Gail Combs writes in comments:
Oh, BOY ~ I think I may have struck GOLD!
Do not forget Friday Mukamperezida: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/they-had-to-burn-the-village-to-save-it-from-global-warming/
At http://foia2011.org I searched for worldbank.org and found 32 e-mails going back as far as 1998. I have only looked at three so far. Looks like the good old World Bank may be something of a puppet master.
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=4628
Summary for Policymakers to: Rwatson
Dear Bob, [Robert Watson of World Bank]
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to react to your thinking. It forces us to think more clearly about the main messages. I must admit that I am somewhat confused about the 26 page summary, since this comes very close to (although it is different from) the full-scale document the various teams are currently writing. My view would be that those teams take their own text as the starting point and try to improve/shorten it on the basis of your text. Here, I only respond to your main messages in italics and mainly focus on WG3 issues…..
Question 2:
I would not include a WG3 paragraph, like “The Kyoto Protocol has led to thecreation of new market mechanisms”……
Long but worth reading. Seems Robert Watson of the World Bank was TELLING good old Rajendra Pachauri and the crowd what to put into the Summary for Policymakers
I wonder what the crowd at Occupy Wall Street would think of this e-mail?
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=4953
is about drumming up CAGW projects for the “USAID on the Supplemental Grant Program” and R. Watson at the World Bank is copied.
Here is another goodie where Kenneth M. Chomitz of the World Bank is interfering with how a peer reviewed journal is run.
Editorial for Climate Policy, Issue 2.
…. Dear Michael,
I really like the solution of presenting view and counterview articles. I retain some reservations about your proposed editorial. It seems to me that you have the difficult problem of wearing two hats: one as the advocate of particular policies and viewpoints, and the other as an editor of a journal which aspires to be a neutral forum for policy discussion. I appreciate and sympathize with the depth and grounding of your personal views. However, as editor, it seems to me, you have to bend over backwards to be neutral. The editorial uses charged words like ‘demonize’ and could easily spark the war of words you wish to avoid. A strongly worded editorial risks associating the journal with a particular viewpoint, and hence reducing the journal’s value and reputation as a neutral forum….
Kenneth M. Chomitz
Development Research Group
World Bank
…..
from: Hadi Dowlatabadi
subject: Re: [New] Editorial for Climate Policy, Issue 2.
Dear Ken,
I agree with your perspective, but why not set a realistic target? The editorial columns at Science, Nature and New Scientist have rarely hidden their subjective perspectives. I think there are shades to this, and Michael can be a shade grayer, but the passion is also important.
The dialogue approach allows him to be editor, hold strong opinions, but still be viewed as someone who is willing to listen. This is how Steve Schneider has conducted his reign at Climatic Change and I believe despite his well known personal perspectives he has been able to draw on many in the community to contribute to the dialogue that defines the differences in perspectives permeating this subject.
Hadi
So it seems the Professional journals are also getting direction from the World Bank.
Climategate the present that just gives and gives. I can not wait to get back to the other 29 e-mails.
My search is here: http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=4&search=worldbank.org&sisea_offset=0
Richard S.J. Tol says:
November 24, 2011 at 3:15 pm
1. When he wrote that email, Bob Watson chaired the IPCC. Perfectly legit, so.
2. Chomitz is on the editorial board of Climate Policy, and should speak out when he disagrees with Grubb.
_______________________________________
It is not that Watson was IPCC chair it is that the return address on the e-mail is the World Bank and the entire history that goes along with it.
Maurice Strong was Advisor to the World Bank President from 1996 to 2002. You remember good old Maurice??? He started out working for Rockefeller/Saudi Oil in the 1950’s, was a Rockefeller foundation trustee from 1971 to 1978 and ended up as Chair of the First Earth Summit in 1972. That was the start of the Ozone scare (Back to Watson, co-chair of UNEP’s Ozone Panel) and Global Warming Scam.
Strong was also a member of the Commission on Global Governance from 1992 to 1996 while Watson chaired the Global Biodiversity Assessment.
The World Bank, The World Trade Organization and the United Nations ALL want “Global Governance” and they are using a whole bag of tricks to drive us into their trap of an unelected bureaucracy that rules our lives.
Direct from the World Bank Website
Makes it pretty darn clear the World Bank thinks of them self as part of a “Global Governance System”
If you want your children reduced to serfdom and living in poverty then fine keep the blinders on.
Tom Harley says:
November 24, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Eucalypts are superb trees…in their own environments. Here in Western Australia they have a wide range of uses, from food and medicine, to tools and building.
I would also argue that they are a weed anywhere outside of their normal range. It never ceases to amaze me of the stupidity of planting species way out of their normal habitat to become the next generation’s weed problem.
______________________________________
AMEN!
We are battling Kudzu (This is a house) http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/kudzu-covered-house.jpg
and fire ants http://www.extension.org/sites/default/files/w/3/32/FireAntMoundsInPasture.jpg
Both imports.
