I appreciate the nice comments, now the rebuttal 😉
I didn’t look into the Martenson site well enough to know what he is selling but the site appears to me to be an excellent example of “hype sells”.
His gratuitous choice to call his offering “The Crash Course” (crashes are scary) ,the focus on scary news in red font and overuse of adrenaline inciting adjectives, turns me off. It is not about not being aware, it is about not being abused.
You followed up the posting on that site with three news stories. I take it that these three articles further your effort to have others believe, that there is confirmation enough that it’s different this time and dramatically so.
I choose to investigate the water story link to see how much weight this brings to the “chaos is imminent” argument.
I do have some insight into this topic. I have lived through water rationing in California, My father in law is a geologist specializing in hydrology. I have made a inquiries into the topic over the years. Most recently I read “Beyond Chinatown”: The Metropolitan Water district, Growth, and the Environment in Southern California.
The fact that that The Department of Water Resources projects that it will deliver just 15% of the amount that southern California’s regional water agencies throughout California request every year is not a really big deal on the level of the individual.
Last year the initial Allocation was just 25% and was subsequently raised to 35%. In recent years San Diego has received approximately 30% of its water from the state water supply.Just to be clear The reduction from the SWP is not to 15% of what San Diego consumes but 15% of an allocation from one water agency that never actually been delivered in excess of 50% of the prescribed allotment.We get most of the rest of our water from the Colorado river aqueduct and if I recall properly, a few years back we had some favorable outcomes with regard to contracts for capacity.
Furthermore this, as is usual with water in California, is as much about political arm wrestling as anything.I am not saying that the actions taken are not at all a result of supplies but that is never all of the story. This current case involves the Governors push for more water infrastructure, which is being resisted by those who influence the state purse and environmentalist concerns and probably a host of others.I am not sure exactly what the implications are but don’t doubt power struggles are involved.
We use way too much water or at least way more than we need and we are going to do it in 2009 even with this proposed reduction. We could get by with less. Permanent modifications could even be easily manageable.Look at per capita water consumption in most of the world.
I don’t know if you were here but we had water rationing at least once in the eighties.It wasn’t a symptom or precursor of “chaos” then and based on this current situation isn’t now. Adjustments are being made constantly to many situations. Calfornia water,food supplies, energy all these going concerns go through and will go through plenty or changes and most of the time is without tremendous duress.
When people make fun of “doomsayers” in an apparently knee jerk fashion it is because we have seen it before and know that the topics can be dealt with rationally and as someone pointed out the “alarmist” crowd has a bad track record.
Obviously many of your contributions are not debunkable. I am not saying that at all. I thought you were great on many threads. I think this argument about imminent “chaos” is indefensible.Risk factors may be a little more fluid.Some situations are more intense. Lots of people are going through painful changes and are frightened. There is definitely room for improvement on many of the concerns you raise.
In any case, I am ready to respectfully agree to disagree on “chaos” .
