Thursday, September 17, 2015

California Drought

California's drought problem today is one of the worst droughts that the state, or even country, has ever seen. Since this summer, when all California residents were told to significantly limit their water by cutting their consumption rate by 15%. But this is just the start of the problem, NASA and Cornell and Columbia scientists predict that California and the rest of the Southwest would go into a 30-year long drought by 2050 if the greenhouse gas emissions are not cut or lowered significantly. This would be a huge problem not only for California and the Southwest but for the entire country if it were to happen! 
In the first image that WashPo provides it shows the arid landscape that has come about because of the drought. So in this photo one can see that the river that is cutting through the image has shrunk immensely in size. One can tell this from where the river is touching the banks now and where the banks originally were when the water level was higher. One can tell that the water level is draining fast because the banks is still darker from where the water line was not too long ago. One can also tell the barren, arid land because of the shape and pattern of the trees and bushes which are spaced out to resemble what would normally be a forest layout, but since there isn't any ground cover, it looks like its in a desert area. By the texture of the trees and bushes one can tell that are spiky and less covered in leaves and vegetation than normal, also telling us that this land is part of drought land. This is such an important image to see because it really shows how low the water level is comparative to what it used to be and would serve as a great propaganda piece to recruit climate change activists, especially if they lived in the Southwest or in California.

Here is the image (if it doesn't appear on the site): 

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