California is in an uproar over water.

Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the delta to improve marine ecology.

The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing.

Environmentalists counter that the real cause of the cutoff is an ongoing drought. They argue there are too many claims on too little fresh water with no margin of safety in dry years like this one. The problem is not just saving tiny delta smelt or salmon, but a larger one of living within our means and not polluting our fragile ecosystem.

Emotion colors the arguments of both sides. The west side is not yet a "dust bowl," as claimed on Fox News, and San Francisco Bay and the delta will not turn stagnant, as some environmentalists fret. The majority of west-side land is still farmed, and the bay is far cleaner than it was decades ago.

The crisis is not over an entire valley, but instead a sizable part of it without regular irrigation deliveries. For those farmers and workers whose livelihoods depend on that parched acreage, the result is undeniably catastrophic.

All this should remind us that Americans have developed a bad habit of avoiding tough choices. Californians could build more dams and more canals, and farm with adequate irrigation, but that would mean fewer natural flowing rivers, fewer fish and saltier deltas.

Few, though, will honestly acknowledge, "I want 10,000 acres of almonds, but I realize that will mean a slightly saltier delta and less marine life," or, on the flip side, "I vote for more delta smelt but understand that will mean fewer tomatoes."

Instead of making these bad/worse decisions, we dream on about a natural California, with plenty of rain, stuffed with 36 million affluent residents (most of them crammed near Los Angeles or San Francisco).

Amnesiac federal officials and judges likewise are just as unrealistic.

The problems with fish in San Francisco Bay area water are not just because fresh river water is being sent to San Joaquin Valley farms.

Northern Californians -- sewer districts, businesses and developers -- also are dumping more treated wastewater and run-off into the delta and bay, and more fresh water is thus needed to flush it out. Yet it seems easier to cut short a few thousand farmers and farm workers than to order millions of Northern Californians to alter their habits.

It was also the federal government in the first place that, rightly or wrongly, built the dams, canals and pumps to provide the vast water transfers for farming. Once upon a time, the government saw public benefit in turning arid land into green productive farms.

So naturally the federal government also provided the crop and irrigation subsidies to encourage a few individuals to create a vast corporate agribusiness out of former alkali wasteland of the valley's west side. Now that its old dream of new productive farms, plentiful food and thousands of new jobs is realized, a different sort of bureaucracy and judiciary has the luxury to renege and question whether the investment was ever worth it.

Californians and Americans, of course, will still eat no matter what happens to this water, as they still drive. But if we do not produce our own food and fuel, someone else will do it for us.

That means we will have to earn -- or borrow -- the necessary cash payments from somewhere to ensure our present standard of living. Good luck with that. Currently the United States is running a $2 trillion annual deficit and a $32-billion-a-month trade deficit. California itself is trying to recover from a recent $42 billion annual budget shortfall.

Unless we cut our population or our appetites, each acre of food we idle in the United States -- just like every barrel of oil we don't pump -- means that we will import what we take for granted from somewhere else.

We can be sure that even if we find the money to pay those who sell us our imported food and fuel, they will produce it in a lot messier fashion than we can ever imagine --ensuring a poorer America and a dirtier planet all at once.

Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Changed Everything
Norman Borlaug (March 25, 1914 - September 12, 2009)

Norman Borlaug, a plainspoken Iowa farm boy who worked his way through the University of Minnesota during the Depression. His death at 95 came at the end of a life as rich as the bountiful fields he left across the world. To quote the citation that came with his Nobel Prize in 1970, "More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world."

Interview with India's Environment Minister
Jayshree Bajoria

India and China have long maintained their economic growth will suffer if they accept binding emission targets under an international agreement on climate change. Instead, they have called for mitigation commitments by the developed world and financial support from rich countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

Religious Groups Push for Climate Change Legislation
Dan Gilgoff

American religious traditions have emerged as a large part of the environmental movement. The stepped-up environmental efforts of religious groups in Washington have paralleled a grass-roots effort among religious Americans to green their congregations.

Even Skeptics Should Heed These Climate-Change Warnings
Robyn Blumner

To Global Warming Holdouts and Oil Drilling Enthusiasts: OK, maybe you don't care or believe that within a couple of generations global warming's effects on sea levels will swamp the world's coastlines, displacing hundreds of millions of people. However, you might want to get behind the push for alternative energy and a reduced carbon 'bootprint,' because our military says it's essential for American security

Rep. Charles Rangel -- Sign of the Times
Victor Davis Hanson

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, is becoming a metaphor for almost all the sins of our age. Let us count the ways.

No Rules in the Arena (of Politics)
Victor Davis Hanson

Over the last three decades, we saw vicious attacks on Ronald Reagan and on Bill Clinton, and their tough replies in turn. But recently the vicious rhetoric has escalated far beyond anything in the past. The smears seem reminiscent more of the brawling on the eve of the Civil War, or the nastiness during the 1960s that took decades to heal.

Three Dangerous Stooges: Gadhafi, Ahmadinejad & Chavez
Victor Davis Hanson

Recenty, three dictators -- from Iran, Libya and Venezuela -- delivered lunatic hate speeches at the UN General Assembly. Why do these dictators feel so free to damn America from downtown New York? Why do their abettors spurn our requests for help? And why do creepy regimes plot to get nukes, and fund terrorists? Easy. They do not fear, much less listen ...

 

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Available at Amazon.com (Click Here)

 

(C) 2009 Victor Davis Hanson