Droughts and floods

Two pieces of news from today's BBC. Any thoughts, comments?

Quote:

California's water agency has announced it may for the first time be unable to deliver water to local agencies, amid a worsening drought.

Two-thirds of state residents and 1m acres (404,500 hectares) of farmland get part or all of their drinking and irrigation supplies from the agency.

A state-wide drought was declared earlier this month, as the largest reservoirs sank to record low levels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25996522

Quote:

High tides and gale force winds could bring more flooding to parts of south-west England and the Midlands, the Environment Agency has warned.

It has five severe flood warnings - meaning a danger to life - three on the Severn estuary near Gloucester and two on the north Cornwall coast.

Lesser warnings affect many parts of Britain including western Wales and the flood-hit Somerset Levels.

Cobra, the government's emergency committee, is meeting later.

Discussions on Friday evening, in what was the 16th Cobra meeting since storms hit Britain in December, were chaired by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, who urged residents to "listen to all the advice being issued".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25996176

California is dry as a bone, and the effects are like something out of an apocalyptic film.

Cities are running out of water. Communities are fighting over what little water there is. Local governments are imposing rationing coupled with steep fines. Fires are ravaging the state. Entire species and industries are threatened.

For California, 2013 was the driest year since the state started measuring rainfall in 1849. Paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram says that, according to the width of old tree rings, California hasn’t been this dry for about 500 years.

Gov. Jerry Brown has declared an emergency, President Barack Obama has pledged his support, and state and federal officials are stepping in to protect the state's most vulnerable groups. Californians of various faiths have taken to holding prayer sessions, looking to the heavens for rain. Here are some of the drought's effects so far.

California produces 15% of the food in the US, and our farms and wineries require a lot of water.

Festivalgoers at Venice, or anywhere else, are unused to having their attention-span tested by a four-hour documentary, especially when the screenings are subject to delay, as this one was, for mysterious "technical reasons". But Spike Lee's history of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, sonorously-named When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, commanded everyone's attention - and even opened a few tear ducts.
Anti-Bush sentiments triggered the traditional approving whoops: the unhappy US president is now the pantomime villain for all European film festivals with a doc or two on the menu. But Lee's movie was notable for how measured its judgments were, and even ventured some politically incorrect views about the city itself.

Actually there is something positive you could. You could move to California, and that would make it a less attractive place to live.

ooooh. That one belongs on the insult thread.

Both stories appeared on the BBC website on the same day. Whilst you may claim to not want to discuss anything outside the USA, there are plenty on A2K who do.

Also, under the guise of caring about the world, I wonder how many really want to control the world. Sort of like the goal of any universal religion.

Foofie wrote:

Also, under the guise of caring about the world, I wonder how many really want to control the world. Sort of like the goal of any universal religion.

That has to be the biggest load of paranoid nonsense you've ever written.