Tag Archives: water

California’s Big Water Plans; The End of Private Water Rights?

Amerika, Big Brother, drought, water, , ,

March 10, 2015 Photo: Tom Meyer

At a news conference on March 19, 2015, California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon warned, “There is no greater crisis facing our state today than our lack of water.”

 

California’s Big Water Plans; The End of Private Water Rights?
Drought-stricken California, which just had its driest January ever recorded, smashed another dismal record last month: the hottest February. This will be the 5th year in a row of historic drought in California, breaking a 120 year old record.

California is the largest populated state in the country. One out of eight Americans reside in sunny, warming, no rain, CA. Our economy is recognized as the 8th largest in the world with Central Valley farmers producing some 42% of the nations food supplies for decades.

For the second year in a row the Federal Water Agency, which controls CA mountain snowpack runoff, announced that zero water would be allocated to the 3300 state water agencies that it has supplied water to from the Sierra Nevada Mountain ranges for the past 54 years. Until recently the states “ice chest” had accounted for 44% of the state’s annual water budget.

Last year, many Central Valley farmers had to fallow their fields when their water allotments were cut to 5% of normal, by Fed and State water agencies. The only exceptions being for those with grandfathered water rights, who can take as much as they like and are making millions and millions selling to those without these exclusive water right privileges.

In a March 2 study last week from Stanford University, reported in the journal of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, scientists are suggesting that we have “entered into a new era where nearly every year we have warming temperatures we will have low precipitation.” The report goes on to say that “essentially all years are likely to be warm – or extremely warm – in California by the middle of the 21st century.”

The ski industry and supporting tourist business around Lake Tahoe is in chaos. Baseline snowpack and skier traffic are down some 75% of normal and the only thing frozen around Tahoe these days are real estate sales.

Californians aren’t the only ones feeling the effects of our collective “new normal” of hotter weather and little precious rain. In Colorado they have been consistently shattering record warm temperatures by some 5-15 degrees. Eastern Colorado had record high temperatures of 82 degrees in early February.

Alaska, again this year, is consistently recording warmer temperatures than Texas, up to some 20 degrees above normal so far this year. It has gotten so bad up in the once Great White North that this week the Iditarod dog sled race had to move 225 miles north. Snowfall in Anchorage was one-quarter of normal for the year.

In the forests of Mendocino County where I live we are seeing trees literally exploding from the inside out. Once majestic beautiful Tan, California and Scrub Oak trees have succumbed to increased pest manifestation and infestation due to lack of water root moisture and are just toppling over everywhere.

Strangely, our government officials are silent as to calling for an all-out effort by all to preserve and conserve what water we have in this major crisis.

Golf courses are still being watered with only voluntary cut backs “requested”. Non-reclaimed water car washes, some facilities using 100 or more gallons of water per car, are still going strong. Energy frackers are still being satisfied with hundreds of thousands of gallons of potable drinking water per well site.

Building permits are still being issued for new wineries in Sonoma and Napa Counties. New housing and other constructions projects the same. North Bay wine sales hit records again this year.
Manicured lawns in the bedroom communities of Marin have never looked better. Restaurants are still pouring water to patrons without request.

Business as usual. Business must grow. Nasdaq just went over the 5,000 mark, an all- time record high. The banksters are very fat, wealthy and happy while Central Valley farmers are readying to fallow more Ag land and try to figure out how they can stay in business again this year.

Yet behind the scenes, in the dark recesses of California State governance, there is much scheming, plotting and long-term planning going on for the protracted, decades and decades long predicted water shortages ahead for us all.

Continue reading California’s Big Water Plans; The End of Private Water Rights? →

Mega Drought in California Significantly Worsens, Though Not Reported on by the Weather Channel, et. al

drought, Geoengineering, solar, waste, water, , , ,

by Jamie Lee

Tabublog.com

Fig 1: Global map

Throughout the 2015 winter season, all the nations major news sources are reporting exclusively about another record year of brutal cold and snow in the Eastern half of the United States. This has also been the sole meme covered on the Weather Channel, the countries most major public/private source for weather news.

