Drought

[Star Man]

Dear Waccobb Community,

California is in the throes of a serious drought, and so far I have seen nothing in the media about it. Where will the water come from? Will we pump our Northern California drinking water to the South? How will this scarce resource be allocated? Will businesses and vineyards be required to cut back? Will cuts be mandatory? I've lived in NorCal for a long time, and I've never experienced anything like this. Where are the media? Where are our elected officials? This is so not going away. We're already so far behind that even a normal late winter and spring rainfall wouldn't replenish the aquifers. This drought is the manifestation of global warming in Northern California. We may have thought we were safe, but we were not. However much green consciousness we may have, it is not and will not protect us from the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. With corporations firmly in charge of our government, we can expect no help from Congress or Sacramento, and what could they do anyway? There's not a one of them capable of dancing up a good rain! Nature is batting last and we are in big trouble.

Shaman Omaha

[Thad]

If I had a design lab I know this idea would make me money but I don't and so whoever can do it, it needs to be done. This idea is for people who use soft water systems on wells.

When a soft water system purges, if you have dual tanks, each tank uses more than 50 gallons of water to purge that is pumped out to somewhere and it is salty water, iron rich water can use 80 lbs of salt a month, unless you use potassium which is recyclable and its usable on plants and we need it ourselves, using salt can aggravate blood pressures, some people can't afford the potassium pellets which are three times the price of salt.

There should be a subsidy for stopping the use of salt in soft water systems. 200 gallons a week of water that soft water systems use to purge that could be stored and used would help things in the country/aquifer so I think there might be a way to use electric to remove the salt from soft water system purge cycles and that water could be used again and not go into the ground and kill plants

Dear Waccobb Community,

California is in the throes of a serious drought, and so far I have seen nothing in the media about it. Where will the water come from? Will we pump our Northern California drinking water to the South? How will this scarce resource be allocated? Will businesses and vineyards be required to cut back? Will cuts be mandatory? I've lived in NorCal for a long time, and I've never experienced anything like this. Where are the media? Where are our elected officials? This is so not going away. We're already so far behind that even a normal late winter and spring rainfall wouldn't replenish the aquifers. This drought is the manifestation of global warming in Northern California. We may have thought we were safe, but we were not. However much green consciousness we may have, it is not and will not protect us from the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. With corporations firmly in charge of our government, we can expect no help from Congress or Sacramento, and what could they do anyway? There's not a one of them capable of dancing up a good rain! Nature is batting last and we are in big trouble.

Shaman Omaha

[BobHeisler]

I've lived in California for 35 years and have seen many schizoid winter rainy seasons. Last year it was raining cats and dogs from November into early December at which point Santa Rosa's rainfall was running about 170% of normal and then it came to a screeching halt after the new year.

During the seven-year drought from the late 80's into the early 90's, there was a year in which we were told that, unless March brings us twice the normal rainfall, we'd be looking at water rationing. Well, March delivered twice the normal rainfall and we averted disaster.

While things look pretty dismal so far this winter, I would wait until April before I'd panic. You never know what whacky swings the jetstream may take with little notice.

...California is in the throes of a serious drought, and so far I have seen nothing in the media about it.....

[Star Man]

I've lived in California for 35 years and have seen many schizoid winter rainy seasons.....

An article by Sean Scully just appeared in the online Press Democrat. Mr. Scully reports that Santa Rosa has received 11% of its normal rainfall (2.43 inches to date/21.81 normal inches of rain). Scully wrote his article while only using the word "drought" once, as in the following sentence: "As of mid-December, the upper reaches of the Russian River had received significantly less rain this year than either 1976 or 1932, previously the two worst drought years in the past 119 years, according to data from the Ukiah station of the National Climatic Data Center."

I am not panicking. I am counseling prudence. Of course, with thinking like yours, advising prudent use of a dwindling resource is a pointless exercise. Your thinking represents the Tragedy of the Commons. I think our species narcissistically named itself Homo sapiens, when it would have been much more appropriate to call us Homo imprudens, "the species that could not foresee the consequences of its actions."

[Thad]

But what about this below?

If I had a design lab I know this idea would make me money but I don't and so whoever can do it, it needs to be done. This idea is for people who use soft water systems on wells.

When a soft water system purges, if you have dual tanks, each tank uses more than 50 gallons of water to purge that is pumped out to somewhere and it is salty water, iron rich water can use 80 lbs of salt a month, unless you use potassium which is recyclable and its usable on plants and we need it ourselves, using salt can aggravate blood pressures, some people can't afford the potassium pellets which are three times the price of salt.

