I have been hiking twice already this week, taking advantage of the sunshine to explore the hills and mountains above Los Angeles in the aftermath of three weeks of rain. I have discovered breathtaking waterfalls and rivers flowing with water that are normally bone-dry. It is a spectacular experience.
But all of that water, or most of it, is rushing out to the sea and not being captured for use. And Californians are wondering where the billions of dollars taxpayers approved for water bonds, including reservoirs, are being spent.
To give you a sense of the numbers: Three weeks of rain dumped 32 trillion gallons of water on the state, according to Fox News (https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/california-atmospheric-rivers-32-trillion-gallons-rain-water). California's water use is about 42 billion acre-feet per year, or 1.4 trillion gallons per year, according to the Desert Sun (citing USGS - https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2014/08/21/usgs-estimates-vast-amounts-water-used-california/14400333/). So that's a LOT of water.
Typically, 50% of water in California is devoted to "environmental" use -- i.e. the forests, the rivers, the estuaries, the ecosystem as a whole. So if we presume that half of those 32 trillion gallons could be allowed to remain in the environment, while the other half -- theoretically -- could be devoted to human uses (agricultural, industrial, residential), if the storage capacity existed.
That means that enough rain fell on California to supply the water needs of the population for the next DECADE. Only a very small part of that will be captured.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