The Weather Channel, majority bought, owned, and controlled by Rothschild LLC in 2011, even hosts regular hours long reports of storms as they pass through. They have also begun the strange practice of naming the winter storms. The last one I think I saw was named “Pandora” after the mythological character, who released from the jar all of the evils onto the world, save Hope.  (Source)

But what about the other half of the country? You know, California and those “other” states West of Missouri? Weather Channel, et. al remain a stone-cold silence. In fact, nearly all state and local newspapers are in a “drought-out” reporting on California’s long term plight.

In direct opposition and contrast to the East, the record shattering warm weather and no rain in California in January, now February, with zero rain in the forecast for the Golden State, is the state’s unfortunate real-time reality with coming real time, long term consequences.

Due to the prolonged absence of rain and way above normal temperatures, we are seeing fruit trees budding and flowering one to one-and-one half months early. Spring planting schedules moved way up as farmers puzzle what can/will grow where.

Pine, oak and other trees are blowing up, literally, around our county here in Mendocino and beyond from the inside out. Pest manifestation and infestation, due to lack of root moisture, is toppling formerly healthy, strong, decades old beautiful trees everywhere throughout the state.

California is the largest populated state in the country. One out of eight Americans reside in sunny, warming, no rain, CA. Our economy is recognized as the 8th largest in the world with Central Valley farmers producing some 42% of the nations food supplies for decades.

Last year, many Central Valley farmers had to fallow their fields when their water allotments were cut to 5% of normal, by Fed and State water agencies. The only  exception are for those with grandfathered water rights, who can take as much as they like and are making millions and millions selling to those without these exclusive water right privileges.

Many meat ranchers last spring culled half their herds of beef, lamb and sheep due to the doubling of grain prices and lack of grazing lands for their animals. This has kept a temporary lid on beef prices due to excess inventory but that excess is now over.

The ski industry, and supporting tourist business around Lake Tahoe, is in chaos. Many resorts closed early again this year. Worse, the Sierra Nevada snow pack is again more than 75% below baseline normal for this time of year. (However, the bountiful and blessed rains that showered the state in December were warm and created little snow pack.)

The Federal Water Agency controls the spring and former summer runoff from the CA mountains and is charged with allocating water to some 3300 state water agencies they are in contract with. Last year, for the first time ever, the Fed’s broke a 54-year contract with these state water agencies, allocating them zero water initially. (Two months later they bumped up allocation to 5% of normal). (Source)

With no water again to allocate from California’s “ice chest” reserves of the Sierra Mountains, it will be another zero allocation year to be announced next week by the Fed’s in their initial annual water allocation report. (Water runoff from the CA mountains had supplied 43% of the states annual water supply while releasing water downstream over the spring into summer as the snow pack melted.)

Meanwhile, in Colorado, they have been consistently shattering record warm temperatures by some 5-15 degrees. Eastern Colorado had record high temperatures of 82 degrees in early February.

Alaska, once again, is recording record warm temperatures, up to some 20 degrees above normal, and frequently now reports warmer temps than the state of Texas.

“Oh Auntie ’em, Auntie ’em!.” cries Dorothy.

But barely a passing commentary by our national old school, corporate owned, government subsidized, news and weather services about the Western States critical water shortages.

 

https://i0.wp.com/ecowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/22.jpg

 

“We have to learn to manage wisely water, energy, land and our investments,” said Gov. Brown this morning. “That’s why this is important.”

So what is Governor Brown doing to preserve and conserve what precious water the state has in its reserves as we have now entered our 5th straight record year of prolonged drought?

So far nunca, nada and nothing, not a damn thing. Golf courses are still being watered with only voluntary cut backs “requested”. Non-reclaimed water car washes still going business as usual. Restaurants serving water without request. Frackers, being satisfied with thousands and millions of gallons of potable drinking water per well site.

