This seems typical for water management here in the US. Instead of planning for worse case drought conditions, which are unfortunately not uncommon, the water planners generally seem to plan on average or above average rainfall or snowmelt conditions. We see it here in Central Texas, where people are not educated about the expected rainfall and worst case conditions. Therefore we see most ranchers overstocking, based on good rainfall years, rather than stocking for typical rainfall or low rainfall years. Our "average" rainfall may be derived from a year of 40 - 50 inches of rain (a flood year) and a year of 15 inches of rain ( a drought year). Alternating drought and flood are normal here, but in spite of this being common knowledge, planning for both scenarios is very poor.

Yeah, I'm just waiting for the screaming to start when we get into a real drought situation, one that lasts a number of years. I tried explaining how we can't continue to grow in this area without eventually running out of water to a couple of local water conservation people, but their response was, "well, the Edwards has a lot more water than people realize." Huh? Maybe I should've brought them a copy of Dr. Bartlett's lecture.

In Jerad Diamond's book collapse he discussed how the Anasazi made the same mistake we are making today. They had built a series of dams to supply them with water and let their number increase during a series of adnormally wet decades. They went into overshoot and when the climate changed back to its historical dry period their population crashed.

A little update to my Peak oil Perfect Storm...

Trade deficit: In June 2005, it was $55.8 billion. In November 2005, it rose to $64.2 billion.

Projected future “entitlement” expenditures (Social Security, Medicare, Veterans benefits, government retirement, etc) shortfall: 2001 $44 trillion dollars. 2005 $65 trillion dollars, which is about $20 trillion more than the value of all U.S. corporations, homes, and land in the United States.

Savings: It was plus 0.6 percent. The Commerce Department recently reported that the savings rate is now minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans we now dip into previous savings or borrow more debt to keep this all afloat. The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before — in 1932 and 1933 — during the depths of the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs.

CAD: It was 5.1%. Last year's current-account deficit reached 6.4 percent of GDP.

Interest rates: A year ago 2.25. Currently, 4.25%, projected to 4.50% in April. We could see 4.75% instead.

Water: It’s been 102 days since it has rained in Phoenix. 105 is the record.

Global warming: The news says it all.

The storm brews on….

And all this while everything seem "buziness as usual"..

Just imagine how it will be, when the next Depression will kick in !

Schneider
French-Canadian