You've probably heard of the perfect storm, if only because of the George Clooney movie. Clooney is sexy in the same way that Leonard DiCaprio is sexy. They are both behind environmental concerns. The term "perfect storm" has entered our everyday lexicon, thanks to Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.
In the case of the 2000 movie, The Perfect Storm, with Clooney as a scruffy, down-on-his-luck captain of a small fishing ship, weather has perhaps never been so sexy since Raquel Welch was a weather girl. Welch was raised in San Diego. She was Miss San Diego and a weather forecaster at a local San Diego TV station before she became a sex symbol of the 1960s and 1970s.
Sex sells, but by paying attention to sex (to Paris Hilton and her sex video, to Paris Hilton and her sexy burger ad, to Brittany Spears and her lack of underwear, to senators playing footsie in public bathrooms, and to bitter divorces between the rich and famous), we've missed some rather unsexy news that is a world-wide: Water matters and our water supply is in danger.
By our water supply, I'm not talking about drought and famine in distant countries and regions in Africa. I'm not talking about pollution in the streams and rivers of a China rushing into industrial hell as it races to make cheap goods for the United States and other wealthy nations. I'm talking about drought here in the US. I'm talking about towns that have run out of water - like the town of Orme, Tennessee, or the small town of Ramona, in Northern San Diego.
I work at a large and largely successful dot-com, and while we were fumbling around trying to help our fellow Californians with donated money and goods, I kept on hearing intelligent people saying the firestorms were unpredictable. That's why we didn't have a plan of action.
My co-workers had never heard the warnings about the "perfect drought," yet I'm sure they've heard about Brittany and K-Fed, Halley Berry and her pregnancy, and the problems of Dafur. Most of them had heard of or seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and are all behind environmental concerns. Most people in California are. Still, the term "perfect drought," and the implications of it, never entered the minds of these people. It's not been a secret.
According to an AP report published on CBS News, “Unusual temperatures in the Indian and Pacific oceans set up the perfect conditions for drought stretching nearly around the world in 1998-2002, climate researchers report.” What couldn't be explained in that 2003 article was the persistent dry conditions in the west.
Article comments
1 - robert v sobczak
Hoover Dam's Lake Mead can hold 5 times the capacity as Hoover Dike's Lake Okeechobee. Both are at historic lows: Lake Okeechobee at a 2-year historic drought, down 5 ft, and Lake Mead at a 9-year drought, down 100 ft. View a hydrograph comparing Lake Okeechobee to Lake Mead over past 15 years and more at South Florida's Watershed Journal.
2 - Purple Tigress
What continues to amaze me is that despite historic lows, the commercials and public service announcements I hear and see just politely ask Californians to conserve water. I think about 70 percent of water usage by a homeowner is for landscaping, notably the very, very thirsty lawns. What will happen when we run out of water?