Building permits are still being issued for new wineries in Sonoma and Napa Counties. New housing and other constructions projects the same. Business as usual. Business must grow. Wall Street applauds the pro business inaction’s with continual record highs of related private shareholder stock prices.

Continue reading Mega Drought in California Significantly Worsens, Though Not Reported on by the Weather Channel, et. al →

Major Shift in Global Energy Power Sources Begins

battery, Big Brother, drought, Energy, fracking, oil, solar power, Uncategorized, waste, water, , , , , , ,

Cellphone-battery-power-tower

It appears a major, century long shift is in its infancy of reordering how power is supplied to homes, businesses and modes of transportation.

Increases in battery storage technology, lower battery weights, available higher capacity lithium, and faster super-chargers are about to change how energy is supplied to the masses in a major way.

Hence the 60% haircut in the global price of oil over the past six months.

Over the past couple of weeks major announcements are coming out as to the utilization of solar, wind and battery storage. Two of the three largest global mega-corporations, Apple Computer and Google, have just announced, within days of each other, that they were going to be powering their main HQ’s by solar and wind power exclusively.

Apple to build $2B solar-powered “command center”

Google Will Soon Use Wind Power to Run Its HQ

Across the pond, in the U.K., announcements are also being made as to the mass rollout of the mini-electric car as well. And even IKEA, the home furnishing store, is also a stepping up as major player in the electric car charger market.

 Speedy charging driving a global boom in electric cars

IKEA promises rapid rollout of electric car chargers

This week, Tesla, the leader in battery powered automobiles, announced that they would be making decentralized battery powered home energy systems. In the not so distant future home power will come from either mini power stations in your neighborhoods or self -contained systems at your home.

Wall Street Journal: Apple Is Working on an Electric Car

The rumors have been getting stronger all week, and now they’ve come to a head: WSJ is reporting that Apple is indeed working on a car. “Project Titan,” as it’s known internally, is an all-electric vehicle that apparently “resembles a minivan” in its current iteration and has a team of several hundred people working on it.

That’s not to say that there’ll ever be an Apple car on the road, necessarily. WSJ hedges its report, noting that it’d be several years at least before Titan could be ready for production, and that’s assuming Cook and company decide to go through with the project.

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BASF Doubles Nickel-Metal Hydride Energy Storage

Via: MIT Technology Review:

Almost every automaker interested in producing electric cars is betting on improvements to lithium-ion batteries to make the cars cheaper and extend their driving range.

But scientists at BASF are exploring the possibilities of an older type of battery, nickel-metal hydride, now used in hybrids. They recently doubled the amount of energy that these batteries can store, making them comparable to lithium-ion batteries. And they have a plan to improve them far more, potentially increasing energy storage by an additional eight times.

LG Chem to Build Battery Storage Systems Worth $272 Million for Japanese Solar Plants

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Tesla Plans Battery for Household Energy-Storage Market

Tesla Motors Inc., best known for making the all-electric Model S sedan, is using its lithium-ion battery technology to position itself as a frontrunner in the emerging energy-storage market that supplements and may ultimately threaten the traditional electric grid.

“We are going to unveil the Tesla home battery, the consumer battery that would be for use in people’s houses or businesses fairly soon,” Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said during an earnings conference call with analysts Wednesday.

California’s largest utility also has just announced that it is moving heavily into the community solar grid business.

Continue reading Major Shift in Global Energy Power Sources Begins →

State of the Planet Report 2015

Amerika, Business, climate chaos, Education, Energy, Health, Radiation, , , , , , ,

“If we don’t change direction we will end up exactly where we are headed”

 

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As Above, So Below, A Cosmic Perspective

 

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The Most Important Chart You Will Ever See in Your Lifetime

Though you will not hear about it on your corporate nightly news simply because there is zero benefit for corporations to inform us,  there is a desperate all out attempt that is being conducted night and day, 24/7, to use chemtrail spraying and HAARP heat ray guns (see below) to re-cover the Arctic with snow and ice so that the massive amounts of methane gas pools that are now seeping out refreeze once again. For over one million years trapped methane gas has stayed frozen but now significant melting ice sheets has caused the tundra to become exposed in the Arctic with accompanying released pools of methane gas releases occurring in wider swaths of the Northernmost regions.

