One memorable example of overpopulation was the government’s reallocation of Beijing-area water for the 2008 Summer Olympics [...]]]> Introduced in 1979, China’s one-child policy was seen abroad as an overreach of communist government controlling the people, even though that nation has basic resource problems that should have brought environmental limits more gently into the public conversation.

One memorable example of overpopulation was the government’s reallocation of Beijing-area water for the 2008 Summer Olympics from agriculture and general use to the sports events and guests — since nothing screams “third world” like insufficient water for a big international celebration.

Beijing is known for its polluted air, but water supply may be a more pressing environmental problem.

Yet shrinking demographics may have persuaded Beijing to not only trash the one-child policy but to mandate two-kid families for economic reasons — it’s being seriously considered. Good luck with that.

Tucker Carlson recently analyzed the complicated China situation with expert Gordon Chang:

Spare Audio:

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, every day China edges closer to overtaking the United States as the world’s richest country, but just because they are getting stronger economically doesn’t mean the Chinese people are more free. They are not. China is still imprisoning its Muslim population in the west. Ordinary Chinese still lose access to travel or education if the government says they have poor social credit and now a hacker has discovered a bizarre Chinese database that evaluated millions of Chinese women on whether they were quote, “breed ready.”

Gordon Chang is a columnist and author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” can’t come too soon. He joins us tonight. Gordon, thanks very much for coming on. What does “breed-ready” mean, and why would the Chinese government be assessing that?

GORDON CHANG: Well, breed-ready means they are able to breed children. And the reason why is because China has declining demography.

You know, if you start to look at some of the statistics, they are really frightening. So for instance, last year, their birth rate fell about 12%. Perhaps to the lowest rate in the history of the People’s Republic going back to 1949.

And we are seeing that the workforce has already topped out. The population as a whole will top out soon. China’s officials are just in a panic.

CARLSON: So they are identifying women who are breed-ready but then what do they do with that information? Is there going to be a coercive breeding program in China?

CHANG: There very possibly could be because some Chinese officials are now talking about having a two-child policy which is not a maximum two children, but they are talking about requiring couples to have two children.

Now, of course, China is not there yet. But you can see where they are going largely because they have been taken by surprise by a collapsing demography. They shouldn’t have been. People have been warning Chinese officials about this for the last 15 years. But they have sort of sloughed off the warnings but, you know, a couple of years ago they really started to see the consequences of declining demography.

CARLSON: But I mean, I have been hearing from Democrats in this country who are very concerned about having any kids because of global warming, it sounds like the Chinese aren’t as concerned about global warming as we are.

CHANG: No, and largely because every social problem, every economic problem they have, almost all of them are made worse by declining demography and the Chinese leaders start to notice and that’s starting with their economy because, you know, they grew during what was called the demographic dividend years. That was expanding workforce. Now, the workforce since 2011 has started to get smaller and it’s gotten smaller fast.

CARLSON: So we have the same demographic problems here, obviously and so does Western Europe declining below replacement rate. We just import new people from the developing world. Has it occurred to the Chinese to do that?

CHANG: No, you know, the Chinese don’t want to do that because they have a system and then basically, it’s based on racial superiority where they do view the rest of the world in inferior terms.

And you know, Tucker, on demography, within maybe three years, for the first time in at least 300 years, maybe all of recorded history, China is not going to be the world’s most populous society.

The world’s most populous society will be India and the Chinese both disdain the Indians because of this racial superiority view but also, they fear India. So people are concerned that China is seeing a closing window of opportunity and will lash out on that Himalayan border.

CARLSON: So, very quick, you just said something that almost nobody ever says which is that China may be the most racist country in the world, maybe after North Korea, but certainly, it is right up there.

The country is based on racial superiority and yet liberals in this country suck up to China constantly. Why does no one ever point that out?

CHANG: You know, that, to me, is a mystery because this nation of Han superiority is bred into the Chinese political system and you see it, for instance, they put on a skit on the China Central Television’s program, 900 million people saw it that depicted Africans as primates and it is just incredible, Tucker.

