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Droughts existed before we started driving pickups and SUV's. HTH.
As for the non-strawman portion of the OP, there have been fights over water between farmers and municipalities for as long as there have been farmers and municipalities.
Texas Rice Farmers Lose Their Water .
AUSTIN, Texas—The state's persistent drought has claimed its latest victims: rice farmers.
Because of low water levels in several lakes that serve as reservoirs here, officials said Friday that they wouldn't release irrigation water to farmers in three counties downstream that produce much of the rice in the state.
The rice industry contributes about $394 million annually to the economy of the state, which produces about 5% of the nation's rice. The three counties—Colorado, Wharton and Matagorda—lie west of humid Houston and usually get enough rain to make rice farming practicable.
This is the first time in its 78-year history that the Lower Colorado River Authority, which is based here, has cut off water to farmers. The agency waited until the last possible moment—a minute before midnight on Thursday—to make its decision, hoping that water levels would rise enough to avert a cutoff.
The irrigation ban is not expected to affect the shelf price of rice, but it has forced some farmers to lay off employees and consider diversifying into other crops.
"This is my livelihood at stake," said Ronald Gertson, a Texas rice farmer who projected he would produce only about 40% of his typical rice crop this year.
"It sticks in the craw" of farmers, Mr. Gertson said, that the authority will continue to release water to golf courses and other recreational customers that pay higher rates for a guaranteed water supply.
In a statement, the agency said that farmers "pay considerably less for water than cities and industry. And therefore, their water is considered 'interruptible' during a severe drought."
Texans in the rice business said they could probably stay afloat this year, thanks in part to crop insurance, but they worried about another year of interrupted irrigation water.
"If this happens again, we'll be in much more trouble," said Ottis, the president of the Rice Belt Warehouse in El Campo, Texas, which stores and dries rice. The warehouse plans to store more corn, wheat and other commodities this year, he said, but those crops do not produce the profit margins rice does.
"I have already let go about 20% of our employees, because I knew this day was coming about," Mr. Ottis said, adding that his family had been involved in rice farming for almost 100 years and had lived through droughts, but none this bad.
It always seemed like the good Lord would bless us with more rain," he said.
But there appears to be little relief in sight from the drought that still afflicts 85% of Texas. Temperatures are expected to be above normal this summer, said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist.
Rainfall levels are harder to predict, he said, but "we are in a dry stretch now, which will be worrisome if it continues. It reminds me of last year."
The water agency said it plans to find new supplies of water to avoid a repeat of this year's problems.
Farmers agree. "The development of new reservoirs is imperative," said Daniel Berglund, a 49-year-old rice farmer in Markham, Texas, who said he woke up at 1:15 a.m. Friday and checked to see whether the lakes, against all odds, had risen high enough to allow irrigation water to be released.
"Consumers only see grocery shelves stacked with food, floor to ceiling," he said. "This is an example of the risks we take as farmers. When you lose irrigation water, it stops everything," he said.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...909299488.html
I find it ironic that a state that puts so little stock in the possibility that we might be ing up our climate systems through our own actions is being smacked around by weather that seems to be the worst in living memory.
I guess we get to choose between farming jobs and oil jobs?
Droughts existed before we started driving pickups and SUV's. HTH.
As for the non-strawman portion of the OP, there have been fights over water between farmers and municipalities for as long as there have been farmers and municipalities.
newsy.
There's a strawman portion?
Maybe this is the strawman portion?
I was unaware that any climate scientist, or myself, claimed that droughts didn't exist before the CO2 e.
That would make the implication that they did, a strawman, to my understanding.
Did I miss something?
I'm afraid, considering your reputation on the board, you cannot post an article such as this without there being an implied argument attached to it. Therefore, I would have to agree, there is, in fact, a straw man component to the post.
Typecasting can be a .
Heh, ask Darrin.
I still am not getting it though.
The state's population and state government is solidly republican, and they tend to be the most skeptical about AGW.
That doesn't seem to be a distortion. I am honestly a bit confused.
