Letters to the Editor
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Grand Funk Railroad...
How did they get it right? They wrote a song about overpopulation in the 1970's and they were stoned our of their gourds.
Your telling me a bunch of stoners were more on top of the biggest problem that humanity has ever faced than the government. Overpopulation is the root of every problem that we are dealing with today. Despite this we still have a large portion of the world who thinks that birth control is evil.
Go read "Headbirths" by Gunter Grass
Simply brilliant. Thanks again Salon for producing/posting/finding great articles. This is an excellent work of journalism.
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moving to British Columbia
I live in San Francisco, and it's just a matter of time before we become parched like Southern California. I can't stand it when these spoiled narcissitic Californians whine about the rain, as if they're entitled to 80 F sunny days every day of their sun-tanned lives. And the plastic mannequin-like meterologists on local news channels don't help either -- they hardly ever educate us about water conservation and the necessity of long winter rains to fill our reservoirs and fill the Sierra Nevada snowpack. Like most myopic self-involved Americans, they only live for the weekend and want the weather to suit their recreation, long-term sustainability be damned.
I'm moving to British Columbia, where I will delight in the wet rain forest climate.
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@ Back of Beyond
Not sure what in my posting provoked laughter, given that I prefaced what I said with, "This may not work for you if you're in one of the drought-stricken areas."
You're right, people who live in areas that don't support tomatoes are either going to have to have tomatoes shipped in from elsewhere or go without tomatoes. But those who *can* grow their own food should try to do so, and if you can't grow the types of food you're used to buying at the store, then maybe you should expand your culinary horizons a bit to native plants that are edible. What I'm suggesting is that everyone start to take responsibility for at least some of their own food production, within the limits of their available land space, climate, and economic means.
Can't everyone at least start eliminating the water usage practices that are patently dumb-assed, regardless of whether their particular local area is currently experiencing a water crisis? Should anyone really be growing a large and unnecessary grass lawn and watering it with a sprinkler in the middle of the day?
And look, pal, when you make fun of the "local food" movement, bear in mind that this whole phenomenon of being able to pick up a fresh mango, pineapple, or tomato at the grocery store from any place in the United States and at any time of year is a fairly recent one. Before our use of fossil fuels made such massive transport of fresh produce possible, people had to live off of what they could grow locally, and winter to many people meant a season full of potato and cabbage recipes. This is why different areas of the world developed different cuisines, see? And if there were areas of the planet that couldn't produce edible vegetation, people weren't idiotic enough to live there. We can live differently now, but only for as long as our fossil fuels hold out and don't overheat the plant.
Laugh all you want, I'm not seeing anything about this situation that is particularly funny.
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typo
That should have read "don't overheat the planet," not "plant."
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lol captainlarab
I live in Atlanta.
A rainbarrel???? WHAT RAIN!
Grow your own tomatoes? It's freaking November.
You, and the antibreeders, don't seem to get the urgency of the problem.
We are going to run out of water SOON.
We need FEMA and all the President's men to figure out what happens in January.
We can talk about how to fix the next millenium later.
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Less people...
Equals less fighting for resources...
Face it, just about all of our wars have been fought over resources...sure, they may dress it up in fancy language about "leibesrahm" (sic, German for "Breathing room" from WW2), or about lofty notions about independence (think U.S. Revolution, or the "liberation" of Kuwait, one of the most oil-rich countries in the world), or it may go under the phrase of "genocide" (aka Rwanda) etc. But when it comes right down to it, it's all about who owns the resources...it's a natural by-product of our evolutionary instincts to survive.
But we can ALL take an active part and reduce this kind of unnecessary turmoil...by NOT having more children.
Yep, sounds radical, I know...I'm not talking about killing off civilizations or anything, I'm talking about making a conscience choice to not bring children into this world. Doesn't mean you don't have to have children, adoption is always an option if you just gotta have kids around...but the fact is, there are only so many resources left on this planet. The fewer of us there are to use that up, the less of a problem it's going to be.
Besides, don't worry about the "environment"...Mother Nature is a tough broad (as George Carlin used to say), she doesn't need us to take care of it...we only need to take care of it to preserve ourselves, Mother Nature can live without us.
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How to reverse this drought
In a word "cloudbuster"...the wild science rain making mojo device created by the late/great Dr. Wilhelm Reich. Prayer is fine Atlanta but let's also tackle this the American Way...Hardware! Let's blast the Georgia skies with Reich's Orgone Energy and see what happens. 100 Cloudbusters...Bam!!!Take that Mother Nature.
Wikipedia Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbuster
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Get ready for some belt-tightening....
1. Lawns are stupid. Just dumb. In a world of 10 billion people toasted by climate change, you are no longer going to have grassy manicured front and backyards. Get over it.
2. You don't get swimming pools. I grew up in Florida and a lot of people have them, despite constant drought conditions. (At what point does it stop being a drought and just become the climate?) It makes me sick to go to Phoenix and see how many people have pools, or to go to Vegas and see the fountains spraying water into the air. Kiss it goodbye; it's not going to last much longer.
3. Washing your cars? Seriously? Say goodbye to that one too.
4. And let's not forget agricultural water use, which is one of the biggest uses of water. Guess what -- eating beef three times a day (with a side of pork, eggs, and cheese) will become hella more expensive. Or it should -- who wants to bet that my tax dollars will pay to subsidize the beef, poultry, dairy, pork industries so y'all won't have to go without your McDonald's?
Personally I think that water rationing is a great idea. (And inevitable, especially if you people don't stop having infinite babies that will compete with me for resources.) You get 1 or 2 gallons per person, per day; anything more than that will be taxed up the wazoo.
There just isn't enough to go around in the ways that a lot of people are used to using it.