CARLSON: It’s unbelievable. But Jerry Brown is happy to call them wonderful, and so is Dianne Feinstein. Unbelievable. Gordon Chang, it is great to see you. I hope we will see you again soon, thanks.

Below, the depleted Almaden Reservoir near San Jose, California, in February 2014.

This year’s rainy season has seen the skies open up and dump incredible quantities of the wet stuff, which is always welcome in the drought-prone [...]]]> Democrat-run California didn’t learn much from the recent five-year drought that left many reservoirs close to empty.

Below, the depleted Almaden Reservoir near San Jose, California, in February 2014.

This year’s rainy season has seen the skies open up and dump incredible quantities of the wet stuff, which is always welcome in the drought-prone Golden (brown) State.

California is also a highly populated state — hovering around 39 million persons — in part because its recent governors have been very welcoming to foreigners, with one result being a population that includes 27 percent foreign born, the highest in the US.

In fact, in 2014 Jerry Brown famously invited all of Mexico to move here, remarking to a Mexican audience, “You’re all welcome in California.”

Democrats like Jerry Brown love to imagine themselves as virtuous environmentalists saving the planet, but they have no problem causing preventable population growth in a nation reputed to have excessive resource consumption.

So you might think that Sacramento would get serious about building water storage infrastructure to prepare for the next drought. But not really, as explained by a recent report:

Despite California’s long drought, trillions of gallons of rainwater wastefully flowing into sea, By William La Jeunesse, Fox News, March 5, 2019

LOS ANGELES — California’s rainy season could be the wettest in 40 years, but experts say the state is missing a major opportunity by failing to collect the trillions of gallons of storm runoff that currently flows wastefully into the ocean.

“We will never capture it all, but we need to do a better job of capturing what we can,” said Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute.

In February alone, an estimated 18 trillion gallons of water fell on the state. In urban areas and coastal cities, 80 percent ends up diverted into the ocean, as Los Angeles and other cities built long concrete channels for flood control. The Los Angeles River, for example, is a 51-mile-long canal as wide as a football field. Almost none of the water seeps into the underground aquifer.

“The challenge is: How do we capture more of that water to use it so we can use it during dry parts of the year? And cities in California have not historically done a good job of capturing what we call stormwater,” said Gleick, who helped author a study showing how San Francisco and Los Angeles could harness nearly as much water as they consume.

In the past, the state relied on a vast network of nearly 50 dams and reservoirs to capture and bank snowpack from the Sierra Mountains. Snow that melted in the spring and summer was pumped south into the Central Valley for growing and to serve thirsty cities till the rainy season begins in December.

For years, the system worked seamlessly, providing for economic growth and agricultural expansion. But the last dam built in California was 40 years ago. Since then, the population doubled.

The state handled previous droughts in 1976 and 1988. But the last five-year drought, from 2011 to 2015, brought a 25 percent mandatory reduction. Crops died, farmers went out of business and then-Gov. Jerry Brown proposed fining residents $10,000 a day for wasting water.

Suddenly the state realized it needed a new approach. Voters approved $2.7 million in bonds for new water storage projects. The first of those, however, is still five years away from completion – and many won’t be done until 2030 or beyond, leaving the state vulnerable to the next drought.

“As Californians, we have to pull together and save water in every way we can,” Brown said at the time. (Continues)

California’s [...]]]> Water supply continues to be a worrisome thing in California, where the memory of the historic five-year drought remains strong. Now we learn that the drought plus overuse of groundwater has caused so much subsidence in the Central Valley that a large stretch of a gravity-run canal no longer works.

California’s land subsidence has been worsening for years, and the ground apparently hasn’t stopped sinking just because we’ve had a couple years with rain.

The state is environmentally overpopulated at nearly 40 million persons, particularly regarding water.  Plus, California has the nation’s highest proportion of foreign-born at 27 percent.

Below, the Sacramento Bee front-paged the canal-failure story a few days ago, because water supply is serious news in California.

Naturally, it will cost a fortune to fix the 152-mile canal — a cool $350 million.

