Letters to the Editor
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I think a Great Dying is coming.
And the billions (trillions?) that we're borrowing to occupy Iraq could buy a lot of solar powered desalination plants, but shock and awe is way more fun than sliding the salt out of water.
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I saw this movie...
It turns out The Road Warrior was an accurate prediction of the future after all. God bless that prescient Mel Gibson.
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According to the IPCC...
climate change is beyond dispute, and governments that don't take drastic action are being "criminally negligent". From the article, it seems that the costs of such negligence is coming home to roost.
On the other hand, we've had the denial industry going off for over a decade, spreading doubt where little existed and buying off the politicians.
In North America, we appeased the bully (the oil and auto industries) just as Chamberlain appeased Hitler in 1938. As in 1938, we did so in the hope that our normal, pleasant lives would last just a bit longer, that we could put off the tough choices.
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less people more abundance
We have always been fruitful and multiplied. The time is right to stop. We must teach the children to avoid having children of their own. Less will be more. Less people on the planet, more abundance of resources. Why 6 billion, how about 1 billion, or 500 million? Educate the women of the world, offer them birth control services and abortions. They will chose well if they know.
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America's water war
Perhaps the states of the pacific northwest could create a hydro version of OPEC along with the provinces of Canada. The leader could go by tha handle of Sheik Canteen...
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Couldn't happen to a more desrving place
I left Atlanta almost 2 years ago. In so many ways, it struck me as an unlivable place--more car bound than quintessentailly car bound LA, congested and polluted (although it has little industry), poorly planned with a horribly engineered road system, and filled with ugly architecture. It also lacks any 1st rate cultural institutions and has never really contributed important products or ideas to the world (Coca-Cola, to the extent it's important was invented by pharmacist in another state). Atlanta began as a rail hub and now it's an airport hub. Beyond planes changing at Hartsfield-Jackson, there isn't much reason for any of the sprawl to be there. Just about anything done in Atlanta could be done in another city with a hub airport whether it be Charlotte, Detroit, or San Francisco. the city is on no river, it has no significant natural resources nearby, and the local agricultural economy is pretty anemic beyond peanuts and pulp wood. The drought should stimulate debate about development and where it should occur. Just because we can air condition a place like Phoenix (or Atlanta) doesn't mean it really needs to prosper and the cheap cost of land in such places (not as cheap as it used to be) should be balanced by the long and short-costs of scarce basic resources.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to live in Atlanta (and I'm originally from that most unglamorous or places, Cleveland, which has plenty of water and a decent art museum). The long term problem of managing resources should reframe the question to why should anyone live in such an unsustainable place and why should public policy do anything to encourage it.
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never mind the rain, stop breeding!
Per usual, fewer than ten letters are required before someone afflicted by suburban anomie recommends that everyone other than themselves accelerate their demise by not reproducing. How precisely would one cut the population of the earth by 85 to 90 percent without total chaos?
Presumably when it became clear that there weren't enough young people to look after the material needs of the older generation, enterprising mothers would have children ASAP. And who would ensure that there was a sufficient balance of skills to manage this new great (relative) abundance?
I say no thanks: it smacks too much of every idealistic ideological goal that is predicated on people attaining some kind of altered consciousness and ends up with them being re-educated at the barrel of a gun. Next thing you know, resistance will take the form of a sign saying that a condom is a weapon with a worker at either end...
As a species, randomized mass death has worked before when we're put under environmental strain. If it was good enough for the people around my forebears, it's good enough for the people around me.
Or we could, just possibly, put our heads around thinking of something more creative than not breeding in terms of how we live in our space.
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Vegas baby!
We have been living in a virtual state of denial for decades. When air conditioning was invented, places which previously had been unhabitable for most people became boom towns. I've been to Vegas once - it's Disneyland for adults and it was fun, but I couldn't help but think to myself: this place will soon be a ghosttown. Mad Max anyone?
I live in the L.A. area: this is a semi-desert region well on its way to becoming a all-desert area. It's not meant to be a home to millions of people - they had to steal water from the Owens Valley and pipe it in to Los Angeles. (the film Chinatown deals with this subject).
We are in deep trouble and are only seeing the beginning of our worst nightmares. You don't have to be a prophet, an expert, a Rep or a Dem. Anyone with half-a-brain can put two and two together and picture a future with severe water shortages.
The late Senator Paul Simon of Illinois was talking and writing about this more than a decade ago. I remember reading a book of his and thinking, ouch. I started writing a screenplay which had scenarios that we are seeing now: states fighting each other in court over water rights. I got so bummed out and put the script away. Now, going to court is still fairly civil. What happens when "the well" runs dry? People won't be going to court then - they will take what they need to survive. You'll see more folks buying guns to protect themselves and their families. You'll see the poor going after middleclass people and wealthy people, owners of 4-7 bathroom mansions and their pools. It's going to get very ugly.
We can live without oil but we cannot exist without water.