A recent NYT article, The Future Is Drying Up, tagged the US South-West as problematic for fresh water. Towns are having to buy water licenses and rights from farmers to supply their citizens. States are making water a political issue by refusing to pump fresh water across state lines. Fresh water is an issue in the US South-West, however, like NSW, eighty percent of fresh water usage is by agriculture. Residential makes up less than 8% of all fresh water usage. The statistics are the same for Australia. Maybe we should outsource food production to wetter countries and stop subsidising uneconomic agricultural locations through government.

In the wild some denizens of the desert find too much water downright poisonous.

A cactus that gets too much water rots, and collapses in on its own weight. In some cases Saguaros actually explode outward from containing water fatness. It seems leaving a Saguaro in place and subject to over-watering is more terminal than transplanting them. But what of those that don't survive?

Some fall like a dinosaur fossil, collapsing lengthwise along the ground.

While others have strong wooden skeletons which poke out stubbornly toward the sky while the Saguaro's carcass slowly falls and drips off it.

Like all ecosystems, death is an important component of its vitality. However some stand out triumphantly against the water sparse and sometimes water rich environments (it thunderstormed all weekend); expressing their health and vitality through sheer size. These are the Eastern Grey male Kangaroos of the Cactii world.

That is me in the blue. I am 6 foot 1. That Saguaro must have been about 40 to 50 feet high.

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Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson | December 7, 2007 10:39 AM

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