The Valley floor is sinking, and it’s crippling California’s ability to deliver water, Sacramento Bee, July 13, 2018

Completed during Harry Truman’s presidency, the Friant-Kern Canal has been a workhorse in California’s elaborate man-made water-delivery network. It’s a low-tech concrete marvel that operates purely on gravity, capable of efficiently piping billions of gallons of water to cities and farms on a 152-mile journey along the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.

Until now.

The Friant-Kern has been crippled by a phenomenon known as subsidence. The canal is sinking as the Valley floor beneath it slowly caves in, brought down by years of groundwater extraction by the region’s farmers.

Along a 25-mile stretch of Tulare County rich with grapevines and pistachio trees, the canal has fallen so far — a dozen feet since it opened in 1951 — that it has lost more than half of its carrying capacity downstream from the choke point. Water simply can’t get through like it’s supposed to.

“It ponds up; you lose capacity and that ability to move water through the system,” said Douglas DeFlitch, chief operating officer at the Friant Water Authority. The authority operates the canal for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project.

Although subsidence has been a problem for decades, it accelerated as groundwater pumping expanded during the recent drought. Now it’s reaching a crisis point on the Friant-Kern, and California voters are being asked to fix it.

A proposition on the November ballot would raise billions of dollars for a variety of water projects around the state, including roughly $350 million to repair the Friant-Kern.

Proposition sponsor Gerald Meral, a prominent environmentalist, said it’s in Californians’ interests to ensure the flow of water to the east side of the Valley. The Friant-Kern brings water to the city of Fresno, numerous small towns and 17,000 farmers.

“Keeping 1 million acres of land in the Friant service area (in production) is a public good,” said Meral, a former deputy secretary of the state Natural Resources Agency.

So far no organized opposition has emerged to Meral’s proposition.

The Friant-Kern’s woes illustrate the enduring nature of California’s water problems. The epic five-year drought is officially over, but not everywhere. Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2017 declaration ending the drought omitted four counties where groundwater has been severely depleted: Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Tuolumne. The stricken canal serves two of those counties, Fresno and Tulare, along with Kern County.

It’s a problem that feeds on itself. If the canal can’t do its job, farmers downstream likely will pump more groundwater during dry years. A 2014 state law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires farmers to rein in their pumping, but the restrictions don’t fully kick in until 2040. Because farmers use some of the water from the canal to replenish groundwater, fixing the Friant-Kern would help coax the aquifers back to health.

During the drought, groundwater became a lifeline in this part of the Valley. Friant area farmers normally get water from the San Joaquin River, stored behind Friant Dam, but reservoir levels fell so low that the Central Valley Project didn’t deliver a drop of river water to Friant farmers in 2014 and 2015.

(Continues)

Why, indeed?

Immigration-fueled overpopulation must be recognized [...]]]> It’s always welcome when someone approaches the immigration issue from the viewpoint of America’s needs, rather than the Third Worlders’ incessant demands to be admitted. Michael Anton got some attention for asking that question a few days ago: Why do we need more people in this country, anyway?

Why, indeed?

Immigration-fueled overpopulation must be recognized as a very unwise policy choice, particularly in low-rain areas like the western half of the United States. California notably had a close call with its extreme five-year drought that ended with a record winter rainy season in 2016-17. Cape Town, South Africa, came very close to running out of water this spring, but has fortunately had good rainfall recently, although the drought has not gone away.

Below, the drought-stricken Lake Oroville (which is also a reservoir) was nearly empty in September 2014.

So the environment dictates that there are Limits To Growth, something that should never be forgotten.

Another topic that calls for immigration reduction is automation, when experts in the technology world continue to warn us that millions of workers will be replaced by smart machines in the near future. Oxford researchers forecast in 2013 that nearly half of American jobs were vulnerable to machine or software replacement within 20 years. Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi believes that in 30 years humans will become largely obsolete, and world joblessness will reach 50 percent. The Gartner tech advising company believes that one-third of jobs will be done by machines by 2025. The consultancy firm PwC published a report last year that forecast robots could take 38 percent of US jobs by 2030. Last November the McKinsey Global Institute reported that automation “could displace up to 800 million workers — 30 percent of the global workforce — by 2030.” Forrester Research estimates that robots and artificial intelligence could eliminate nearly 25 million jobs in the United States over the next decade, but it should create nearly 15 million positions, resulting in a loss of 10 million US jobs.

