Unbelievable b.s. coming from David Frum, a conservative senior editor at The Atlantic, charging that immigrants are responsible for California's water crisis.
Frum drew a rapid response on Huffpo from water expert Peter Gleick:
Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and the president of the Pacific Institute, an organization dedicated to environmental protection, dismissed Frum’s argument that immigration is a significant factor in California’s water crisis. “To claim California's water crisis is due to immigration and the use of water by immigrants is to grossly misunderstand California's true water challenges," Gleick told The Huffington Post in an email. "Population growth of course affects the use of all resources (land, energy, food, water), but the water crisis was here 30 years ago, urban demand is only 20 percent of total water demand, urban water use has been level for 30 years and per-capita water use is going down, not up."
Responding to Gleick's criticism, Frum told HuffPost that population growth is still important to consider. "If per capita water use is going down and you add 10 million people, then the decline in per capita use would be overmatched by the increase in total population," Frum said. "The question is not 'is immigration the cause of the crisis.' My tweet noted that some people want to omit any mention of it at all. And it seems to me that certainly the growth in California’s population is relevant. In California, water is a finite resource."
Frum, like so many others, misses the elephant in the room; the
massive 80% of California's water used by agriculture and the fact that
47% of California's water is used primarily by meat and dairy production.
Almonds have been demonized by the media with nary a mention of the real culprits: meat and dairy production. Are we now to see immigrants demonized as well? Some people seem to be having a hard time facing up to the facts of the California water crisis.
