National Dehydration
President Bush has recently declared a national disaster to the nearly 700 miles of blazing wildfire in California. The blaze is being investigated as a possible act of arsen, and the damage has cost over 1 billion dollars already. Over half a million people have evacuated affected areas.
In Atlanta, city officials are trying to figure out what to do about a dwindling water supply. Conservatives are pointing their fingers at liberals, criticizing a decision to route large amounts of water that could be used for drinking to the Florida wetlands.
What should we think when our country is ablaze in one part of the land and the water supply is dwindling in another? Maybe we need a mass rain dance for planetary consciousness?
Tweet- 10-26-07
- Adam Elenbaas's blog
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What?
I'd like to buy the world a Coke...
A valid point... We're experiencing the most extreme natural conditions on record nearly simultaneously, and in some cases as total paradoxes. It's a sobering indication of how out of whack the weather is in recent months when unprecedented flooding in Texas precedes California's biggest wildfire and Atlanta's potential dehydration by a matter of weeks.
As a resident of Atlanta, this isn't something I am surprised by. This city tops the national statistic for influx of new residents -- our skyline is changing more rapidly than ever before, with new luxury condo developments scraping the clouds everywhere you turn, and there are countless more plans being drafted. With a tragically decrepit sewer system requiring seemingly impossible feats of civic management to overhaul, Atlanta doesn't seem to have its aspirations grounded in reality. These highrises are cropping up in long-abandoned industrial ghettoes, adding exponentially greater demand on a watershed system already strained to its breaking point. The combination of hundreds of thousands of new high-flush toilets, hot tubs, and luxury Whirlpool products tapping the municipal pipes makes the Water Question an important one even in wetter seasons. But add a drought of any magnitude, and the fallout comes much faster...
rain dance
Yes, and I think that a rain-dance of consciousness does not literally symbolize the element of water as much as it does the energy of purification, renewal and rebirth. Adam Elenbaas
NY Times on national droughts
From last week's NY Times' Magazine.