There should be a subsidy for stopping the use of salt in soft water systems. 200 gallons a week of water that soft water systems use to purge that could be stored and used would help things in the country/aquifer so I think there might be a way to use electric to remove the salt from soft water system purge cycles and that water could be used again and not go into the ground and kill plants

[jbox]

California is in the throes of a serious drought, and so far I have seen nothing in the media about it. ....

Dear Shaman,

Check page 1 of today's Press Democrat. The drought is not a vast conspiracy.

jbox

[Sara S]

I don't see where Star Man posits any "conspiracy" here; his post is accurate.

Check page 1 of today's Press Democrat. The drought is not a vast conspiracy.

[jbox]

I don't see where Star Man posits any "conspiracy" here; his post is accurate.

Starman asserts the media hasn't covered the dry water year and the government, controlled by the corporations, will do little or nothing. I see no truth in these assertions. The conspiracy word may not have been used but yeah, it's implied.

[Star Man]

Starman asserts the media hasn't covered the dry water year and the government, controlled by the corporations, will do little or nothing. I see no truth in these assertions. The conspiracy word may not have been used but yeah, it's implied.

Sean Scully replied to an email I sent to him as follows: " Far from avoiding the word "drought," I have in fact used it in six separate articles since Sept. 23, four of them on the front page and four occasions in the last two weeks alone. In addition to several other mentions by my reporter colleagues in the last few months, our editorial board published a piece calling for drought preparations on Dec. 18.

Here is a sampling of dry-weather-related articles in which drought is referenced specifically this fall and winter alone:
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...tyle/131109765
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...cles/131229592
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...cles/131219453
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...nion/131219604
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...news/131219677
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...cles/131019689
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...cles/130929883


Sean"

The issue with "conspiracy" is that the word implies conscious awareness. I think it's more likely that the interests of the important players (government, corporations including industry and vineyards) are consonant and they are adverse to the interests of we the people. Government is not saying we should be conserving water in preparation of drought. At least I have seen no discussion of water conservation. We The People may elect our representatives, but their campaigns are paid for by corporations. My sense is that government is not mandating water conservation, because industry and vineyards would have to cut back, which would affect their profits.

[podfish]

My sense is that government is not mandating water conservation, because industry and vineyards would have to cut back, which would affect their profits.

my sense is the government isn't mandating lots of things. Sure we have a nanny state, but it's capricious about what it mandates, and most americans seem to hate it when they notice it's being done.

It's not the governments job, in most of your fellow citizens' eyes, to mandate damn near anything.

[comodin]

The issue with "conspiracy" is that the word implies conscious awareness. I think it's more likely that the interests of the important players (government, corporations including industry and vineyards) are consonant and they are adverse to the interests of we the people. Government is not saying we should be conserving water in preparation of drought. At least I have seen no discussion of water conservation. We The People may elect our representatives, but their campaigns are paid for by corporations. My sense is that government is not mandating water conservation, because industry and vineyards would have to cut back, which would affect their profits.[/QUOTE]


About "Conspiracy":

It MAY be the case that there is a blind urge to maximize profits for corporations, even by those whose formal job it is to protect and improve the ecology and the economy. Maybe they simply can't see that if you destroy your ecology, you also destroy your economy. I can understand individual entrepreneurs blinded by profit to the exclusion of all else, but for the governing officials to go along with this means that they're either terminally stupid or they have OTHER motives we know not of.

When you see something that seems stupid beyond belief such as

— the destruction of natural habitat for something that makes money for the destroyers, aided enthusiastically by government officials whose supposed function it is to conserve the resources they now sell off, or
— the crashing of the economy, by the deliberate award of the wealth of the nation to those who looted it,

you can see it either as monumental imbecility on the part of our governing powers who, despite having no coherent plan, always, by an astounding coincidence, never miss a single opportunity to make exactly the worst decisions, which also, by more coincidence, just happen to enrich the richest, or you can see it as a deliberate plan — a "conspiracy"— to destroy the lives of the majority of people in order to increase the power of the very few.

For myself, I find the most coherent explanation is deliberate conspiracy, like a "pro wrestling" match: the bad guy gets to thump the good guy in all sorts of illegal ways, whilst the referee, who always seems deeply retarded, never sees these foul moves, thereby enabling them to continue. The crowd screams in indignation, urging the ref to intervene, but still he seems unable to grasp the situation. It doesn't take much imagination to suspect that all of them are working together to fool and frustrate (and filch from) the public.


About "Drought":

Please people, research "Climate Control." This is well established as a going practice, as you will see if you google it. It is also widely known as "Weather Modification." The ability to control the weather is established. There has even been a case in the World Court against the USA for stealing (I think it was) Chile's rainfall.