There are so many reasons to limit immigration that an opinion piece cannot begin to list them all.

Tucker Carlson noticed the Michael Anton opinion piece and interviewed the author after first remarking:

TUCKER CARLSON: Without much real public debate or even discussion, the elite left has reached a conclusion on the question, and it’s that American needs more immigration, much more immigration without limit. And we shouldn’t worry about whether the people coming here have skills that we need, whether they’re educated, whether they can speak English even, or even whether they’re violent criminals. In fact we shouldn’t even try to accurately count how many are coming here or how many live within our borders. Do you disagree with that? Well then in the words of one MSNBC commentator, “You’re pure evil.”

Spare audio:

The military website Stripes.com reprinted the Michael Anton opinion piece, so you don’t have to click on the Washington Post:

Why do we need more people in this country, anyway?, Stripes.com, By Michael Anton, Special To The Washington Post, June 22, 2018

As Capitol Hill Republicans attempt for — what, the eighth? ninth? — time in the past two decades to jam through an amnesty that their voters have explicitly, loudly and repeatedly said they do not want, it’s worth asking a question that is rarely raised:

Does the United States — population 320 million and rising — need more people? If so, why?

To most ears, the question sounds blasphemous, which illustrates the rottenness of our immigration debate. Actually, “debate” is far too generous. One side has made sure that there is no debate. Good people want more immigration, and bad people object or raise questions. An inherently political issue has been effectively rendered religious, with the righteous on one side, sinners on the other.

The basic question remains. The pat answer over the past 20 years — “to do the jobs Americans just won’t do” — may seem to have some salience with a 3.9 percent unemployment rate. But that only further begs the question. After at least two decades of wage stagnation and even decline, now that we’ve finally reached the nirvana of full employment (and who knows how long it will last), why not take advantage of this tight labor market to raise wages across the board? Especially for the working and middle classes that got nowhere or even lost ground during the housing, finance and tech booms of recent years?

Just about everyone knows the answer: because the business community does not like tight labor markets and the concomitant necessity to raise wages. That’s bad for the bottom line. The solution? More workers! And so the Chamber of Commerce Annex — aka Capitol Hill Republicans — dutifully attempt to do their donors’ bidding at the expense of their voters’ interests.

Economists in league with big business got good at torturing data to “show” that immigration benefits the economy. But as demonstrated by Harvard University’s George Borjas, one of the nation’s leading economists on the topic, immigration is a net economic benefit to immigrants and to their employers. To workers already here, not so much.

No matter, because the Democrats are no longer the party of labor. Back when they were — in the prelapsarian Clinton years — they sought tight labor markets precisely for their efficacy in boosting lower-end wages. But today’s Democrats are the party of high class, high tech and high capital.

This glamour coalition is not big enough by itself to win elections. So the left has hoodwinked some (but, as the 2016 election shows, by no means all) low-income voters into thinking that their interests align with those of Wall Street and Silicon Valley oligarchs.

It’s clear what the oligarchs get out of an endless influx of cheap labor. What the Democratic Party gets is also clear: more voters, and with them the tantalizing possibility of turning the country as irreversibly blue as Democratic policies have already done to New York, California and many other states.

Democrats used to be coy about this. The 2002 blockbuster “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” by John Judis, presented demographic change as an inevitability, not a deliberate plot to rig elections. But now, for the first time facing real pushback from those whose interests more immigration does not serve, the left is more open in exhorting their side and demonizing the other. Hence this year’s “How Democracies Die,” by Steven Levitsky, states openly that immigration favors Democrats, so the more the better. It also construes any opposition as (of course) racist.

