That giant sucking sound...

When I first read Paolo Bacigalupi's story, The Tamarisk Hunter, I thought it was a good Sci-Fi depiction of one possible future for the American West, a stark landscape matching the bleakness of the tenuous relationships of those who inhabited it. As all water flows to a massive piping system known as the Straw, the only way to supply California and it's cities.

Given the realities of today's drought, the effects of climate change that some will not admit is happening and almost no-one is doing much about it, makes Bacigalupi appear to be more of a prophet than a spinner of yarns. When Dr. Steven Chu forecasts the demise of Agriculture in California, will Westland's Thomas Birmingham think much longer before he starts advocating to build the Straw.

That giant sucking sound is your water flowing down to preserve a California Culture and Agribusiness in the desert.