What is more dangerous to the human race than Global Warming?
Atlanta has only 81 days of water left. If you were to say they had it coming for their suburban sprawl from Hell, you would be overlooking another reason, the Government of course.
The water supply for Atlanta is Lake Lanier. Every single day millions of gallons of Georgia water are pumped to Florida to keep water brackish for oysters and shrimp.
Whose bright idea was this? The Government of course.
Now people in Florida are telling people in Georgia they can’t build so many homes because of the water shortage. Guess where the people of Georgia plan to get some water from? Just guess. The friendly people of Tennessee of course. We have a nice big river and they want us to share. Even the Government is thinking what a swell idea this is.
Can the Government do anything else to screw up your life? Of course. You see we have this Global Warming crisis and if we don’t do something about it the Earth will be destroyed. So what is the Governments bright idea. Ethanol. Grow corn and make ethanol to cut down on foreign oil. More jobs, better national security, and were saving the Planet people. Could it get any better?
Actually, this is the single most stupid idea from the Government yet. Even dumber than changing the date for Daylights saving time.
One gallon of ethanol requires 1,700 gallons of water according to Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel. Do you think the Government should have thought of that?
In Mexico there are food riots because of corn shortages. Corn is a basic food staple in Mexico. Food prices worldwide are rising because of a shortage of corn for food. Remember the good old days when we just ate corn, instead of putting it in our gas tank?
Are we seeing the “law of unintended consequences” yet?
Want to do something to help? Boycott ethanol. You be saving the Planet. And a whole lot of water. And that’s a good thing.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
And, of course, we maryvillians are being ordered to conserve water.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I used to like Gulf Oysters. What a Rube Goldberg way to run things. Pretty soon Tennessee water will be traveling all the way to Florida so people can have Oysters.
Wonder where we will steal water from when we run out?
I hate to point out the obvious but a water desalination plant in Florida would solve all these problems. How can the Government be so dumb?
October 19th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Help is on the way Uncle.
October 19th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Pimentel’s research is controversial (and I am not sufficiently versed to evaluate it). However, this is why I have decided not to move away from Northeast Ohio if I can help it–I think it’s worth contesting with the collectivists over the Great Lakes (also known as 20% of Earth’s fresh water).
October 19th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
There is a desal plant on the Gulf coast, but it’s small, and the process is so expensive that they have not had sufficient economic justification to build more.
It’ll work itself out eventually, because water will become prohibitively expensive in Florida, and people will stop moving here. But it’ll take a crash, because all the local and state politicians care about are the property tax revenues from all the shiny new houses and condos.
October 19th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Every big Hotel/Timeshare-Resort in Cabo San Lucas has its own desalination plant, free-market economics are at work in Mexico. There’s dozens there and they have somehow found a way to make it economically feasible…
October 19th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
In my best South Park voice, “They took our water”.
October 19th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Ron Paul anyone?
October 19th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Yep, nothing like gummint help. I wish that I could boycott ethanol, however it’s what replaced MTBE as dicktated by the EPA. Of course the government waited until after MTBE poisoned water wells all over New England.
October 20th, 2007 at 12:00 am
The Army Engineers told Atlanta years ago that the city was already drawing as much water from the Chattahoochee River as the river could bear. Atlanta’s population was projected to increase in a few decades. Naturally Atlanta and its suburbs kept on developing and building and populating like there’s no tomorrow, no piper to be paid. My children live in Atlanta, and one has a store downtown and told me they’d been told Atlanta has only 3 weeks or less of water left.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Ethanol is a boon for corn farmers (subsidies) and refiners (subsidies), but a huge negative for developing countries (reduced shipments of cheap corn increase starvation) and currently a slight negative for the environment (it requires more fossil fuels to create a gallon of Ethanol (fuel for planting/harvesting crops, fuel for shipment of grains, fuel for distillation, fuel for shipment of final product by truck/rail b/c Ethanol corrodes pipe), and the Ethanol provides less energy.
If we really wanted to displace some fossil fuels, we must remove the tariff on Brazillian Ethanol from sugarcane (far far more efficient), but our farmer lobbyists keep that one in place. If we wanted energy independence, we have to do something else, ’cause we burn more foreign fossil fuels to create that domestic Ethanol.
Ethanol is popular with corn farmers and refiners though, our taxes are being used to line their pockets well through those subsidies. Outrageous.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Desalinization is a wonderous thing. But can them Florida oysters afford it? Probably not.
