Climate change has been blamed by some for all sorts of evils, including Islamic terrorists. Indeed, it sometimes is possible to link human behavior to weather conditions – but alarmists have taken to claiming any undesirable weather is a result of global warming.
Sometimes, they even invent weather related problems, as in maintaining the United States is experiencing more and worse hurricanes because of climate change. The truth is that during recent years, the frequency and severity of tropical storms has lessened.
Now, Californians’ water crisis is being blamed on climate change. Specifically, a long drought is cited. Never mind that scientists note such lapses in rainfall are a normal, regular phenomenon.
A look at how much water Californians use and where they get it is illuminating. Each resident of the Golden State consumes, on average, 228 gallons of water a day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, our region, average per-day use is 153 gallons.
Much of California’s water is used to irrigate crops. When pioneers first laid eyes on the state, they found there simply was not enough water for large-scale farming. The solution was a vast network of dams, aqueducts, etc., to get water from outside California into the state, then send it where it was desired.
As much as 1.4 trillion gallons of the water Californians use each year is drawn from the Colorado River, which touches only the southern border of the state.
In other words, part of California’s drought problem is enormous demand, not limited supply.
Blaming Californians’ woes on climate change, then, is just another tactic used by alarmists with an agenda – but little science with which to back it up.
