I'm a pretty conservative type of guy on a whole bunch of issues, so it should come as no surprise that i take a conservationist stance on this one...

I also happen to disagree with Canadian policy on many things, most notably the anti-jihadist war, etc.

But...you folks need to keep your water to yourselves.  We have gotten way too wasteful with our water and taken way too much for granted.  We've already damned up nearly every single river in the Lower 48--wrecking fisheries in the process.  People who want to live in the desert should learn to live with a lot less water.  

There comes a point where some of our lifestyles reach a point of absurdity.  

Keep your water, keep some of your rivers wild and tell the US to get used to it.

The continental US is actually fairly well watered, save in the Southwest.  In the Northeast there are occasionally water shortages following unusually dry winters, but we manage to conserve our way through.  In the Northwest, it is hard to understand the trouble with the Columbia and the Klamath: why is competition between farmers wanting to irrigate, the hydroelectric power people and the friends of the salmon so difficult to manage?

But while nobody in the US has been an excellent, long-sighted conserver of water resources, the overdevelopment of the Southwest is incredible, an astounding example of lazy and selfish idiocy.  How is it that first LA, then San Diego and Phoenix, and now Las Vegas have been permitted to grow as big as they are?  It is simply amazing.

As for the Canadians, though, it would be right neighborly of them to make some of their water available to us, bad managers as we are.  They have an ample supply, apparently, so there need not be any ill feeling if we want to buy some.

Unfortunately, just as the Bush foreign policy has gravely damaged the hope of Americans finding good will towards them almost anywhere else in the world, so our problems with the Canadians seem to be increasing.  Another recent difficulty to emerge is over the "Northwest Passage": now that the Arctic is melting, American business and military interests want to go sailing around up there as they like, while the Canadians are complaining, so far feebly and futilely, that that is not right.

Gooood grief!! I lived for a few years in Phoenix - and no one should! It is a desert, or was. Now it is a polluted, humid pollen zone. Just because we can transform a desert into a green oasis, does not mean we should.
There are cities all over the north east with water, houses, commercial property and all of the necessary services just sitting there waiting to be put back into use after the migration to the promised land of sand, sun and swimming pools.
How crazy is it to import water a thousand miles or more to make fountains, golf courses and swimming pools ( not to mention basic infrastructure needs), in a place where most people run from air conditioning to air conditioning and where pale, Anglo-Saxon bred folks  spend thousants of dollars to have pre-cancerous lesions removed, caused by over exposure to a semi-tropical sun?
Canada should keep its water. We just waste and pollute most of it anyway.

After all the years of making fun of anyone foolish enough to live in the northern clime now they're thirsty?
Take a listen to  "World Hunger" Sam Kinison's most brilliant piece ever; he begs people to stop sending money to world-hunger organizations because they don't tell desert dwellers to move where food can grow -- send 'em U-Hauls and luggage instead!
Same thing applies to sendind the nit wits water...from anywhere.

NO! In case that wasn't clear enough, NO NO NO NO NO!!!

You made your bed, so lie in it, already. Canada's water is needed where it is, especially now that the ice is melting -- facilitating US invasion of the Northwest Passage.

BTW, Canada has objected more than "feebly" to that; "futilely" is more like it, because the US arrogantly refuses to recognize Canadian sovereignty over its own internal waterway. That's like claiming the Mississippi River is international.

Canadian negotiators made sure fresh water was excluded from NAFTA, but the US is already siphoning illegally from the Great Lakes in spite of the Boundary Waters Treaty (another "goddamn scrap of paper," eh?). So what's next?

The US never gives up trying to conquer Canada, one way or another. The 800-pound guerilla/gorilla (or elephant, pace Trudeau) will just take what it wants, as usual.

I remember writing a college term paper 25 or more years ago on just such a proposal to transport water from Western Canada to the Los Angeles/Las Vegas area.  It was called NAWAPA (North American Water and Power Alliance) and would use natural features like lakes, rivers (e.g. the Columbia) and desert valleys east of the Sierra Madre to move the water with a minimum of tunnels and pumping.

The power part was about capturing hydroelectricity at appropriate points and using the electricity to pump the water where it needed to go up hill.

The engineers had worked out the details so that it looked like a doable, if expensive project--it's not so far-fetched as one would assume.

Note that I'm not saying that it would be a good or smart thing to do this.  What I am saying is that Canadians should be very afraid!  

   My dear Canadian friends,

       As Glocal Warming continues and gets worse, the US will need more water sources, and you are the closest and best source.  

       Look at Iraq.  Do you really think you are immune (you surely have weapons of mass destruction!).

       Not sure what you can do to protect yourselves, but trying to get your own government to be serious about Global Warming might be a start.

       Ummm, good luck, you're going to need it.

patrick

The brilliance of the Bush Doctrine shines brightly indeed! I for one would welcome a Canadian "preemptive" strike on the United States.
We could benefit from having just a few provinces instead of all of these silly states and learn to love the French language and customs.

I say the northern blue states secede and join Canada.  Let's have a re-evolution!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

water often looks blue while desert sand is often red.....  coincidence??

"coincidence??"

Coincidence is real, linear cause and effect thinking is the illusion.  Awaken from the dream of reason.  

Synchronicity rules!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I thought I was the only one who remembered Sam-they -live-in-a-freaking-desert!-Kinnison. Too bad he slid under a gas truck and tasted his own blood, or he'd be my pick for the new Climate Alliance Spokesperson. Better yet, Canada would hire him to protect their ass-et(s) Some quote from years ago sticks in my head: Water will be the gold of the 21st century, and all the people who didn't see that coming live in Phoenix.

"Water will be the..."

Water will be the oil of this century, not quite there yet.  But it's coming.  Fuel farming with oil-based chemical agriculture destroys aquifers.

The mass migration from the red zone to the blue zone has barely started.  

The good news.  Global climate disaster is reversible.  The science backs that up, conversion to renewable energy and organic agriculture could do that.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The average person consumes about 300 gallons of water per day for bathing, washing clothes, cooking and drinking. It takes 10,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. Think about that the next time you order a quarter pounder.