◼ After preaching shared sacrifice to assuage the California water shortage, Obama has played some of the country's thirstiest golf courses - TIME
President Barack Obama traveled to California on Friday to highlight the state’s drought emergency at two events near Fresno, calling for shared sacrifice to help manage the state’s worst water shortage in decades. He then spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the hospitality of some of the state’s top water hogs: desert golf courses.
Vacationing with DVDs of his favorite television shows and multiple golf outings with his buddies, the duffer in chief played at two of the most exclusive courses in the Palm Springs area. On Saturday, Obama played at the Sunnylands estate, built by the late billionaire Walter Annenberg, which features a nine-hole course that is played like 18 holes. The following day he golfed at billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s 19-hole Porcupine Creek. On Presidents’ Day, Obama hit the links at Sunnylands once again.
The 124 golf courses in the Coachella Valley consume roughly 17% of all water there, and one-quarter of the water pumped out of the region’s at-risk groundwater aquifer, according to the Coachella Valley Water District. Statewide, roughly 1% of water goes to keep golf courses green. Each of the 124 Coachella Valley courses, on average, uses nearly 1 million gallons (3.8 million L) a day because of the hot and dry climate, three to four times more water per day than the average American golf course...
Republicans were quick to pounce on Obama’s water-intensive golf weekend. “We have seen this brand of hypocrisy from President Obama before — this time it seems his soapbox doubles as a tee box,” said RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. A White House official declined to comment on the record for this story.
◼ California Drought Threatens 50% Farm Town Unemployment - Bloomberg
Mendota, in Fresno County near the middle of the state, calls itself the Cantaloupe Center of the World. In the last big drought five years ago, unemployment in the town soared to almost 50 percent and the line of farmworkers at the local food bank stretched for blocks. Del Bosque had to cut his payroll 30 percent, and it will probably be worse this year, he said.
“Those are wages lost,” said the 64-year-old farmer. “It’s wages lost to real people. It’s a loss of revenue into the community. That money supports families, it supports businesses. It’s a terrible effect. And I’m just one farmer, a medium-sized farmer. So if all farmers suffer the same thing, you can imagine the ripple effect throughout the community.”
◼ Tim Donnelly: Obama comes to California to help "fix" our drought crisis by...meeting with local farmers? Recommending that Brown's decision to shut off water to the Central Valley be reversed?
Nope! His priority was to play politics and talk with a climate change task force...
"A climate change task force appointed by President Obama was in Los Angeles Thursday to meet with Governor Jerry Brown...to tackle issues related to a statewide drought."
◼ Governor, Mayor Meet With Climate Change Task Force On Drought - CBS LA
“How do you translate dialogue into action, particularly when there are a lot of competing interests,” CBS2/KCAL9 reporter Randy Paige asked Gov. Brown.
“Not very easily. Talk is cheap, action is difficult, and that’s why so little gets done. But there’s no place getting more done in renewable energy, reducing pollution and confronting climate change than the state of California,” Brown said....
The task force – which is comprised of Garcetti and 24 other state, local and tribal officials appointed by the president, including Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson – is expected to deliver its final recommendations to the President by November 2014.
◼ OBAMA’S ANTI-SCIENCE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT CRUSADE - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o
