> What do you think agribusiness does with that water?
In California? They grow crops that aren't needed (like cotton!) in preposterous places like the desert of the central valley. My point? Water isn't precious in California because of individual behavior, it's precious because it's wasted at the top. All 31 million Californians could stop using water ENTIRELY and there'd be an additional 4% available ... so why is this important? Because once "we all" feel bad about our behaviors, we neglect to point the stick at the real monster in the room.
Doug writes:
> the disparity seems especially egregious with cars; even
> a $2/gal, gas is preposterously cheap. The U.S would look
> rather different if gas were $5/gal.
Indeed: there'd be fewer poor people on the road. And the rest of us would spend a bigger proportion of our monthly budget on petrol. And the extra taxes collected would be used to fund the "wars" overseas. Don't kid yourself: the extra taxes collected would neither cut down on demand for gasoline nor would it help balance the budget.
Sure, the US would look a lot different. Not in a way I'd like to see it, though ...
Leigh Meyers writes:
> According to your line of thought we should wait till crisis
> personally affects us before responding.
Of course that doesn't follow unless you're the type that says "If you take an aspirin for your headache, it follows that you should take 1000 of them, and that would kill you!!!" ...
It's a simple point: personalization of crisis is a destraction tactic wielded by those who most ought to be watched.
/jordan