ysabetwordsmith | Poem: "Habitat Foreclosure"

This poem is from the July 7, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from

thnidu. It has been sponsored by LJ user Ng_moonmoth.

"Habitat Foreclosure"
-- a vembletroon

Nincompoops in power cannot do the math of water shortages:
It's farms and factories at fault, not homes.
Take this to the bank: habitat foreclosure is at hand, aquifers running dry, glaciers absent without leave, and doom gathering in every empty lake.
Fracked! Cracked! Thanks to this, the water that remains is no longer potable.
Idiots.

* * *

Notes:

"Habitat foreclosure" is a phrase I coined some years ago to describe situations where environmental changes make an area unsuited for human residence. This is happening in parts of China, Russia, Africa, etc. where settlements are being abandoned due to drought, dust storms, and other problems which have exceeded feasible coping strategies.

Read about the vembletroon form.

The West Coast drought is behind the water shortages, but the highest demand is not from individual use but from industrial and agricultural uses. Therefore the problem cannot be solved by individuals or cutting municipal supplies.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But don't expect LOGIC from municipalities and businesses. We're cutting water use as much as we can, simply to avoid the higher billing rates... and it does NOTHING compared to one day of ONE fast-food joint's water usage.

The same not-logic is used to punish private ownership of cars, and I've DONE the math for that.

No matter how I feel about the decisions I have no control over, I also think that the problem needs FAR more coordinated solutions than a few easy water-saving slogans and "price-gouging"--which will continue until the courts can PROVE that it happened, and any fines won't ever get back to the affected residents.

Or maybe I'm too cynical now? It must be the fault of the weather, right?

>>But don't expect LOGIC from municipalities and businesses. We're cutting water use as much as we can, simply to avoid the higher billing rates... and it does NOTHING compared to one day of ONE fast-food joint's water usage.<<

Well, habitat foreclosure is what happens when people in power refuse to use logic. Reality is whatever doesn't disappear when you disbelieve it.

>>The same not-logic is used to punish private ownership of cars, and I've DONE the math for that.<<

It's pointless in a country whose entire infrastructure is predicated on the assumption that everyone has at least one car.

>> No matter how I feel about the decisions I have no control over, I also think that the problem needs FAR more coordinated solutions than a few easy water-saving slogans and "price-gouging"--which will continue until the courts can PROVE that it happened, and any fines won't ever get back to the affected residents. <<

It doesn't matter how smart you are or how educated you are, when evil or ignorant people are making the decisions about what happens. I've spent decades warning people about this shit and NOBODY FUCKING LISTENS.

I'm edgy about the blanket condemnation of water use by agriculture, because food production is an essential. But I agree about co-ordinated solutions, one of which would be switching production to region-suitable dryland crops, and cutting irrigation hugely.
There's been too much greedy focus on growing high-cash water-hungry export crops - but agriculture in itself is an essential industry.

I'm not condemning agriculture. We do need it. But there is only one end to a scenario when more resource flows out than flows in. The water doesn't care what we use it for. It will either be there, or not. In order to balance the water budget, people must cut where there is more use than the amount of the deficit. They could cut the entire municipal supply and not fix that.

Solving the problem requires cutting agriculture and industry. That probably means some farming, manufacture, and people will need to move elsewhere. That's sad, but it's better to move now than to be crushed at the end.

Fracking in California is a motherfucking moronic evil idea for a jillion reasons, and should all be stopped immediately. Mining water to sell for private profit is also unconscionable.

People make these mistakes because they are deciding based on emotion rather than logic. Well, the facts are going to bite them on the ass eventually.

Or bite someone, some people, if not the profit-takers.

Oh, logic is in use, but it's me-first logic instead of us-first.

Well done. God, I wish I could roast them to a crisp!

The link only goes to a very general "Google Groups" page. By finding the thread, then the actual post (by Barry Gold), clicking "More actions" and then "Link", I got
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.2600/7ntXCxoVJWU/20bAh3Om5jwJ
for which I have made the abbreviation
http://bit.ly/vembletroon

The definition is a bit more than halfway down the post, which isn't a long one.

Edited 2015-07-27 03:00 (UTC)

I fixed the link.

People keep forgetting that few things need water and need it in as steady a supply as possible as agriculture/ranching does.
Much of the electricity generated on the west coast comes from dam-generated water power and much of that electricity is then used in manufacturing aluminum which cannot be made without it.
:^|

That's true. The west coast -- and a lot of other places -- is simply overspending its water budget. That is not sustainable. People will have to quit doing things that use up more water than they have. Either they can ramp down in a controlled manner now, or wait for a hard crash when the water runs out. Part of that means a lot of people will have to move elsewhere.

You'd think they'd be doing the things they could do like build desalination plants but I haven't heard of any of the west coast states doing that--yet.
California did have one but they decided to sell it for parts rather than keep it in moth balls against the next drought that came along. IDIOTS!!!!
:^\

Poem: "Habitat Foreclosure"

Sigh. Too, too apt!

Re: Sigh. Too, too apt!

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Well...

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Thank you!

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Yes...

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