|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please visit our sponsor!
|
|
  
Follow @Uncle_Ernie California Dreaming: It's A Nightmare! By Ernest Stewart "We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too." ~~~ Jay Famiglietti Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, in which he painted a dire picture of the state's water crisis. "As our 'wet' season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions," Famiglietti wrote. "The state has "been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. January was the driest in California since record keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too."Last month, scientists at NASA, Cornell University and Columbia University portended a "remarkably drier future" in California and other Western states that includes "megadroughts" which would start as early as 2050 and each of which could last decades. Famiglietti pointed out that the volume of the combined snow, rivers, reservoirs, soil water and groundwater of the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins totaled 34 million acre-feet below normal levels in 2014. "Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing," Famiglietti writes. "California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain." "Immediate mandatory water rationing should be authorized across all of the state's water sectors, from domestic and municipal through agricultural and industrial," he writes. "The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is already considering water rationing by the summer unless conditions improve. There is no need for the rest of the state to hesitate.""The public is ready," he adds countering the concerns of politicians of enacting unpopular legislation. "A recent Field Poll showed that 94% of Californians surveyed believe that the drought is serious, and that one-third support mandatory rationing." California, which is home to more 39 million people, isn't the only state facing dire water shortages. You can add Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Texas -- or another 41 million people to the list -- meaning a total of some 81 million that may soon be without water if things don't change immediately. While California seems to be in the worst shape of those states, all of them are mostly desert; so the prospects for rain aren't good for them normally, not to mention in the fourth year of an area-wide drought. Even the Sheeple who've been led by the political climate change deniers are beginning to believe their lying eyes, and not the bullshit being carefully spoon fed to them by the Koch Brothers and others of their ilk. Nor does it help that the frackers in those states are making what little water that's available to them poison! Meanwhile, farmers in those states have been tapping underground water sources at an alarming rate; and, in some cases, causing earthquakes as the water is pumped out and the earth settles; not a good thing to do with all those criss-crossing fault lines. We're looking at trillion dollar losses and a collapsing economy. All ISIS and our other enemies, a.k.a., the rest of the world, need to do is to sit back and watch as America goes down without them firing a single shot! As losses of a trillion-plus dollars would certainly destroy an already-shaky economy and bring on a depression that'd make the one in the 1930's resemble a "Swiss Picnic" by comparison! *****  05-29-1955 ~ 03-15-2015 Thanks for the music!  07-17-1957 ~ 03-16-2015 Thanks for the music!  07-03-1952 ~ 03-16-2015 Thanks for the music! ***** We get by with a little help from our friends! So please help us if you can...? Donations ***** So how do you like Bush Lite so far? And more importantly, what are you planning on doing about it? Until the next time, Peace! (c) 2015 Ernest Stewart a.k.a. Uncle Ernie is an unabashed radical, author, stand-up comic, DJ, actor, political pundit and for 13 years was the managing editor and publisher of Issues & Alibis magazine. Visit me on Facebook. Follow me on Twitter. Email:uncle-ernie@issuesandalibis.org
|
