There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

[Sapiens]

http://thecomingdepression.blogspot....-run-away.html

By: Clint Richardson
I've driven the almost 400 mile stretch of Interstate 5 from L.A. to Sacramento dozens of times. Quite honestly, it's as boring as it gets. with only the usual gas stations, mini-marts, fast-food, home-cookin' restaurants, and strangely a newer batch of Starbuck's Coffee shops sprouting up everywhere. In between... farms, orchards, cattle, and dirt.
On July 15th, as I began my trip to Utah, I came off the Grapevine decline and hit the flat 250 or so mile stretch of interstate which begins the farming belt in the valley. Almost immediately I noticed what I had only heard about on the radio and in the papers. Where once there were vast fields of green, now there where empty, barely recognizable rows of unplanted dirt and growing weeds. Only sporadically at first, but once I passed Bakersfield and for about a 200 mile stretch, I could not believe my eyes. Field after field laid fallow. And not really fallow, but unattended... as if it was not going to be planted in the near future either.
Signs were staked in the ground on almost every patch of barren farmland. The most common one, which was yellow and obviously a group effort to wake up the sleeping travelers of their future plight, read:
"CONGRESS CREATED DUST BOWL"
Others, which looked more homemade were posted on non-operational farm equipment parked as close to the freeway as possible, stated things like:
"FOOD ONLY GROWS WHERE WATER FLOWS" -and-
"NO WATER = NO JOBS = NO FUTURE"
At one point, after 150 miles or so of seeing this horror, I broke down in tears and had to pull over to the side of the road. I saw the aqueduct, which followed Interstate 5 most of the way, and large fields of dead trees which were planted just a few feet from the flowing cement river. I imagined how those trees would feel, imprisoned in the dying dirt by their own roots, if they could indeed comprehend that their source of life was just a stones throw away.
It was like some horrific story-book come to life; science fiction in real time. I was thinking of the farmers and their families and wondering what would become of them and their land. I was thinking about the consequences of hundreds of miles of food no longer being grown, and adding together the other states like Campo, Colorado which have the same situation... only planting 60% of their crops this year.
This deadness went on until the brink of civilization once again began to show. When I approached the Stockton/Modesto highway interchange area the carnage seemed to stop, and the fields appeared to be healthy and bountiful. I can only guess that this is because more people drive on that stretch of the freeway, and so the powers that be are trying to keep up appearances. No other explaination came to mind.
To the readers of this, I can only say that living in the city has literally blinded me to the truth, even though I knew it was happening. I wonder how many other things I ignore? Many economists and trends predictors have called for food shortages and food riots in the fall, and with what I saw last week, I have new reason to believe them.
But then, that's the real problem isn't it? Belief...
If you believe that the food will continue to flow (magically appearing on store shelves in a grocery store near you) and just dismiss the very real claims of shortages worldwide, including a severe wheat shortage in this country due to a harmfull fungus, then I might boldy say that you deserve whatever fate befalls you.
I challenge you all to take a drive up the 5 and see this for yourself. Please! Don't let this go unseen. If you are camera or video savy, I think it would be a really great photo exibit or website showing the true nature of our common problem. And you better believe, as you take your daily shower, flush your toilet, and water your fertilized-non-edible grassy yards, that this is indeed a Congress created crisis. So please tell as many people about it as possible.
Lastly, if you haven't already... buy storable food! Go to the dollar store and buy rice and beans. Buy pasta, canned and jar foods, or anything with a shelf-life of more than 6 months.
What's the worse that can happen? You'll have food for 6 months.
What's the best that can happen? You'll have food for 6 months.
Take care. Spread this information. Get mad. Fight tyranny. And...
Don't be a sheep.
Clint Richardson

[rj1]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

I have a hard time believing a website titled thecomingdepression.blogspot.com.

What are they going to do if it doesn't happen 3 years down the road, nowereallymeanitthistimethedepressioniscomingandit sgoingtohurtyoualot.blogspot.com?

[magicvent]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

For more on the problems that lie ahead regarding water:

http://www.economicroadmap.com/2009/...r-nowhere.html

[MulaMan]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

There is a 3 or so year drought in California.

The land this guy drove through was barren desert before people built the massive "concrete river" from nothern California and so it is simply going back to its natural state - desert.

Why should the rest of us pay tax dollars to transport water to farmers that purchased a piece of barren desert in Southern California? same goes for all the housing developments out there.

Trust me, there is not and will never be a food shortage again in America we produce much more than we can eat, go down to the local buffett and check out the waist to hip ratio. The problem is our social & economic systems, there are many people that cannot afford food in America, richest country on earth. LOL.

