🚀 go-pugleaf

[As this discussion really has no business in the .wanted or
  .housing newsgroups, I've added alt.california and aimed
  followups there.  -- DL ]

Anthony Reeves (areeves@netcom.com) writes:
> > I don't know what state you live in, but the drought is not
> > offically over in So. Calif. One good year of rain does not
> > end 6 years of drought...

Robert Allen <rja@batcomfs.Eng.Sun.COM> replies:
>     The "drought" is a misnomer.

Sorta.  The problem is that in the general populace, the most common
meaning of "drought" is "a prolonged period of dry weather; lack of rain".
That drought *is* over.  Period.  One year of rain *does* end such a
drought.  One good storm ends such a drought.  As far as this meaning is
concerned, "drought" does not mean "too many people for the available
amount of water".


HOWEVER, the second, less common meaning of the word (as listed second in
my Webster's New World Dictionary) is "a prolonged or serious shortage or
deficiency".  This meaning of the word can be used for a shortage of any
kind of supply.  The problems are that (1) when mediots(*) and water board
officials use the term "drought", they mean the second meaning, but the
public expects them to mean the first meaning; and (2) the mediots never
use "drought" to mean a shortage of anything but water, thus reinforcing
the public ignorance of the second meaning, and of the misunderstanding;
and (3) they rarely emphasize that the appearance of such a drought is
often due to a rise in the demand, rather than a dwindling of the supply.


It would be nice if the folks in the media were diligent about making
the distinction between "unusually dry weather" and "water shortage".


[Still RJA]:
> * Whole cities in Southern CA are profligate water wasters...

Most cities all along the CA coast are.  The SF bay area imports a whole
lot of water from hundreds of miles away, just like LA does, arguably
having perpetrated a worse environmental crime (the drowning of Hetch
Hetchy) than the destruction of Owens Lake and the near-destruction of
Mono Lake.

>     * There  are too many people for the amount of water  which
>       naturally falls in central and  southern CA.

Agreed, as long as you mean to include the bay area as part of
"central" CA.

>     I'm 34 years old, and a CA native,

"Ich bin ein Kalifornien (auch)."  Seit zwei und veirzig Jahre.

> and "the drought" is a way of life, not a passing fad.  Use
> drought tolerant landscaping ...

Just live a drought-tolerant life.  Hey, for that matter, just
live a tolerant life.  As they say, it ain't nohow permanent.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Doug.Landauer@sun.com    || I love it when you can hear the ravens fly
SunSoft, Mountain View   || by, even when they're neither cawing nor
California.              || flapping their wings.   -- me, in Mesa Verde