Water-Proof Proposal

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On April 19, 1977, sounding like he had cheeks stuffed with peanuts, President Jimmy Carter chastised Americans for conspicuous consumption.

“A national catastrophe … (was ahead). (Unless) profound changes are made to lower oil consumption …we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil than it can produce.”

The real catastrophe was Carter.

This April Fool’s Day (April being the cruelest month), Gov. Jerry Brown, whose five-year California infrastructure plan surpasses Ramses the Great’s, stood atop a mud-capped Sierra Nevada peak and proclaimed, “It’s a different world. We have to act differently. … The Los Angeles airport’s going to be under water. … The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water … that’s going to be a thing of the past.”

Well, governor, if you want my nice little green grass you’re going to have to pry it out of my gardener’s cold, dead hands. What’s next, Brown asking illegals seeking sanctuary in parched cities to carry their own water across the border?

The Los Angeles Times actually printed this bit of lunacy: “Brown’s remarks came a day after the release of two studies finding that a slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun and could cause sea levels to rise worldwide by four feet within 200 years.” Irreversible? Who is the editor of the Times, Edgar R. Cayce? If you don’t believe your planet warms up and cools without your help, visit the La Brea Tar Pits and ask the docent why you are here and the dinosaurs are not.

We are not “running out of water,” people: 1) California water districts produce billions and billions and billions of gallons of usable “reclaimed” water annually then dump the majority of it into the governor’s rising sea. 2) There is sufficient fresh Sacramento river delta water to supply 4,000 California families but your Democratic government forbids delta water use. Why? Because migrating Chinooks feed on delta smelt and delta smelt are listed as endangered. Yet, millions and millions of similar smelt are now farmed in Maine. If it is now legal for two men to become husband and husband then “have” a human baby, then why can’t those delta Chinooks eat farmed smelt like the rest of us? 3) Then, there’s desalination that converts seawater to fresh drinking water. Israel, the nation dictators, terrorists and liberals love to hate, is the world’s leader in the safe desalinization and use of seawater. An Israeli company, IDE Technologies, is building the world’s largest desalination plant in San Diego. This plant will produce freshwater for hundreds of thousands of families.

Energy to burn

Some say desalination uses too much energy. So what? We have the energy to burn. Oh? So why don’t we use it? We have become a people ashamed of our own footprints. Never mind riding a Conestoga across the Sierras, we need a lawyer’s liability release to use a restroom, play on a swing set or take a swim at the beach. I recently purchased a tin of tuna from the supermarket. The can was marked: “Warning: This Product Contains Fish.” Really? We have a nuclear arsenal capable of blowing this planet to bitereens, which are 1 millionth the size of smithereens, yet we have to be told that a can of tuna contains fish. Now that’s terrifying.

Just like in the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” an alien army of Negativist Americans has sprung forth from vegan pods planted by aliens from the dark planet Vegan that orbits near Uranus. These odiferous aliens have taken possession of your brains, people. They want you to wear solar-powered beanies, mount a windmill on top of your car and eat a diet consumed by troglodytes who lived an average of 25 years. You can no longer think independently. You believe it is your sole responsibility to save the planet from you. Your diet consists of wheat grass and raw nuts without faces. You flush once a week and brush twice. You are litigious. You protest everything and you make ludicrous claims about man-eating GMO butterflies eating people alive in Madagascar. And you drive tiny gas-sipping autos to atone for the supposed sins of your America the Beautiful. Sins like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Yosemite, Yellowstone, the 8 million-acre Wrangell-St. Elias in Alaska, KFC, Maury Povich and “The Bachelorette.”

(Full disclosure: I am safe from the environmental calamity you’re accused of causing because I wrap two layers of aluminum foil around my brain before leaving our midcentury modern home, a ’50s-style bomb shelter.)

The sky is not falling, Foxy Woxy. 

We need water to grow. Let’s rid ourselves of the Negativist Americans and the pols who legislate for them and enjoy the bountiful nation we have been blessed with. There’s a new century ahead of us. Let’s make this an American Century.

Noel Anenberg is retired chief executive of Nasa Oil Corp. in Los Angeles and he is working on his second novel, “Fred.”

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