Another argument for more people is to point to falling birthrates among the native-born. In fact, the United States remains near the top of birthrates in the developed world. Regardless, consider that immigration not only lowers wages but also raises housing prices by increasing demand and stresses public schools by adding non-English-speaking students. And as such factors worsen, research suggests that people are putting off marriage — which reduces birthrates.

(Continues)

In San Francisco, the tech [...]]]> The failing economy of the once-Golden State has perked up enough to start drawing newbies once again, with more than 300,000 new residents in the last year. California had unemployment over 10 percent for four years, so October’s 8.7 percent joblessness indicates the uptick that is so attractive to outsiders.

In San Francisco, the tech industry is growing like gangbusters, leading to a building boom that is not welcomed in some quarters. In fact, the Manhattanization that was so long resisted in the city is now taking place, with skyscrapers popping up all over. More than a million square feet of office space is being built, with 26 high-rises going up in downtown.

However, this growth occurs at an unfortunate time, since this year has been one of the dryest on record, and 38 million residents puts a real strain on water supply. In fact, Senator Feinstein and Rep. Jim Costa voiced their concern to the governor (Lawmakers ask Brown to declare California drought emergency, Dec 11, San Francisco Chronicle). But elites decree that growth must go forward no matter what the consequences, so water supply is never mentioned.

California’s population growth highest since before recession, Associated Press, December 12, 2013

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s population grew by the highest rate in nearly a decade over the last year, swelling the state’s ranks to more than 38.2 million, new population figures released Thursday showed.

The state added 332,000 people between July 1, 2012 and July 1 of this year, a growth rate of 0.9 percent that is the highest since 2003-04, before the recession, the state Department of Finance reported.

Demographic experts said the increase highlights the recovery in the job market, especially since net migration added 66,000 people to the state — an increase of 71 percent from the year before. Alameda County, on the outskirts of Silicon Valley and home to a fast-growing technology sector, accounted for the largest share of the migration, with more than 15,000 new arrivals from other states and countries.

“We are at the beginning of an upturn in population growth driven by the reemergence of job growth in the state,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, and Orange County, which houses a sizable number of tech firms, each received more than 15,000 foreign immigrants, he noted.

While population growth is largely driven by new births, the uptick in the state’s growth rate stems from the rise in migration to California, said Hans Johnson, senior and Bren fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

For many years, counties in the San Francisco Bay Area were among the state’s slower growing regions due to restrictions on land and housing, but that has changed as foreign immigrants, many highly-educated and from Asia, have flocked there in search of jobs, Johnson said.

“If you attract young, well-educated migrants — which we are — many of them are at points in their lives where they’re starting families, so that will have an impact on births,” Johnson said.

Over the year, the state gained 169,000 foreign immigrants and saw nearly 103,000 residents leave for other states, the state reported.

Alameda and Santa Clara counties in the Bay Area saw the largest percentage increases in population, followed by Santa Barbara, Placer and Kern counties. Ten counties, mostly in more remote areas, saw population declines.

More than half of all Californians live in just five counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino.

State officials use the annual population data to determine how to spend state money, distribute social welfare programs and assess the state’s overall needs.

SNAPSHOT: CALIFORNIA’S INCREASING POPULATION

California’s population grew nearly 1 percent during the past year, the highest annual rate in nearly a decade.

While the bulk of the increase can be attributed to births, demographic experts say the uptick that added 332,000 people to the state also stems from increased migration to the recovering labor market.

Q: How big is California’s population?

A: The state’s population is the largest in the U.S. with 38.2 million residents.

Q: Why did the state experience higher annual growth last year?

A: As California’s economy recovers and adds jobs, more foreign immigrants are being drawn to the state.

Q: What is immigration’s impact on growth?

A: Without foreign immigration, more people would be leaving California for other states than moving here. The state drew 169,000 new foreign immigrants over the past year, while nearly 103,000 people moved to other states.

Q: Who are these foreign immigrants?

A: Many are young, well-educated people from Asian countries who are pursuing job opportunities in Silicon Valley.