Just recently the U.S. Navy released an extensive report that the Arctic could very well be ice-free by 2016, some 84 years ahead of most other climate models.  (Source)

Previously, an exhaustive EPA study was conducted in 2008 which found methane gas releases were an astounding 50% higher than previous estimates due to fracking and….wait for it…cow flatulence increases:

“The study estimates that in 2008, the U.S. poured 49 million tons of methane into the air. That means U.S. methane emissions trapped about as much heat as all the carbon dioxide pollution coming from cars, trucks, and planes in the country in six months.

That’s more than the 32 million tons estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration or the nearly 29 million tons reckoned by the European Commission. This study, however, was based on nearly 13,000 measurements from airplane flights and tall towers, the most used in any such research.

“Something is very much off in the inventories,” said study co-author Anna Michalak, an Earth scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif. ‘The total U.S. impact on the world’s energy budget is different than we thought, and it’s worse.’”

“Last Hours” is the first in a series of short films that explore the perils of climate change and the solutions to avert climate disaster. Each subsequent film will highlight fact-based challenges facing the human race, and offer solutions to ameliorate these crises. The initial short film series will culminate in a feature film to be presented prior to COP21, the 2015 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

Current Fracking sites in U.S.

An asset for the climate change movement, “Last Hours” will be disseminated globally to awaken modern culture worldwide about the various dangers associated with climate change.

“Last Hours” describes a science-based climate scenario where a tipping point to runaway climate change is triggered by massive releases of frozen methane. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has already started to percolate into the open seas and atmosphere from methane hydrate deposits beneath melting arctic ice, from the warming northern-hemisphere tundra, and from worldwide continental-shelf undersea methane clathrate pools.

So prevalent it is Methane release is picked up in Space.

Burning fossil fuels release carbon that, principally through greenhouse effect, heat the atmosphere and the seas. This is happening most rapidly at the polar extremes, and this heating has already begun the process of releasing methane. If we do not begin to significantly curtail the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, this freed methane threatens to radically accelerate the speed of global warming, potentially producing a disaster beyond the ability of the human species to adapt.

This first video is designed to awaken people to the fact that the earth has experienced five major extinctions in the deep geologic past — times when more than half of all life on earth vanished — and that we are now entering a sixth extinction. Industrial civilization with its production of greenhouse gases has the ability to trigger a mass extinction; in the extreme, it could threaten not just human civilization, but the very existence of human life on this planet.

Fracking sites

The world community and global citizens urgently need to chart a path forward that greatly reduces green house gas emissions. To take action and follow the pathway to solutions to the climate crisis, you can explore this website and you can also sign-up for future updates. Thank you.

“Last Hours” is presented and narrated by Thom Hartmann and directed by Leila Conners. Executive Producers are George DiCaprio and Earl Katz. Last Hours is produced by Mathew Schmid of Tree Media Foundation, and was written by Thom Hartmann, Sam Sacks, and Leila Conners. Music is composed and performed by Francesco Lupica.

 

Survive to Thrive Amidst the 6th Great Extinction Event in Planetary History

 

Published on Jul 24, 2012

In this NASA timelapse, satellite images show the rapid deforestation of the amazonian rainforest.

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NOAA Radiation Fallout spread into Pacific Ocean

 

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As seen from above video, once nuclear above ground testing exploded, we see melanoma and lung cancer proliferate

https://i0.wp.com/hir.nu/EMF/Fig1.jpg

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Get Rich, Live Longer: The Ultimate Consequence of Income Inequality

First, let’s look at the guys. A rich man (top decile) born in 1940 can expect to live 10 years longer after he turns 55 than a poor man (bottom decile). That longevity gap grew by four years in one generation.

Women live longer than men, overall. But their inequality gap getting worse. A rich woman at 55 can expect to live a decade longer than a poor woman, too. But this gap grew even more between the Silent and early Boomer generations, by six years.

