California Drought Worsens; Food Shortages and Price Increases Loom

A lengthy article in the March 18, 2015 issue of USA Today reports that the great California drought is not only continuing but is also worsening (first link). I recommend the article to all those who read this blog. The California drought is very close to causing major food shortages and price increases in the USA’s food production system. The article notes that “California has about one year of water left in its reservoirs,” and cites a NASA scientist as advising that “mandatory rationing should begin now.”

The article documents that wildfires are increasing, farms are going unplanted and water restrictions are going into effect throughout the state of California (first and second link). The first link even warns that “tap water shortages are a distinct possibility.” Imagine what the effect will be when/if California cities and towns literally run out of water and citizens have to have water trucked into their locations. If this severe drought continues, it may even cause some towns to be abandoned as water simply cannot be found for them. Think what could happen if high-priced California properties are eventually abandoned due to them becoming unlivable because of water shortages. As you read this article, such an outcome is not only possible, but inevitable, if this severe drought does not abate.

The first link reports that California “grows nearly half of the nation’s fruits, vegetables and nuts.” A previous post cited an extensive article on the great California drought which was printed in the October 2014 issue of National Geographic magazine. It was entitled “Drought in the West” on the magazine’s cover, but “When the Snows Fail” atop the actual article (third link). It is a very extensive, well-documented article with gripping photographic evidence of just how bad the drought has become. As you read the article, keep in mind the drought has worsened since the article was written as the snows have failed for another winter to replenish California’s reservoirs.

If California has just enough water left for about one more year, what happens then? If the drought continues, there will be no water for any farmers, the entire state will be desperate for water and the lack of agricultural food production from California could cause severe shortages in several categories of food for the entire USA–especially for fruits, vegetables and tree nuts. If California has only enough water for one more year, then it seems logical that there will be gradual diminution of food production from California in 2015, but a severe drop in 2016. If this drought continues and California cannot produce agricultural products, grocery store shelves in the USA may not be able to find the vegetables, fruits and tree nuts we Americans have taken for granted for many decades.

The first link discusses the possibility of water-desalinization plants to ease the water shortage, but largely dismisses the option due to high costs. High costs compared to what? Having no water at all? What is California waiting for? Remember when the “Okies” headed west to California during the Dust Bowl days? If this drought continues, at some point that tidal wave of human refugees will reverse course and people will need to leave California en masse. I think California, with no end to the drought in sight, ought to build water desalinization plants rapidly. I do have a suggestion how California could take steps to accelerate the building of desalinization plants and make them more cost-effective. Identify how many of the parts of a basic desalinization plant can be made with 3-D printers and start making them right away at a cost vastly lower than traditional desalinization plant costs. Sound impossible? The last link reports that 3-D printers are already making functional artificial limbs for as little as $100 instead of the usual $15,000 (as noted in a USA Today article on 3-18-15 entitled “A 3-D Printer and $100 Changed a Boy’s Life). Applying that same technology to desalinization plant designs could cause drastic price the costs in the making of such plants.

Now let’s consider a biblical perspective on this worsening California drought. The Bible predicted famines would occur in the prophesied “latter days” prior to Jesus Christ’s Second Coming (Matthew 24:7), and droughts are a primary cause of famines. Revelation 6:5-6 warns about food shortages and food being rationed by price. These prophecies do not state that famines, food shortages or droughts are coming on nations due to the actions of an angry Creator God. These weather disasters are coming upon us as a result of national and personal sins–violations of God’s immutable laws which he created to apply to his creation. Mankind is the pinnacle of God’s creation in the physical world. God made mankind (male and female) in his very own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-28). When nations obey God, blessings result. When nations rebel against God and sin, curses result. As the USA and the entire human race descends into ever-deeper sins and degenerates into lifestyles and practices which God calls “abominations” (sins that really offend God), those nations that adopt and approve of degenerate and sinful practices throughout every level of society should expect God’s curses to come upon them–the same way a loving parent would discipline a child who has gone wayward. One of the national curses that God prophesied would come upon Covenant nations when they sin badly is drought so bad he makes the skies “like brass” and the earth so desiccated that it becomes as hard as “iron” (Deuteronomy 28:23). The United States of America, as one of the modern nations descended from the ancient ten tribes of Israel, is definitely a Covenant nation that is subject to such Divine judgment. Whether people believe in God or the Bible is a completely irrelevant point. God is real and he is not going away. Readers can review a brief documentation of the USA as a biblical Covenant nation in my article, The USA in Biblical Prophecy. Very extensive secular and biblical evidence on this topic is contained in my books on the ten tribes of Israel.

It is fitting, from a biblical perspective, that California is the epicenter of a worsening and spreading drought. Not only is it the major food production state for the USA in production of vegetables, fruits and nuts; it is also the epicenter of the degeneration of America’s culture as so many of America’s cultural sins have spread outward into the nation from California. It has been this way for a long time. I can recall as a boy hearing Midwestern adults shaking their heads in disgust at California as they referred to it as “the land of fruits and nuts.” They weren’t just referring to agriculture.

A previous post reported that climatologists are warning that the USA is facing a “Mega drought” in future decades. The short-term prospects look grim as well. The first link reports that scientists are predicting the drought “to intensify in coming months.” California better get busy with those desalinization plants if they don’t want to run out of water next year. However, an even better suggestion for the return of the rains and snows would be national and personal repentance for our disobedience to God’s laws and rules of life. I’m realistic enough to realize that given that sin is now spreading rapidly in the USA, national repentance right now doesn’t have a proverbial “snowball’s chance”…yet. When things really get bad, the chances of repentance will rise. The more the USA rebels against God and sins wantonly as a nation, the harder God’s “spankings” of our nation are likely to become.

California Drought Worsens; Food Shortages and Price Increases Loom

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