dieseltaylor Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Well this is a real humdinger for a thread, personal rights, state rights , inter-state relations, and Federal rights. And then "good government" and the people. I am afraid you need to read the link for the full flavour of the problem. And the "underlying" problem is not unique to just the US.* http://www.telegraph.co.u...rn-of-the-Dust-Bowl.html ........ All may come to nought in the face of a threat that has nothing to do with corn or beef, but everything to do with the American devotion to making money at any cost. The Texas oil billionaire and corporate raider T Boone Pickens is after their water. He is proving to be the ultimate test of their free market gospel of the 'right to capture'. Ten years ago Pickens concluded that the prophets of climate-change may well be right, and if they were, that water would become more valuable than the oil that had made his fortune. He formed a company called Mesa Water, and began buying up Panhandle land with water rights over the Ogallala. He is now the largest individual water owner in America, with rights over enough of the aquifer to drain an estimated 200,000 acre-feet a year, at least until the land goes dry. That is 65 billion gallons a year, or, to put it another way, 124,000 gallons a minute. The plan? Ninety-five per cent of Ogallala water is now used for agriculture, but Pickens plans to pipe it 250 miles to Dallas, expected to triple in size in 30 years, with a demand for water far exceeding supply. Pickens is making the hottest of climate-change bets: that water's value will rocket as it runs dry. One man's thirst is another man's fortune. Irrigation farming would simply follow gold mining, open-range ranching and oil drilling in the traditional cycle of boom and bust. 'There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it,' Pickens has said. 'That's the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing.' And the rest of the world http://www.eoearth.org/article/Aquifer_depletion 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 S'ok. Climate change is bunk. Apparently. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak_43 Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Simon Schama covered this some time ago in one of his documentaries in a series on the US (2009?) Certainly was an eye-opener to me... I can thoroughly recommmend the series to anyone who wants to understands America's future through it's past... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dygkw 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 As I've said before, the human race seems hell-bent on committing suicide. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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