Here’s the money chart and it tells a really sad story. In the richest country in the world, the expected lifespan of middle- and lower-income women is actually declining. At every income level, more money means more life.

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European Wars until the “Age of Discovery” spread the killing ways of White Euro Man

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Commercial and Military (GWEN) buildout of radiation emitting cell phone towers

Cell Phone Towers Network US Map

GWEN Towers Network

WiFi; The Invisible Killing Fields

Male Sperm Count Decline

Epicyte Spermicide in GMO Corn

(since 2001 this includes all corn by products with high frutcose corn syrup….which is virtually everything food related these days.)

..A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto.

Epicyte developed a genetically modified spermicidal corn in 2001 with a view to saving the world from overpopulation. The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm.

 

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World’s Largest Electronics Manufacturer Foxconn Wants 1 Million More Robots In 3 Years. Bye-bye Human Labor

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Whites?

Incarceration for type of drug bust.

 

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Note increase in vaccinations correlates with increases in Autism, ADHD, Allergies, and Asthma

Bar chart versus time. The graph rises steadily from 1996 to 2007, from about 0.7 to about 5.3. The trend curves slightly upward.

Reports of autism cases per 1,000 children grew dramatically in the U.S. from 1996 to 2007. It is unknown how much, if any, growth came from changes in autism’s prevalence.[23]

State-based Prevalence Data of ADHD Diagnosis (2011-2012): Children EVER diagnosed with ADHD

State-based Prevalence Data of ADHD Diagnosis (2011-2012): Children CURRENTLY diagnosed with ADHD

Big Pharma Pockets $711 Billion in Profits

Deep Water Rationing Cuts and Fines for CA (finally) Announced

Big Brother, Business, climate chaos, Conspiracy, Geoengineering, , , , ,

Northern California’s Folsom Lake on January 16, 2014.

“You Can’t Give What You Don’t Got”

Way back in February of 2014, the Federal and State governments that control access to CA water supplies off the Sierra Nevada Mountains told the 3300 state water distributors that there would be now water this year. (It was since modified to a 5%allocation.) This was a first and broke a 54-year contract. You can read about it (here).

Since then the Central Valley Farmers have lost billions and mass tracts of farm fields have gone fallow, farmers are being put out of business, food prices in May went up the greatest percentage ever (1.7%) and a state bond will be issued after November elections dedicating some $11 Billion of our dollars to build two huge new reservoirs in N. CA and Central CA. to capture more water because the state has presold over 30% of water we had already to customers through contract guarantees.

Meanwhile, for the entire summer and into fall, Governor Brown has called for “voluntary” cuts in general for all while golf courses are fully watered, lawns in the ‘burbs look great, car washes still going strong and water is served without request at most restaurants even though we are in, as Brown declares, “The Greatest Drought in the History of California”.

Why?  Why did he not make rationing mandatory in Spring time, like was done during the drought in CA in 1976?

Meanwhile, last May, Cerebus Capital Management, a mega-private corporation in Connecticut bought all Safeway Supermarkets for some $9 Billion. They already owned all the Albertson Supermarkets as well as owning the Freedom Group, the largest owners of guns and ammo in the country. They were also the ones who said they would be divesting out of the gun business after the faked Sandy Hook Shootings.

Cerebus Capital Management has bigger revenue than Coca-Cola and has on its Board of Directors one Donald Rumsfeld, as well as other military brass.  Cerebus is known as the mythological three headed dog guarding Hades, or Gates of Hell.   You can read about them (here)

Since the State has known for months and months that the water is not showing up, yet until this week have refused to seriously enforce water conservation, we must assume it is by design.  So two weeks previous, CA state legislatures passed two laws to control and regulate all groundwater in CA, claiming we are the only state to not monitor groundwater.  Read http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/salinas/things-to-know-about-california-groundwater-law/28094860.

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Now, this week, we see the teeth come out on the Hades dog with mandatory water cuts of 50% per person per day with really big fines for non-compliance.