So who wants to setup a “Florida Non-Sentient Bivalve Desalinization Board” and ask Congress for massive grants to “study the long-range ramifications of introducing artificially enhanced water onto an ethnically diverse mixture of future-sentient exoskeletal Americans”? (Translation: See what happens when you pour fresh water on a buncha oysters and clams.)
October 20th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Meant to write above that Atlanta’s population was/is projected to double in a few decades — sooner rather than later, thanks to continuing migration and births — and the city is already above its sustainable population numbers in terms of water supply.
And ethanol is a big joke being played on the gullible.
October 20th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I wrote three years ago Atlanta was over building the ability of its water table to provide water.
Here is the problem. The Government will not say no. Until of course, it is too late.
Ask any liberal about nuclear energy and they will tell you all the reasons it is evil. But these same people tell you that you are evil unless you live in a small condo and walk or drive a Prius. If you have to mow a lawn, you are an evil land hoarder. Anything bigger than a Prius and you are killing the Planet.
Ask a liberal about desalinization, they will tell you it is evil. So now when the Government must choose who gets water, people or mollusks, the simple solution is to just take water from someone else, who doesn’t need it for themselves.
So the clear answer is to come and take water from Tennessee for both Georgia and Alabama and let them continue to over build. Hippies are happy, Government is happy, and builders are happy. And we put off the inevitable cluster fuck for another ten years.
But what about the people in Tennessee that need water?
The people of Georgia will tell them to stop building houses and shopping malls. That is what the people of Florida tell the people of Georgia because that Georgia water is needed for Oyster Po-Boys.
In Liberalism there is no concept of self reliance. It is about sharing. You know how that works. Share from the people that have it, to the people that don’t have it, until there is nothing to share anymore. You can sing that to the Beatles tune “The Taxman”.
Liberals tell us high density housing is the answer to all our problems. It is suburban sprawl that causes all our problems. If we would just live closer together we wouldn’t even need a car. The great destroyer of worlds. Al Gore said so, so it must be true. Of course the real problem with that idea is that you often cannot choose where you will work. So getting rid of the car is not that easy. All when there is no grass anywhere, when it is all concrete, then you have many water pollution woes. Too many imperviable surfaces.
Letting hippies design the future is fraught with peril. They are good at finding problems, not so good at finding solutions.
So the question before us is, should Tennessee trustingly give some of its water to Georgia and Alabama. Or should we tell them to study up on self reliance?
October 20th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
You should let them get thirsty enough to move or figure out how to take care of themselves.
October 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am
Have you ever actually talked to a liberal? Or is it too much fun just making stuff up.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:07 am
The gov’t will probably still fund it, regardless of how useful/useless a thing is.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:24 am
Have you ever actually talked to a liberal? Or is it too much fun just making stuff up.
Oh I try. Getting them to listen is another matter. Some of them follow me around from blog to blog to defend their elitism.
Liberals are good at sharing, not so good at listening. And by sharing, I mean sharing other peoples things. Not their own.
October 21st, 2007 at 11:59 am
What #9 said with the addition that one very seldom can talk to a liberal because they are usually talking over, shouting down and interrupting everyone else because their logic leaves so much to be desired that it will not stand debate.
October 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Ha…I used to try and talk to those “progressives”. For years in fact I talked (when they would shutup long enough) and argued with them.
Then after I got old, I just tell them that I don’t talk to idiots anymore, I have better things to do with what time I have left.
Water Wars are coming. First to the south and then the southwest. We can only hope that the state and federal governments start taking care of energy business and stop worrying about clams and frogs and snakes and such before it gets nasty.
You can’t live without water. You can live without the rest of the things that the “greens” and progressives think are more important than the rest of us.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Well, this “idiot” sure wouldn’t want to talk over, shout down, or interrupt anyone with my elitist lack of logic. So keep on enjoying talking to yourselves.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Pa[a Ray hast recht. You can live for a month, maybe, without food, but I think that three days without water will do for you. And yes, that is a matter of life and death, worth killing and/or dying for.
Surely all of y’all have read ugly stories about what happened in lifeboats?
October 24th, 2007 at 5:25 am
“Well, this “idiot” sure wouldn’t want to talk over, shout down, or interrupt anyone with my elitist lack of logic. So keep on enjoying talking to yourselves.”-Rachel
Oh yeah, the other thing they do. They run away when shouting down,talking over and interrrupting no longer grants them immunity from logic and honest debate.
October 24th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Rachel, by the way, why do you keep talking about me at KnoxViews? What is that about?
If you have something to say, do it in a forum where I can respond.