09-25-2022, 09:24 PM
Where I live is a microcosm, a less severe example of the same principle. I live on the eastern slope of Copper Ridge/Sandy Ridge - same ridge, just different names for the southern and northern halves of it.
The ridge creates a rain shadow, although a less pronounced one than the western mountains with their greater height produce. Still, the effect can be seen, with areas to the west of it getting more rain from the Gulf Coast that doesn't make it to the eastern slope. Floral diversity is a little greater to the west. For example, magnolias grow over there where they do not grow over here. We may get a light flood, when Buchanan County to the west is getting swamped underwater, and folks start trying to figure out how to build an ark.
See, that ridge is high enough that it pushes incoming prevailing winds from the west high enough to push them up into cooler layers of air, where the moisture is squeezed out of them as rain, which falls on the western side.
Even at that, we are still in the top 5 most biodiverse regions in the world. I think we are in 3rd place, just behind the Amazon basin and the Congo basin. They even made a state park at the Pinnacle in Russell County (on Clinch River, at the bottom of the eastern slope of Copper Ridge), seizing bunches of acres, just to protect one dinky little plant that grows nowhere else on Earth.
The western states are going to run into trouble, and are already seeing the beginning of it. Too many people drawing water out of dwindling resources and depleting them, not to mention the massive irrigation necessary to grow anything there, further depleting the resources. Even in pioneer days, before the overpopulation of the area, people referred to the high plains as a "desert". How much worse now, with far more people competing for the same amount of resources, and other, but adjacent areas (I'm looking at YOU, Southern California) stealing the resources from other folks in order to supply a useless population.
I'm all for booting Southern California out of the US - give it to Mexico or something, since it's mostly Mexican now anyhow - and telling them that if they want a drink of water, they'd best get right on building some desalinization plants on the Pacific, and keep their furry mitts off of other folks' water.
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The ridge creates a rain shadow, although a less pronounced one than the western mountains with their greater height produce. Still, the effect can be seen, with areas to the west of it getting more rain from the Gulf Coast that doesn't make it to the eastern slope. Floral diversity is a little greater to the west. For example, magnolias grow over there where they do not grow over here. We may get a light flood, when Buchanan County to the west is getting swamped underwater, and folks start trying to figure out how to build an ark.
See, that ridge is high enough that it pushes incoming prevailing winds from the west high enough to push them up into cooler layers of air, where the moisture is squeezed out of them as rain, which falls on the western side.
Even at that, we are still in the top 5 most biodiverse regions in the world. I think we are in 3rd place, just behind the Amazon basin and the Congo basin. They even made a state park at the Pinnacle in Russell County (on Clinch River, at the bottom of the eastern slope of Copper Ridge), seizing bunches of acres, just to protect one dinky little plant that grows nowhere else on Earth.
The western states are going to run into trouble, and are already seeing the beginning of it. Too many people drawing water out of dwindling resources and depleting them, not to mention the massive irrigation necessary to grow anything there, further depleting the resources. Even in pioneer days, before the overpopulation of the area, people referred to the high plains as a "desert". How much worse now, with far more people competing for the same amount of resources, and other, but adjacent areas (I'm looking at YOU, Southern California) stealing the resources from other folks in order to supply a useless population.
I'm all for booting Southern California out of the US - give it to Mexico or something, since it's mostly Mexican now anyhow - and telling them that if they want a drink of water, they'd best get right on building some desalinization plants on the Pacific, and keep their furry mitts off of other folks' water.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’