Additionally, they will be using GPS and Google Earth to spy down on our homes to determine compliance and water restriction amounts!

water

Water rationing hits California: limit of 50 gallons per person per day or face fines of $500

Monday, September 29, 2014
Millions of Californians are about to be hit with strict water rationing — daily “allocation” numbers that represent the maximum amount of water you’re allowed to use for any purpose. Households that exceed the allocation limit will face stiff fines of hundreds of dollars per violation.

“In July, the State Water Resources Control Board passed stage one emergency regulations, giving powers to all local water agencies to fine $500 per violation,” reports the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. [1]

Keep in mind that these are only “stage one” emergency regulations. Stages two and three have yet to be invoked and will only become more severe.

The amount of water each household is allowed by water districts will be determined by government employees viewing satellite imagery of private properties, then calculating how much water that property should be allowed to use.

“Using census records, aerial photography and satellite imagery, an agency can determine a property’s efficient water usage,” says the SGVT.

50 gallons per person, per day

In some districts, water rationing allocation is also based on the number of persons who are known to be living at each address based on U.S. Census data. The Irvine Ranch Water District allows 50 gallons of “indoor” water consumption per person in the home. As explained on the IRWD website: [3]

The indoor water allocation is 50 gallons per person per day and depends upon the number of residents in a home. Water allocated for landscape irrigation depends upon the type of home.

As the IRWD website explains, those water consumers who the government deems to be “wasteful” will be charged 160% or higher rates for water consumption. This is on top of the $500 fines for each violation, as has now been approved by the state.

The 50 gallons per person per day is the maximum allocated amount for all indoor water use, including laundry, showering, toilet flushing, drinking, washing dishes and hand washing for hygienic purposes.

According to the EPA, the average U.S. citizen currently uses 100 gallons per day, with 70 of those gallons consumed indoors. [4] The largest users of indoor water are toilets, showers and clothes washers.

Not yet called “rationing” because the word isn’t socially acceptable

Interestingly, the water rationing that’s about to be enforced in California isn’t being called rationing. Instead, California’s doublespeak wordsmiths have decided to call it an “allocation-based rate structure” (which simply means that after you hit your ration limit, you are harshly penalized for any additional consumption).

In explaining why California citizens will be heavily penalized with fines if they exceed their water rationing allocation, all sorts of elaborate doublespeak terms are now being used such as “strong price signals” and “conservation response.”

Here’s how the IRWD explains water rationing to its customers without using the term “rationing“:

Allocation-based rate structures are the foundation of IRWD’s Water Shortage Contingency Plan. This rate structure allows IRWD to quickly respond to limited supplies through strong price signals, which result in the greatest conservation response from our customers.

Translation: If we aggressively penalize people for exceeding their water allocation, they will seek to stay within the limits for the same reason that people try to avoid speeding tickets — nobody wants to pay the fines!

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As CA supplies nearly 50% of food for the country and farmers are going out of business, next year, when the water still doesn’t show up, and people want to grow their own food instead of lawns, they will be stymied by the new groundwater laws and strict reductive water rationing by the state.
Food prices will go much higher, especially beef, due to the mass culling of steer this year because farmers cannot afford feed, and now water anymore. There has been an artificial cap on beef due to this one-time inventory glut on the markets, but once that is done prices will skyrocket much further north.
Growing your own, getting to know a farmer, could be critical for you and family in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.
One thing to be very very clear on is that the powers in charge know all this and are either letting it happen or creating this semi-natural (i’ll leave the Geoengineering aspects of this out for now but can read about it (here) yet designed crisis, just as food stamp money is cut, on purpose.
Your government is anything but your friend.  Know this.

 

 

 

The Perfect Storm

Business, climate chaos, Health, , , , , , , , ,

 

The Perfect Storm; Grow Local or Grow Hungry?
By Jamie Lee

Most of us who live in the United States have always assumed that our food would be available in abundance at our commercial grocery stores at affordable prices, at least for the past three generations. Most have never spent a thought about what they would do if their basic weekly food staples became unavailable and/or priced out of affordability to all except those in the upper class of our society.

