Nuts To You From California

We usually think of Californians as "tree huggers".  "Environmentally-conscious" people so in tune with nature that every form of plant life is valuable and needs to be preserved--even if it means humans will go without affordable housing and food or good-paying jobs.  Mother Nature has rights too, they would tell you--claiming to serve as her "official spokesperson".

But many Californians are now turning against one particular tree: the almond tree.  Backlash against the almond industry (are they known as "Big Almond"?) comes following reports that it takes one gallon of water to produce a single nut.  As you likely know, California is suffering from an extreme drought--and freshwater supplies are dwindling.  And as the state begins to look at how to ration the reserves it has, Mother Nature and her beautiful nut-producing trees are no longer such a priority for those "environmentalists". 

Actually, the entire area known as the Central Valley is coming under attack in the "Water Wars".  This is an incredibly fertile area that grows the vast majority of America's fresh produce.  But to do so, those farmers need a lot of water for their fields.  If you think one gallon per almond is "a lot", consider that it takes 168-gallons of water to grow a single watermelon.  And when the Central Valley (who has the first access to the runoff from the Sierra Mountains) uses more water--that means less makes it to the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego to fill hot-tubs, guitar-shaped swimming pools and elaborate fountains in the yard.

You would think that Californians who are so concerned about "access to fresh fruits and vegetables and healthy snacks for children" would make produce production a priority and be willing to fork out more for their municipal water and deal with not being able to wash their cars as often (or they build nuclear power plants that could double as desalination facilities to use the vast resource of the Pacific Ocean for the their water needs).  But there is a problem with those Central Valley farms--you see they grow crops for the Big Food Corporations.  Dole, Del Monte and many of the familiar brand names you see on the supermarket shelves buy nearly all of the produce grown in the region to feed a hungry nation items they could never grow themselves.  And those farmers don't practice "organic" production or "sustainable tillage"--and their genetically modified organisms may produce larger yields with less water and pesticide use--but they are surely "poisoning the land and the people".  We should also mention that the farms provide jobs to many of those illegal aliens sneaking across the border whom those on the Left like to embrace when they might become dependent on the state or they might someday vote for Democrats.


So add Mother Nature to the long list of those whom Liberals like to say they "are fighting and sacrificing for"--until it actually comes time to sacrifice.  Then the message becomes "Nuts to you!!"