www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20200820-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf?_t=1598044195
“Now the density of the infrastructure is sort of the precondition for agriculture, for industry. Because without infrastructure — take Sudan, for example. Sudan has the most fertile soil in the world. It’s so fertile that you don’t need fertilizer. If you had irrigation, you could have three-four harvests without any problem. Obviously, you couldn’t even transport the food, the produce because you don’t have infrastructure. So, even to develop agriculture, you need a functioning system of ports, of trains, of highways. In a certain sense, the development of the infrastructure is how industrialization of every industrialized country has started. In the United States, in Russia, in Germany, in Japan”.
From an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche on August 14. More of this interview is included in this week’s Feature, below.
A Note To Readers
This week finds us not only in the still out of control pandemic, but in California very high temperatures, accompanied by a relatively rare lighting storm, has unleashed a Hell in the state of out of control wildfires, electrical power shutdowns and one hell of a lot of destruction.
But, hey, is this really out of the range of what is “normal” here? Not really, if one remembers the massively destructive fire season of 2018, which, among other fires that year, destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 75 people.
So, once again, I remind all, that we never want to return to what was “normal,” despite the silly idea of some that is what they want.
In this week’s report:
Drought in California is expanding, and the past week has seen an acceleration of that process. This week’s U.S. Drought Monitor highlights the recent changes.
Several pages this week are focused on the electrical storm that has set off hundreds of fires in the state, and the accompanying record high temperatures. The governor has issued a “State of Emergency” declaration, which has, among other elements, mobilized the national guard. Also covered in this section is the shutting down of parts of the California electrical grid, as the high temperatures increase demand for electricity.
Next is a more general discussion of the state and national electrical power grid, featuring, especially the outdated and not maintained national grid, just waiting for a disaster.
The report concludes with two items included in this week’s Feature. The first are some excerpts from an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in which she discusses the role of infrastructure in building a productive economy of advanced industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, the interview is not yet available on the internet.
The second item by Benjamin Deniston takes on the question of economic value– what really is it, how is it measured and what is fundamentally wrong with most economists who attribute value to mere money.