Back in the early 1900’s, 44% of the country were farmers and 22% of our net income was spent to put food on the table. Today less than 2% of the jobs in this country involve farming and 7% of middle class income on average is spent on food. This is in large part due to the just-in-time industrial globalization of food supply, large food subsidies to Big Ag doled out by our government, and the creation of synthetically modified “foodstuff” through biotechnology since 1966.

A Perfect Storm is upon us this spring 2014 in California and well beyond.

The gale force storm is likely to blow serious price changes to the price and availability of our basic foods through the months and years ahead due to several different factors that affect food costs and availability, or as called in businessese ,“structural prices change”. This March of 2014 has seen the largest increase in beef and veal prices since 2003 while milk prices globally are hitting all-time record highs. According to the U.S. Labor Department, since the end of 2013, lean hog prices have risen 42.5%, oats 29%, cocoa 11.8%, wheat 11.9%, cattle meat 11.4% and raw sugar 3.9%.

As what happens in many a crisis’ it is not usually one catastrophic event that causes great disruptions and significant abrupt change in lifestyles, but many times seemingly random unrelated events occurring simultaneously or in quick succession, which can cause great upheaval and long-term deviation from previous periods of seemingly long-term normalcy.

Additionally, weather-wise, history shows us that there are long periods of constant and consistent “Goldie Locks” planetary environments which have been followed by sudden, abrupt rapid climate changes. We appear to now be one of those times as the Eastern half of the U.S. endures an endless winter while Californian records historical drought conditions, yet to our immediate North, Oregon has recorded record cold snows this past winter. Globally, it is much the same story.  Europe is blasted this winter with massive winds and storms while Alaska reports 40 degree above normal temps and Australia has to reset their color coded weather warnings to accommodate never before seen temperatures that reached 130 degrees this summer.

 

California officials who manage the State Water Project announced in early March that they won’t be releasing any water for farmers, marking a first in its 54-year history.

Farmers are hit hardest, but they’re not alone. Contractors that provide cities with water can expect to receive half of their usual amount, the Bureau said, and wildlife refuges that need water flows in rivers to protect endangered fish will receive 40 percent of their contracted supply.

3300 water contractors that provide farmers with water and hold historic agreements giving them senior rights will receive 40 percent of their normal supplies. Some contracts date back over a century and guarantee that farmers will receive at least 75 percent of their water.

One of those is the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Water Authority in Los Banos that provides irrigation for 240,000 acres of farmland. The Water Authority’s executive director Steve Chedester said farmers he serves understand that the reality of California’s drought means it’s going to be tough to find enough water for them. “They’re taking a very practical approach,” he said. “If it’s not there, it’s just not there.”

For the State of California, most in the state are critically dependent on what water comes off the Sierra and as noted above there will not be very much water to allocate.

The snowpack – often called California’s largest reservoir – normally provides about a third of the water used by cities and farms as it melts into streams and reservoirs in spring and early summer.

California’s major reservoirs, mostly bereft of both snow and rain this winter as the drought pushes through its third year, are dangerously low. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s (SWP) principal reservoir, is at only 39 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity (57 percent of its historical average for the date). Shasta Lake north of Redding, California’s and the federal Central Valley Project’s (CVP) largest reservoir, is at 38 percent of its 4.5 million acre-foot capacity capacity (52 percent of its historical average). San Luis Reservoir, a critical south-of-Delta reservoir for both the SWP and CVP, is at a mere 33 percent of its 2 million acre-foot capacity (39 percent of average for this time of year).

With no end to the drought in sight, DWR on January 31 set its allocation of State Water Project water at zero. The only previous zero percent allocation (water delivery estimate) was for agriculture in the drought year of 1991, but cities that year received 30 percent of requested amounts. This is the first time the allocation has been set at zero across the board. (Source)

Continue reading The Perfect Storm →