Sunday 16 November 2014

The Nuts Of California

In 1972, Mike Hazlewood, sang a song called 'It never rains in Southern California' but 42 years on it seems that it isn't just the southern part of the state running out of water, 99% of it is officially 'abnormally dry".
California is now in its third year of drought and the reservoirs have almost run dry and so too are the ground water supplies and the home owners are actually being paid to rip up the grass and plants in the gardens and replace it with plants more tolerant to desert-like conditions which don't require watering.
All very sensible water preservation precautions until you hear that California's Central Valley which supplies 80% of the Worlds almonds, uses up 1.1 trillion gallons of water every single year, the equivalent of 86 million 10-minute showers every day for the next year.
With 70% of the almonds produced going to China, Californians are quire literally being sucked dry to ensure that the people of China get their almond based snacks.
I imagine at some time in the past someone in California has asked why selling nuts to China and making a handful of nut farmers a profit is more important than ensuring their own water supply for the people who pay the taxes in the State but as it's continuing, i imagine they were told profit trumps the need of the Californians reliving the Dust Bowl conditions of the 1930's.

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