Yesterday, our governor here in Georgia, Sonny Perdue, held a prayer session for rain. For those of you uninitiated in what is going on in the Southeast, we are in the midst of an historic drought (as I write this, we have gone since Oct 24th since the last measurable rainfall), brought on undoubtably due to global warming, but, I like to think it's due to lack of global warming, since, if the global warmists were correct, the last 2 hurricane seasons would have been severe and we would have probably had at least 2 decent hurricane-induced rain events that could have easily made up our 18 inch deficit. Regardless, some here in Georgia feel that Sonny is mixing politics and religion inappropriately.
Personally, I don't see any harm, but I don't know why we need a public prayer session led by politicians, when they really should be sending the National Guard to seize the water supply and stop the Army Corps of Engineers from sending our water to power Alabama's coal plants and save Florida's mussels. Of course, it doesn't help that we have single homes that use 400,000 gallons of water per month (the average home uses 6000).
UPDATE: Sonny's rain dance may have worked. It's raining harder now than it has in months!
2 comments:
The harm I see is that by getting people out to pray for rain, he is deflecting and deterring the need for a rational approach to solving the problem and mitigating the damage. That's called doing due dilligence; something most politians avoid or else they tend to feel as if they have "real jobs". Oh no ... not that!
He'd have better luck getting rain if he could convince a local tribe of Native Americans to perform a rain dance - at least they have some experience. But, I doubt that they would take the Governor seriously, which causes me to wonder why anyone else in Georgia does? It sounds like the best solution to this problem could be found in the next election for Governor. Just an outsider's opinion. "Doc" MacDonald
Doc,
Knowing your Objectivist roots (hey, I like Ayn Rand, her atheism notwithstanding), I kind of expect that view, and, personally, I would not frown on an Indian Rain Dance either. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
The reality here is that this has been a crisis years in the making. The fact that Georgia doesn't take control of our water supply is maddening, as much of Eastern Alabama and endangered mussels in Florida are supplied by water originating in Georgia. But, Federalism and all that nonsense creeps in here somewhere. And, there are some long-term agreements that I don't understand or really care to between the three states.
Actually, the state and local governments have been doing something, just not enough. Atlanta has been one of the fastest growing metro areas for years, and unrestrained growth has created a tremendous economic engine, but for 20 years, politicians here should have seen the drain on the water supply coming and sought out new watersheds.
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