California Dought
Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife have been charged with dozens of counts of accepting gifts and loans. Of course, he says he’s innocent. In my mind, this is a big deal. Bob McDonnell was on the fast track to the White House. He was young and energetic and extremely conservative. He had the whole package. Cracks in his exterior began to surface early. He was given a wonderful platform, rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union address, in which he failed to capitalize. I don’t think that anyone thought that his performance was stellar. Anyway, one of the back stories to this whole ordeal is the fact that former Governor McDonnell was having financial troubles when he moved into the governor’s mansion.
A huge Arctic blast is hitting the Northeast. From North Carolina all the way to Connecticut we’ve seen large snowfall and Arctic temperatures. Everyone, please be careful. Please drive safely. Please be smart.
Once again, California is in the middle of an awful, desperate drought. Governor Jerry Brown has announced water restrictions. Water restrictions are a temporary solution for a long-term problem. It is like placing a Band-Aid on an ulcer which is really cancer. The Band-Aid is a temporary solution. Simply put, California needs more water. I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to transport water from other parts of the country to California. We’ve tried that and, again, it was a temporary solution. We need a more permanent solution. Since we don’t know how to control the weather, the only solution that seems reasonable is desalination, removing salt from seawater. With California’s huge agricultural industry, this is a national problem and not only a problem for California. We need to sit down with smart people and figure out the quickest and safest way to begin desalination.
Negotiators are beginning the Herculean task of trying to negotiate some sort of peaceful settlement to the Syrian conflict. Just yesterday, news leaked out that there is clear evidence of torture in Syria. This of course is on top of the problem of refugees. Millions of refugees have left Syria, fleeing to neighboring countries which have neither the facilities nor the infrastructure to support an influx of millions of people. This is a huge problem.
Finally, two heartbreaking stories that I’ve been following – yesterday, documents were released that revealed that in the Chicago archdiocese priests were abusing children. Once again, we see that the church struggled to come up with the right answer to this huge problem. Many of these accusations back date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The other story has to do with a man who was at the movies with his wife. The man, a Desert Storm veteran, had the nerve to text his daughter and for his efforts he was shot by a former police officer. I still don’t understand this. There some things that I will never understand.
LRM 🙂
I appreciate your input.
I don’t disagree that the ocean is stressed. I’m not sure what “too stressed” means.
There is no way under our current system to move large populations of people so I don’t that is realistic. I also think that we have moved water to the people before. That has just complicated an already complex water landscape out west. I do think that desalination is something that is worth trying. We need to be thoughtful. I think that if there is any state in the union that is going to be thoughtful about the environment it would be California (or Oregon).
Don’t think that I’m blowing off your answer. I’m not. I just don’t see any other way to get water to California in the short term. We can talk about population control and moving folks to Kansas and Wyoming later. (Personally, I would be really pissed if I moved to California and someone told me that I had to move to Wyoming. It ain’t the same. 🙂 )
I think that you would agree that there is a difference between migration and the government forcing people to move. Would we do something like China and simply build a couple of cities in Kentucky, Tennesee and North Carolina. Create huge tax incentives and hope that people would move…by the millions? Then what happens if people still don’t move in the numbers that we need? I think that it is an interesting idea but our society can’t make that happen.
LRM I agree with you hundred percent. There is a limit to how much we can manipulate environment before our surroundings collapse upon us. I read the article you sent. I also agree that no one has the constitutional right to live in a specific area but I just don’t understand how we can make people move.
Thanks for your comments
LRM You are soooooo right on this one.