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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGeorge Bush’s hometown is running out of water, thanks to climate change
By Christopher Mims
Heres a theme were going to see a lot in the 21st century:
Payback is a bitch.
The president who nixed Americas commitment to the carbon-reducing Kyoto protocol, whose administration censored reports on climate science, and whose State Department thanked Exxon executives for their active involvement in helping to determine climate change policy, is watching the town in which he grew up squirm in the grip of Texas epic, climate change-enhanced drought.
Midland, Texas, where Bush learned how to talk and grew into a strapping young alcoholic, is already running on half the water it had in the summer of 2010. As the drought grinds on, water from the Colorado River Municipal Water District has become scarce. The towns only remaining reservoir will be dry in under a year if these conditions continue and theyre projected to. [P]eople could get up in the morning and theres not any water in the system, City of Midland Utilities Director Stuart Purvis told CBS 7 News.
Officials are trying to put the best face on this, and they say that by increasing utility rates they hope to force conservation so that Midland can get through this crisis.
more
http://grist.org/list/george-bushs-childhood-home-is-running-out-of-water-thanks-to-climate-change/
Ian David
(69,059 posts)zbdent
(35,392 posts)with Microsoft Word and an inkjet printer ...
libinnyandia
(1,374 posts)redqueen
(115,103 posts)Historic NY
(37,449 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)izquierdista
(11,689 posts)You might as well ask a rock its opinion.
Ian David
(69,059 posts)... which was the nation's premiere hardcore-porn satellite network, was founded.
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)"That's a lie, I saw a whole stack of Poland Spring 24 packs down at the Mini Mart yesterday....."
freshwest
(53,661 posts)MineralMan
(146,308 posts)all the water. I doubt he's tasted water since January 20, 2001.
Turbineguy
(37,331 posts)they can just deny it.
SDjack
(1,448 posts)That should be left to the private sector. Companies should be allowed to buy as much as possible from the public system, hoard it, package it, etc. and resale it for as much profit as they can get. Just like the way the publicly owned land is leased and exploited for petroleum. Yeah, that will work. That will cure the water shortage problem.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)For him and the rest of the 1% there's no such thing....
mia
(8,360 posts)There Will Be Water
Roberts County is a neat square in a remote corner of the Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling hills, tall grass, oak trees, mesquite, and cattle. It has a desolate beauty, a striking sparseness. The county encompasses 924 square miles and is home to fewer than 900 people. One of them is T. Boone Pickens, the oilman and corporate raider, who first bought some property here in 1971 to hunt quail. He's now the largest landowner in the county: His Mesa Vista ranch sprawls across some 68,000 acres. Pickens has also bought up the rights to a considerable amount of water that lies below this part of the High Plains in a vast aquifer that came into existence millions of years ago.
If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium; it's all a matter of supply and demand. "There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That's the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing," he says.
In the coming decades, as growing numbers of people live in urban areas and climate change makes some regions much more prone to drought, wateror what many are calling "blue gold"will become an increasingly scarce resource. By 2030 nearly half of the world's population will inhabit areas with severe water stress, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Pickens understands that. And while Texas is unusually lax in its laws about pumping groundwater, the rush to control water resources is gathering speed around the planet. In Australia, now in the sixth year of a drought, brokers in urban areas are buying up water rights from farmers. Rural residents around the U.S. are trying to sell their land (and water) to multi- national water bottlers like Nestlé (BWApr. 14). Companies that use large quantities of the precious resource to run their businesses are seeking to lock up water supplies. One is Royal Dutch Shell, which is buying groundwater rights in Colorado as it prepares to drill for oil in the shale deposits there.
Into this environment comes Pickens, who made a good living for a long time extracting oil and gas and now, at 80, believes the era of fossil fuel is over. So far he has spent $100 million and eight years on his project and still has not found any city in Texas willing to buy his water. But like many others, Pickens believes there's a fortune to be made in slaking the thirst of a rapidly growing population. If he pumps as much as he can, he could sell about $165 million worth of water to Dallas each year. "The idea that water can be sold for private gain is still considered unconscionable by many," says James M. Olson, one of America's preeminent attorneys specializing in water- and land-use law. "But the scarcity of water and the extraordinary profits that can be made may overwhelm ordinary public sensibilities."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm
MADem
(135,425 posts)pipeline? That'd solve their problem!
Might be pricey, but oh well...!
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)"Hey! Now the brush keeps itself in check and doesn't need clearing 100 days out of year."
Before:
And After:
At least it doesn't have that ugly shrub anymore. I know PROGRESS when I see it!
Loudly
(2,436 posts)Dear Jesus God, let the clouds gather and rain fall and the caverns under their ground fill with the fresh and clear and abundant water which allows them to endure.
In the name of Our Lord, amen.
BeHereNow
(17,162 posts)Not.
BHN