Now I know it's a leap, but stay with me. What would happen if — IF, I say — it were possible to cause a drought (and it is, evidently). Suppose a drought were deliberately caused in California. Food crops dying. Food shortage. Food riots. Riot cops and crowd roundup. FEMA camps.

Paranoia? Sure! But remember the old saying: "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to getcha!"

[Star Man]

Dear Waccobb Community,

California is in the throes of a serious drought....

Shaman Omaha

Sean Scully, the Press Democrat reporter, has given me the URL for the California Reservoir Storage Summary, a listing of the major water reservoirs in California, their capacities, and their current storage. Here is the URL: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/RES so you can review it yourselves.

Several Waccos have doubted that there is a drought in California. I strongly suggest these commentators review the data in the Reservoir Storage Summary. The data support my assertion that we should think about drought in terms of process, not event. The data demonstrate a process of dwindling water supplies.

Scully asked the National Weather Service for a definition of "drought" and a meteorologist provided this response: "The technical definition of Drought is an extended period when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply whether surface or underground water. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. Since CA has Dams and reservoirs that provide the states water supply, the state does not rely solely on annual precipitation. Therefore, the decrease in annual precipitation does not always correlate to a drought. The NWS does not declare droughts, that decision is left up to the State. We do provide input to the decision makers about weekly, monthly and seasonal precipitation outlooks however."

The NWS definition demonstrates the political nature of the definition of "drought." Politics is influenced by corporate and other business interests. Politics rarely serves the interests of We The People. Politicians are bought by corporate and other business interests and so do the bidding of their "owners." This is the reality of politics in America at this time. Government will be reluctant to declare a drought -- and inasmuch as we have had only 11% of our normal precipitation to date, this would qualify as "an extended period when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply" -- because then mandatory restrictions will be required. By this summer we can expect to hear calls for We The People to reduce our water usage while irrigation of vineyards proceeds unabated.

Star Man

[Scott McKeown]

(sigh)
...and just when I thought it wasn't conceivably possible for even more utterly absurd conspiracy theories to be seriously put forward and discussed in this community than already have been...

About "Drought":

Please people, research "Climate Control." This is well established as a going practice, as you will see if you google it. It is also widely known as "Weather Modification." The ability to control the weather is established. There has even been a case in the World Court against the USA for stealing (I think it was) Chile's rainfall.

Now I know it's a leap, but stay with me. What would happen if — IF, I say — it were possible to cause a drought (and it is, evidently). Suppose a drought were deliberately caused in California. Food crops dying. Food shortage. Food riots. Riot cops and crowd roundup. FEMA camps.

Paranoia? Sure! But remember the old saying: "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to getcha!"

[sharingwisdom]

In support of what you're saying: "No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you can imagine."~William Blum, US State Department employee, leading non-mainstream chroniclers of American foreign policy and author

The issue with "conspiracy" is that the word implies conscious awareness. I think it's more likely that the interests of the important players (government, corporations including industry and vineyards) are consonant and they are adverse to the interests of we the people. Government is not saying we should be conserving water in preparation of drought. At least I have seen no discussion of water conservation. We The People may elect our representatives, but their campaigns are paid for by corporations. My sense is that government is not mandating water conservation, because industry and vineyards would have to cut back, which would affect their profits.

[joybird]

How about feeling into your bodies ,the body of the earth. It is dry. Very dry, the trees are feeling it and the top soil. Where are the winter frogs? Where are the winter creeks?
Please do not wait for an agency to declare "drought". Take very good care of the water that is available now, use it as the precious resource it is.

Joy

...Several Waccos have doubted that there is a drought in California.
Scully asked the National Weather Service for a definition of "drought" and a meteorologist provided this response: "The technical definition of Drought is an extended period when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply whether surface or underground water.
Star Man

[Star Man]

How about feeling into your bodies ,the body of the earth. It is dry. Very dry, the trees are feeling it and the top soil. Where are the winter frogs? Where are the winter creeks?
Please do not wait for an agency to declare "drought". Take very good care of the water that is available now, use it as the precious resource it is.

Joy

Joy, I totally agree with your suggestion that we feel into our bodies which are one with the body of the earth. Yes, it is dry. You call attention to the capacity we humans have lost to experience Our Mother The Earth. yes! Our Mother is dry. She is parched. We must take appropriate action to assuage her thirst. In the sacred inipi, when we do have a sip of water during, we pour a little water out onto the earth and say, "Mother, may you never thirst."

Star Man