Q: Where is the state growing fastest?

A: Alameda County, near Silicon Valley, grew fastest during the year, increasing its population to nearly 1.6 million people, a gain of almost 1.7 percent.

Q: Where is most of the state’s population located?

A: More than half of all California residents live in just five counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino.

Q: How does the state’s growth compare to a decade ago?

A: Growth has slowed since a decade ago, when the population increased 1.29 percent to nearly 35.4 million.

Meanwhile out in the country, the [...]]]> The big suits in Washington are currently licking their chops in anticipation of passing a monstrous immigration bill that would increase US population by tens of millions over the next decade. Jamming in a Canada-sized bunch of new shoppers should goose up the GDP pretty good, business types agree!

Meanwhile out in the country, the inconvenient physical limits of the natural world are intruding. Texas has intermittent lengthy droughts anyway, and an escalating population, fueled by immigration, stresses the available water supply still further.

Out in West Texas, the present water shortage is considered extreme — check out the US Drought Monitor Map, updated weekly. As a result, towns like Odessa and Midland have decided to embrace water recycling, called “toilet to tap” by some skeptics.

The psychological ick factor has blocked some attempts to implement reclaimed water, because it means trusting the government to turn sewage into safe drinkable water. However in Orange County California, the recycled water is piped into local groundwater recharge basins, where it will eventually be pulled back for use.

As the population grows to environmentally unsustainable levels to please business and Democrat elites, the public will be increasingly have to pay for expensive water recycling technology. It’s another hidden cost of destructively high levels of immigration, along with schools and welfare to name a couple.

Today, in drought-stricken Texas, people are desperate for water. You can’t live on whiskey.

‘Eau de Sewage’ seen as water solution in parched West Texas, WFAA-TV Dallas, May 8, 2013

BIG SPRING –– In a parched corner of Texas four hours west of Fort Worth, water supplies are drying up. But ideas to replenish them are not.

Near Midland lies what used to be a peninsula, a spot that was once nearly surrounded by a sprawling reservoir. But almost the entire lake has evaporated.  Years of drought have created a desperate thirst; the area remains in an extreme drought.

Is it desperate enough, though, for residents in Odessa, Big Spring, Snyder, Midland and Stanton to accept a solution that some find hard to swallow?

The Colorado River Municipal Water District recently began recycling millions of gallons of sewage.

After the sewage is scrubbed at the wastewater plant in Big Spring, the liquid is pumped into a new $12 million washing warehouse where it goes through micro-filters and reverse osmosis. Then, it’s disinfected with hydrogen peroxide and ultraviolet light.

“You are basically looking at bottled water quality water,” said operations manager John Womack.  He contends what once went down a drain is pure enough to drink.

But for those who aren’t so confident, the water will be treated again before it’s consumed by the half million customers down the pipeline.

Still, Womack and his boss have heard all the wisecracks.

“We’ve been titled ‘from toilet to tap,'” Womack quipped.

“I heard somebody say they get to drink their beer twice now,” said general manager John Grant.
He expected some of that. As far as he knows, his is the first water district in the country to directly recycle effluent back into the reservoir.  But he knows of other utilities that are seriously considering it.

“We have to get creative.  We have to look for new sources and supplies,” Grant said. “It’s drought-proof.  As long as the city is still there, the source will be there, and if the city grows, the supply grows.”

Ultimately, this recycling tactic may have the unintended effect of encouraging water conservation.

“I won’t drink it,” exclaimed Big Spring resident Pete Rosenbaum, “I am going to buy bottled water.”

Some locals still can’t get past the image that part of what’s in their cup may have once been swirling down a bowl, said resident David Jansch.

“The state even says it’s pure,” he said. “I understand that, but I know where it came from.”

For those who are concerned about pharmaceuticals, water district managers say the technology will get the bulk of any disposed medicines out of the water.

“Does it get it all?  Maybe not,”  Grant conceded.

But he adds that the heavily-cleansed water product is greatly diluted with “raw” water in the environment before it is piped to member cities, which then treat the water again.