Enviros* want to deprive millions of their water.

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*And when I say 'enviros,' I mean the absolute NUTS side of environmentalism, not the side of environmentalism *I* belong to. The same people who believe 'man-made' global warming has Anything to do with the current drought:

Enviro-crazies trying to get court to tear down the dam that supplies San Francisco's water

The drought (aka, the failure to build new water storage capacity while population doubled) that plagues California has not stopped the fundamentalists of the Green Religion from pursuing one of their most insane demands. They want to tear down the dam that stores the crystal clear Sierra Nevada water of the Tuolumne River and allow the Hetch Hetchy Valley to revert to its natural state, a process that would take many years, of course.

I used to see “Restore Hetch Hetchy” bumper stickers fairly often in the past, but the soaring water bills and threats of ten thousand dollar fines for letting water run off from your lawn onto the sidewalk have made them scarce of late. But that hasn’t stopped the true believers who are suing in state court, hoping to enlist a judge in their lunatic cause and bypass democratic institutions so as to realize their spiritual aim. Alyssa Finley reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Last month, a group of environmental activists organized under the sobriquet Restore Hetch Hetchy sued in state court to raze the O’Shaughnessy Dam and drain the reservoir, which now supplies water and power to 2.6 million Bay Area residents. If successful, the lawsuit would create a severe water shortage in the Bay Area, which has been among the areas least affected by the drought in the West.

Hetch Hetchy and the other dams that supply water to the Bay Area have been an incredible blessing, supplying delicious, pure water. But the crazies who worship Gaia and want to force the rest of us to sacrifice for their spiritual goal want to destroy that blessing. And they are pretty explicit about it in their lawsuit:

According to the lawsuit, the Hetch Hetchy project violates the California constitution’s prohibition of “waste or unreasonable use” of water resources, which must be put to “beneficial use thereof in the interest of the people and for the public welfare.” 

The environmentalists maintain that it is “unreasonable” that the reservoir obstructs their scenic views of “aquatic birds, fish and other aquatic animals, and terrestrial species, including black bears, deer, and other species.” They also grouse that people “cannot fish in the river but must resort to a diminished fishing experience from the shoreline of the reservoir.” Nor can people swim, but it’s not as though there would be much swimming if the reservoir were removed and the natural flow of the Tuolumne River restored.

The environmentalists don’t protest that wildlife is being harmed. Rather, their gripe is that people are being deprived of recreational and aesthetic enjoyment. The group estimates Hetch Hetchy Valley’s so-called existence value—which captures “individuals’ strong desires to be able to visit a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley in the future, to realize their ecological ethics, their altruism toward others and the environment, and the desire to benefit future generations”—at between $44 billion and $113 billion based on their review of other dam removals.

“Existence value” is another way of saying that their appreciation of nature should trump the ability of others to live and work here. Without the water, jobs would disappear and people would have to leave. Ort else find a spare hundred billion bucks or so, and overcome endless environmental reviews on construction of replacement dams, when what’s needed is more water storage. If California had continued to buiod dams and reservoirs to match its population growth, you would not be reading of the “drought” and people would be able to flush their toilets every time they used them.

In my own view, if people think it is morally, aesthetically, or spiritually harmful to supply water to the population of California, then they should take the lead and depart from the state. Go somewhere that doesn’t need dams to supply its water. But of course they expect other people to suffer so they can get their spiritual satisfaction.

The dam and reservoir at Hetch Hetchy are one of the engineering triumphs of the last century, supplying water that is the envy of the world for its high quality and low cost. As a bonus, a lot of clean electric power is provided. But for some poeple, their aesthetic preferences trump all that good.  They are narcissists.

Read more: www.americanthinker.com/blog/2…

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Let's not forget that research consistently shows that the current cycle of global warming is not the cause of the drought:

Two new studies show that global warming is not behind California drought

california blobAccording to yesterday's Washington Post, there is a gigantic warm blob in the Pacific Ocean that is fueling California's four-year-long drought, and it has nothing to do with global warming. Two new studies released this week in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters", explain how this large expanse of warm ocean water is affecting California's weather as well as the East Coast's past two brutal winters.

In the first study, Nick Bond, Washington's state climatologist, believes the blob, a.k.a. the "warm anomaly," is behind California's ongoing warm and dry winters. Discovered in the fall of 2013, the warm anomaly is roughly 1,000 miles wide and about 300 feet deep, and according to Bond, is about 3°C (5°F) warmer than is typical for that area of the Pacific ocean. When viewed on a map showing ocean water temperatures, "the great circular mass does indeed look like a blob."

Bond and his researchers believe the anomaly was created when a high-pressure air system got stuck over the circular blob's current location, allowing the ocean water to stay calmer and warmer. This in turn allowed the air above this system to carry heat instead of the typical rain and snow as it worked its way toward land, leading to California's multi-year drought.

"The West Coast’s high temperatures and dire drought, which has led to mandatory water restrictions in California, are likely attributable to this phenomenon," the researchers said. "These new studies also confirm the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) March report, which said "that West Coast waters are becoming less biologically productive as they become warmer. The report attributed the strandings of nearly 1,500 starving sea lion pups, the decline in copepods (tiny crustaceans that support the base of the food chain) and other environmental shifts to the expanding blob." NOAA also put most of the blame on California's drought on natural variables and not climate change.

In the second study, headed by Dennis Hartmann, they found that the "warming waters of the northeast Pacific are tied to an anomaly in water temperatures thousands of miles away, roughly where the International Date Line and the equator intersect in the Tropics." Surface waters in this location are much warmer than normal and are heating the air above them, which eventually reaches the West Coast. Hartmann likens it to "throwing a rock into a pond...the wave eventually makes its way to the other side."

And while the warm waters create a unyielding high pressure system off the West Coast, they cause "cold, wet, low-pressure air in the central and eastern U.S., leading to heavy snowfall and bitterly cold winters." According to the historical record, unusual ocean warming in the Tropics has occurred before, and Hartmann admits, "it could be just another natural variation in ocean and atmosphere temperatures, similar to the El Niño-La Niña cycle."

more here www.climatechangedispatch.com/…

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Back to yard work.

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Zeonista's avatar
And then those idiots move to other states after wrecking the Bear State and start the process all over again...