped from California and now live in state with a better business climate and with more competitive politics (where both sides get heard and true cooperation between the parties exists to get things done). My only regret is that I didn’t leave years ago…
As I tell people every time this comes up, the voters in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia were fooled at least 3 times in the last 20 years into voting for restriction on water storage that had titles that included laudable things like “Clean Water” in them.
They never bother to read even the analyses and never read the text of the bills.
Ehrlich and his ghoulish band of eugenicists must be rubbing their hands in anticipation.
Jeeez! where’s the edit buttom, Excuse my typos’…
Here’s a couple of links to get an idea of the real story from folks that don’t have a vested interest… with regard to this story…
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/californias-thirsty-almonds/Content?oid=3830095
http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/columnists/lois-henry/x172376901/LOIS-HENRY-While-D-C-plays-politics-real-water-issues-await
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/california-water-officials-made-the-drought-worse/Content?oid=3830041
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/california-water-officials-made-the-drought-worse/Content?oid=3830041
What an unmitigated crock! The article, as well as, John B’s statement, completely over looks the facts which are, water is NOT dumped in the ocean to waste it.. It’s done to save commercial and sportfishing industries that contribute more to California’s economy that the two entities that are leading the charge to suck ever more water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for their own financial gain.
Those being Westlands Irrigation District and the Kern Water Bank.. These two entities have planted permanent “crops” in the form of Almond and Pistachio trees as well as Pomegranate trees. The biggest percentage of which is exported and is not feeding America. The worst sin is that the Corporate Growers (absolutely not “family farmers”) get their water attractively priced in that due to massive subsidies courtesy of California’s taxpayer and ratepayers provide them as well as federal taxpayers, ie: subsidized water, subsidized electricity to pump the water as well crop subsidies in a bunch instances. Another subsidy they are privileged to have has been a interest free 50+ year loan that has a balance of some $400,000.00 dollars… Nice racket when you can get it… The facts are that they plated the orchards in the desert and in soils that whose underground aquifer’s water is too salty to irrigate nut trees with so they are dependent on imported water, a gamble made by the Corporate growers that drought will cause them to lose unless Northern California accedes to their insane demands (which will not happen) Any Google search can substantiate what I’ve said here.
The diversion of huge amounts of water to save an “endangered” fish has endangered the lives of millions of people.
There are consequences to substantially reducing production of one of the world’s great breadbaskets. There is less food and the food that is available goes up in price.
So when you see pictures of third-world villages and refugee camps filled with starving people, you can trace the cause right back to things like this environmental fraud taking place in California.