[MulaMan]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

or it could be an old fashioned water war - big corporate farmers looking for puplic support to pass de-regulation of water supplies. LOL.

or could it be Mish deflation theory: oversupply, illegal Mexican workers pushing American wages down, pushing food prices down, no more demand, ... boom... no more farm.

I aways wondered how in California you can buy $1.99 bottle of wine - cheaper then buying the equivalent amount of water.

Newspapers and airways are awash with accusations that a three-inch fish, the Delta smelt, has caused a man-made drought in California and that environmentalists and fishermen are seeking to starve people in order to save whales. Congressmen, farmers and water agencies claim that 450,000 or more acres of land have been fallowed and 35,000-50,000 people have been put out of work all because of Delta smelt and the Endangered Species Act.

But, facts are stubborn things. And the facts tell us that these accusations are lies, bald-face lies to use the red-herring of economic recession as justification for depriving the Delta of essential water.

These lies can only be successful if the general public ignores the facts. The truth is more water won’t wash away the Central Valley’s recession and endangered species are the victims, not the problem.

According to official data collected by the California Economic Development Department, during three years of drought, from May 2006 through May 2009, farm employment generally went up. Only in the smallest agricultural county of Kings, was there a decline.

[GRG55]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

There is a 3 or so year drought in California.

The land this guy drove through was barren desert before people built the massive "concrete river" from nothern California and so it is simply going back to its natural state - desert.

Why should the rest of us pay tax dollars to transport water to farmers that purchased a piece of barren desert in Southern California? same goes for all the housing developments out there.

Trust me, there is not and will never be a food shortage again in America we produce much more than we can eat, go down to the local buffett and check out the waist to hip ratio. The problem is our social & economic systems, there are many people that cannot afford food in America, richest country on earth. LOL.

I've driven that stretch of highway many times, and spent more time than I care to admit in that part of California.

• The "concrete river" also supplies water for human habitation in the coastal region of San Luis Obispo & Santa Barbara, the West LA Basin and Palmdale [yes, they use vast amounts of energy to pump water over the mountains to the east of the valley...go figure].
• Don't be too hasty to assume that there will "never be a food shortage". I agree with your observation that the economics of poverty/food create hungry people in a wealthy land...an outrageous situation most certainly. But agriculture in California uses more than 40% of the water resources and much of that comes not from the concrete river but from the Central Valley aquifer. The aquaduct gets all the press because it's a visible representation of "stealing" water from Northern California [75% of the precipitation*] to supply Southern California [80% of the demand*] but I think the real agriculture problem will come from the abuse of the aquifer.
• The problems with pumping out of the Central Valley aquifer are well known for decades...subsidence that permanently impairs the ability to recharge it [once fine grained sediments are compacted they never again have the same storage capacity], contamination by pesticides and salinity increases from brine mixing [some from the valley's historic oil field activities].
• These are not family farms...these are large commercial farms run on an industrial scale. Drive the length of the valley on the old highway [99] to get a better view. There's not a single residence to be seen among miles and miles of cropland.
• If the commercial farming system in California fails there will be serious food supply repercussions not only in the USA and North America, but potentially elsewhere in the world. I was truly surprised at how much irrigated, taste-free "fresh" produce sold in the supermarkets of the Arabian Gulf was packed in Bakersfield.

* Source: PBS documentary, "California's Water"

[LargoWinch]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

Sorry to repeat myself.

[bill]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

I've driven that stretch of highway many times, and spent more time than I care to admit in that part of California.

• The "concrete river" also supplies water for human habitation in the coastal region of San Luis Obispo & Santa Barbara, the West LA Basin and Palmdale [yes, they use vast amounts of energy to pump water over the mountains to the east of the valley...go figure].
• Don't be too hasty to assume that there will "never be a food shortage". I agree with your observation that the economics of poverty/food create hungry people in a wealthy land...an outrageous situation most certainly. But agriculture in California uses more than 40% of the water resources and much of that comes not from the concrete river but from the Central Valley aquifer. The aquaduct gets all the press because it's a visible representation of "stealing" water from Northern California [75% of the precipitation*] to supply Southern California [80% of the demand*] but I think the real agriculture problem will come from the abuse of the aquifer.
• The problems with pumping out of the Central Valley aquifer are well known for decades...subsidence that permanently impairs the ability to recharge it [once fine grained sediments are compacted they never again have the same storage capacity], contamination by pesticides and salinity increases from brine mixing [some from the valley's historic oil field activities].
• These are not family farms...these are large commercial farms run on an industrial scale. Drive the length of the valley on the old highway [99] to get a better view. There's not a single residence to be seen among miles and miles of cropland.
• If the commercial farming system in California fails there will be serious food supply repercussions not only in the USA and North America, but potentially elsewhere in the world. I was truly surprised at how much irrigated, taste-free "fresh" produce sold in the supermarkets of the Arabian Gulf was packed in Bakersfield.

