Along that vein, this winter has been like the winters where I grew up, on the TX/Mexico border.

Yep, it's pretty scary, and speaking of starvation, what about overpopulation, which gets almost no notice at all lately? We wouldn't be having many of these other problems without that. Deforestation, overfishing, ozone depletion, soil depletion, energy shortages ...

Well, I've spread enough sunshine. Anyone else want to help depress us all?

Sorry, Annie, that this has got you down so much, but I can surely understand why it would.

ThinMan

I'm not down thinman, I'm angry! I am concerned for Mother Earth and worried about the world we're leaving our kids and grandkids.

Wasteful use of all our natural resources is pure stupidity.

Wasteful usage of water is going to be one of our biggest problems in the near future, maybe the worst of all. Wasteful use of water for things like factories, car washes, toilets, household use, swimming pools, resort water features and water parks has all but depleted our rivers and lakes, and the rest are being polluted, but you can't use gray water to water your gardens - oh, no! That would be unsanitary! That is total ignorance.

Irrigation is depleting the underground aquifers in this country and when that's gone, man, we are in deep doodoo!

Man is the only creature on the earth that cannot live in natural harmony and balance with the rest of the creatures. We brag about our superiority while we kill our planet and all life on it, one way or another. Stupidity, selfishness, and greed.

~ Annie

Speaking of water wasting - this topic really hits a nerve.

Yesterday, we had two, not one, water mains break within 12 hours and feet of each other on our street. The first one, on Sunday morning, was a real gusher and within a couple of hours the water department had started work on fixing it.

Where I'm very disappointed is that the second one sprung a leak, although not as bad, and the police/water department was notified at 6 PM but didn't show up until 8:30AM the next morning to shut it off! I guess the Superbowl was a little more important then the wasting of hundreds of gallons or more of water.

I hear that companies/state goverments are trying to see how they can tap into the Great Lakes to get fresh water. They even caught a huge tanker from China that was loading up on fresh water to take back. They turned it away but the argument went "but there's no law to stop us taking the water". States in the midwest are talking about building pipelines to take water from the great lakes so they can solve their water problem. Great - then we'll just have a great lakes problem. But hey, why not take water from the great lakes so that people hundreds of miles away can water their lawns and keep pools filled. Something is seriously wrong here, and it starts at home.

If North Americans starts pulling water from the Great Lakes, it will be an ecological disaster of major proportions. I have a map of Canada on my office wall, which has a smaller version with all of the major drainage basins show. All of southern Ontario and Quebec drain into what is call the St. Lawrence Basin, which feeds the Great Lakes. You would be dooming us to the same fate you face....and don't get me started about foreign ships stealing water, dumping sewage, and various foreign pest, such as zebra mussels. All to say, check the history of the Colorado River, which has been decimated. Sorry, this gets my Irish up.

Nancy.

Annie, something *is* changing in the US when the White House website posts this sort of words - see link below. Much time and effort has been spent denying scientific evidence, but hopefully this is all part of the past now.

I also hope there are no plans to drain the Great Lakes. The Soviets did that to the Aral Sea with massive destruction effects:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

I'm a strong believer that one person can make a difference. If each and every one of us does something about it and motivates the others to do the same, it's possible to revert the wrong course. Not doing anything is simply not an option, IMO.

Eduarda

Here is a link that might be useful: The White House on energy and the environment

Colorado river - when I was a kid we used to camp along the river. My grandparents were Rock Hounds and we went on many desert excursions in search for rocks. You could swim in the Colorado river. The Colorado was cold and clear and drinkable back then. Now all that is left is a brown, hot trickle of water (hardly enough to wet your tootsies if at all). The last time I went home to California to visit family, we stopped en route to show my children the mighty Colorado - all that was left was a tiny hot, muddy trickle of a stream! Those desert communities built there because of the natural water source. Now they are left high and dry so Los Angeles can have swimming pools and fountains and water their un-natural lawns.

We never had lawns when I was a kid. We had flowers! and we grew our vegetables and had an orchard. There was one little patch of grass over the septic tank system (that was self-watered & fed - hehehe) where we played games, but that is all. Our baseball fields were dirt! In spring, natural grasses were green and lush. By Summer, the rains ended and all the grasses turned brown. We used gray water to water the flowers, veggies and fruit trees. It didn't smell and we were healthy.

All the farmers around there built concrete reservoirs up on the hill tops to catch seasonal rains. Everyone had their own well. Well water that supplied each household's needs was held in big tanks built up on towers and gravity sent the water down into the house. No electricity was needed. There was a gas generated pump down by the well that we would turn on to fill the tank once in a great while. It didn't take long and it didn't use much fuel. It was clean, great tasting water. The orchards were built on the hillsides so gravity carried the water from the reservoirs down the hillside to irrigate the crops and fruit trees below - no electricity was needed to pump out the water. Nothing was ever wasted. Depending upon where you lived, frugality was practiced and used with great success. Those old-time practices are no longer allowed.
Now, most of the agriculture that once made California so great, is losing out to city people buying up the farming land and building homes out in the country and living like they did in the city.

For cities, I understand there are very different needs, but the same ideas could be developed and practiced for city dwelling folks too. I've lived in the city and I still practiced the three R's. Waste not - want not.

Stupidity, Selfishness, (Laziness) and Greed seem to be the rule of thumb for modern man. One thing about it, sooner or later we will all be forced to live by those old Pioneer practices. I just try to stay prepared for when that day comes. No matter how smug mankind gets in thinking we can control Nature....Nature will win over. We can either live within the laws of Nature or die fighting it.

Brenda,

I live in a collar suburb of Chicago - the city & neighboring communities for over a century have always pumped water from L. Michigan. What's scary is up until a couple of years ago the city did not have water meters to regulate consumption, if you can believe that. I guess the saving grace is that many yards are postage stamp at best so there's less worry about largescale thirsty plantings and huge expanses of lawn.

However, up until up 20 years ago, most of the outerlying suburbs relied on well water but were converted (due to the wells going dry) over to lake water. Also what's upsetting is many of these suburbs are the biggest consumers of all with huge oversized houses, huge water hogging lawns and landscapes. So yes, we're squandering much of our precious resources on unnecessary stuff.