Yes. You missed the part where you erected a strawman about this being some kind of conflict between farming jobs and oil jobs. This is about farmers and municipal water users in Austin.
Sure but water shortages like we have seen in Austin over the last couple of years have not occurred. Town Lake and Lake Austin are disappearing and rice farming requires you to flood square miles of land and keep it flooded for months on end. The is particular fight has been going on for over a year and the trend upstream has not changed. Austin won and the rice farmers lost.
The fight's been going on longer than that, but otherwise I agree with your post. The municipality usually wins these fights.
Even with the win, Austin still has some pretty serious water issues coming. The population just continues to grow and grow and grow, yet the water supply doesn't. Everyone's water bill is going to go up. I'm giving serious thought to zeroscaping my back yard. I'd do the front too if not for HOA restrictions.
This truly saddens me. Most farmers already have off the farm jobs so that they can farm their farms. The first job God gave to man was farming. This really must upset the democrats, these farmers are mostly poor as is and the huge corporations keep taking jobs from them. Pray for a spiritual and physical harvest and for strength and perseverance.
You obviously don't know any rice farmers. That's like a license to print money.
It isn't a strawman at all.
If AGW is real, and the CO2 we crank out in its various forms, such as oil burning, is permanently changing our climate, then if we choose to keep buring such fuels, we are choosing the oil jobs over the farm jobs that will be lost to whatever changes we are making/acclerating. (edit) Those changes will include droughts or floods, such as we are experiencing.(end edit)
That is a statement based on simple economic principles.
There are costs to every action, including doing nothing.
In deference to the skeptics who choose, against the bulk of scientific evidence in my opinion, I put a "?" at the end of the last sentence in the OP, and an "if" above.
Provocative I shoot for, but strawmen are not my thing.
Respectfully:
Xeriscaping.
I certainly don't want to be chained to my yard whenever I get around to buying. Mowing watering bla bla bla.
Something simple and neat, but not a full out lawn.
I can see a little bit of actual grass for the back yard, just to let the kiddos play around with tho'.
Oddly enough, mechanical rice farming takes a LOT more water than the labor-intensive kinds, to my understanding.
(dimly remembered data from a geography class in 1997--labor intensive farming also yields a lot more per acre than mechanical farming, think Asia)
meh. Xeriscaping in Texas looks like .
Cactus and succulents.
Still looks like a strawman to me. Two or three years ago when Lake Travis was full would you have taken issue with someone giving the oil industry credit for our bountiful water supply?It isn't a strawman at all.
If AGW is real, and the CO2 we crank out in its various forms, such as oil burning, is permanently changing our climate, then if we choose to keep buring such fuels, we are choosing the oil jobs over the farm jobs that will be lost to whatever changes we are making/acclerating. (edit) Those changes will include droughts or floods, such as we are experiencing.(end edit)
That is a statement based on simple economic principles.
There are costs to every action, including doing nothing.
In deference to the skeptics who choose, against the bulk of scientific evidence in my opinion, I put a "?" at the end of the last sentence in the OP, and an "if" above.
Provocative I shoot for, but strawmen are not my thing.
Doh! Appreciate the correction.
What's not to love about less mowing and lower water bills?
1918 & 1956 don't count since you don't remember them or because they don't fit into your agw theory?
Astroturf FTW!!!!meh. Xeriscaping in Texas looks like .
Cactus and succulents.
IMHO mine at the ranch looks OK...meh. Xeriscaping in Texas looks like .
Cactus and succulents.
URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/ranchandcostas001.jpg/][/URL]
Are those Mimosa saplings in the foreground of the second pic?
nope...pride of barbados... (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) also visible bouganvilla, esperanza, firebush...thats a spring picture...they get a lot bigger by the fall...also have a lot of palm trees, mexican salvia, native yucca, cactus, etc.
Cool. Look just like mimosa leaves...now I notice the blooms are different.
Do your's make it though the winter (your south of SA right?) or do they die down to the ground?
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