* Source: PBS documentary, "California's Water"

more water coming south
http://www.water.ca.gov/deltainit/maps0309.cfm

[Starving Steve]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

A lesson in geography: The Kern Desert, although not labelled as such on most maps of California is an extension of the Mojave Desert. The Kern Desert is an area with an average of about four to seven inches of rainfall per year. It lies north of the Tejachipi (sp?) Range, west of the Sierra Nevada range, and extends westward almost to the coast. The north side of the Kern Desert is about Fresno to the southern Salinas Valley. The dryest part of the Kern Desert is the Carizzo Plain just west of the southern San Joaquin Valley. The west edge of the Kern Desert is the western-most Coast Ranges.

The problem with the Kern Desert is that it is in the rain shadow of the Tejachipi Range and the Coast Ranges. Storms passing thru Southern California miss the Kern Desert. Rain-bearing southerly winds in storms over Southern Calfornia dump their rain over the Tejachipis, just north of Los Angeles, but those southerly winds are dry and warm over the Kern Desert.

The dryest years in the Kern Desert are always after a La Nina cycle. So drought in California is magnified in the Kern Desert. In the late La Nina cycle, the Kern Desert can become a dust bowl, as it is now.

As I have written here many times, the solution to water shortages in California is de-salinization of sea water. The energy required to de-salinate and pump sea water up from the ocean could be supplied by atomic power plants during the nighttime, when urban demands for power are at a minimum.

The Middle East uses surplus energy to de-salinate and pump sea water. And parts of the Middle East are even drier (sp?) than the Kern Desert. Saudi Arabia, Isreal, Qatar, Kuwait, among other countries de-salinate and pump sea water right now.

The faster we REPUDIATE the eco-frauds--- Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, WARN, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and that bunch--- the better-off humanity is going to be. There is plenty of water and plenty of farmland for everyone on this planet. There is no reason at all for water shortages in California, or anywhere else. There is no reason for hunger anywhere on this planet.:mad:

[metalman]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

The faster we REPUDIATE the eco-frauds--- Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, WARN, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and that bunch--- the better-off humanity is going to be. There is plenty of water and plenty of farmland for everyone on this planet. There is no reason at all for water shortages in California, or anywhere else. There is no reason for hunger anywhere on this planet.:mad:

no one can fault you for inconsistency. btw, i agree with you.

[santafe2]

Re: There Is A Hunger Coming Like A Run-Away Freight Train: Created By Congress

I understand the farmers point of view whether they're factory or family based farms. They know we've built a political system around water in Cali that doesn't allow anyone to tell every family in LA and Orange County that they can no longer have a lawn because the Central Valley needs the water to create food.

This from an NYT article last February:

Last year [2008], during the second year of the drought, more than 100,000 acres of the 4.7 million in the valley were left unplanted, and experts predict that number could soar to nearly 850,000 acres this year.

An 8X increase in one year and it's not the 2nd biggest story in the US. There's a sad irony in that so many Cali families came out during the dust bowl years in the Midwest.

And this from a Cali paper:

...things began to slip away about five or six years ago. That’s when he began noticing the effects of farmers in the 600,000-acre Westlands Water District fallowing and permanently retiring more and more cropland as a way to cope with too little irrigation and major drainage problems that led to salty soil.

Sounds a lot like problems with farmland all over the US.

Many of the giant growers in Westlands have been less than honorable over the decades, gaming the system to claim more than their fair share of cheap, federally subsidized water.

And this is where the contention with Congress may be coming from. Give us more corporate welfare. They might need better lobbyists. It's worked pretty well for the banks.

State officials say the environmental rulings are responsible for about 25 percent of the current mess, while the rest was brought on by drought.

Good to get a starting metric. Saving fish and other environmental goals is about 1/4 the problem. That's a fine kettle of fish for environmentalists. I wonder who they're pointing fingers at...LA water wasters?

And this in closing, (just in case you're blood isn't boiling).

Will the usual solution — building a new prison — be all that’s conceived? Or can the sun-baked San Joaquin Valley become a hub of solar power and alternative energy, as some have suggested? If so, who will prepare workers for this new field?

Let's not learn to conserve water and energy, let's accept desertification as a chance to go solar. Are they kidding? Have you ever tasted a solar panel? Even with salt, it's not much.