Boxwood, from England is another “escapee” that is a real nuisance. That is why I have goats. (another import)
I should add to Gail Combs’ post that if these UN/EU conspirators succeed in instituting a world government, we individual citizens will have no vote in that government – just like the EU today. Regulations will be arbitrarily decreed, and all we’ll be able to do is say BOHICA. [handy acronym finder]
Our savings and our assets will be taxed away from us without our consent. But like Orwell’s Animal Farm, there will be a relatively small ruling class of unelected bureaucrats, and a large class of serfs to provide the resources and pay the bills. That’s us, you and me.
But there will be voting. Each individual country will have a vote. How do you think Mali or Tuvalu or Kazakhstan or most of the UN’s 193 countries will vote on a motion to redistribute the West’s wealth “equally”?
Unaccountable UN kleptocrats, and their cronies at the WB and the IMF, and truly evil despots like George Soros, have plans for us and for our assets, my friends. And it is a conspiracy, because they plan in secret – while pretending they’re concerned about “carbon”. It’s only their cover story to get control.
You go girl! Follow the money and look for “world bank”, now why didn’t I think of that? Well done and thanks Gail. While obvious for decades that the World Bank and IMF always had their grubby mitts into everyone else’s pies I never thought of this angle. So easy in hindsight.
TRM says:
November 24, 2011 at 6:37 pm
“…World Bank and IMF always had their grubby mitts into everyone else’s pies…”
Yep! It’s all tied together.
IMF ‘credit line’ will funnel British taxpayers’ cash into stricken Italian economy .
“Working together: Mrs Merkel (left) and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are trying to hatch plans to introduce changes to EU treaties which will create central controls over fiscal policy in countries in the single currency”
http://ghanapolitics.net/World-News/imf-credit-line-will-funnel-british-taxpayers-cash-into-stricken-italian-economy.html
TRM: It’s bigger than just the World Bank. They are only a part of this. It’s much larger. It is the UN, it is manipulating policy in sovereign countries (note: I personally feel that the person responsible for this is Russian).
This is coordinated, it is integrated. It is investment, it is policy, it is indoctrination of children, it is huge. This is a matter of a group of people with a global governance agenda using “climate” as their lever to enact their political and economic policies. The evidence of this is right here in these emails. These people need to be purged from their positions of power. They have abused the public trust. They are “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. They would want for you to allow them to control you “for your own good”. The CRU needs not only be sacked, they need to be imprisoned, in my personal opinion, along with the IPCC, the CCC, and Tyndall. It reminds me of a bad Pink Floyd album We need a new sort of Fletcher Memorial Home to which we can send these people.
Instead of South American meat packing glitterati, we have European green energy glitterati. It’s sick and they are completely corrupt yet they probably believe they are the “good guys”.
What I wonder is how much of this international skullduggery can take place without the active participation of the US Congress? After all, they did reject Kyoto back in the Clinton administration, and they did reject Cap-and-Trade, if just barely, in 2009.
True, we are still supporting the UN, the IPCC, various development banks, and the World Bank. But conceivably a more conservative Senate can put the brakes on those, too. Do we really need to panic yet?
/Mr Lynn
Careful not to get hit with the “club of rome”, …..
Is this the same Robert Watson that told Spencer, around the time frame of the Montreal Protocol (before any of the GW “science” had been done), that the next step is regulation of CO2 emission?
crosspatch is right as usual.
According to http://adaptalready.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/140/
the following appears:
“In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.
Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.”
There are NO bad Pink Floyd albums… only bad listeners!
As Pink Floyd would say “Welcome… Welcome to the Machine! GK
Well, some would say “The Final Cut” was a bad album. But if you were tuned in to the Falklands issue and the whole cold war thing at the time, it had a different meaning. But these people have become today exactly what THOSE people that were hated then were.
World Bank announced lst of June 2011. The carbon trading market would crash if it didn’t get more investors (like the BBC Pension fund?) And the result was the globe would experience 3 – 4 C increases by 2015. The South Sea Bubble of the 18th Century burst, leaving people bankrupt.
Now are we going to see a Carbon bubble about to burst? I believe carbon permits/credits are now minus value. What a smart move Australia, at putting $23 per tonne on a useless product no one will want to buy.
Gale and all others great work so far – Might I suggest that everybody keep pulling on this thread here are several points I want to make that might shread more on this problem we now face.
It seems a group of powerful people, governments, Soros’s, Russia, IMF, World Bank etc. have started to implment many different actions at once and it is speeding up fast.
1) It started with a plan AGW to Control Energy via Carbon Tax/Trades etc. as stated by a commentor (before any of the GW “science” had been done), that the next step is regulation of CO2 emission)
2) Now they are buying land and planting trees (hmm) how much land have they accumalated so far through these shell companies and were?
As a commentor notes – There is plenty of digging to do on both sets of emails. Not only on the World Bank but the IMF, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Chase ……There is also the Farmland grab that Scizzorbill mentioned: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/world-bank-global-warming-journals-and-cru/#comment-807254 It gets even better if you follow the strings.US universities in Africa ‘land grab’ Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out and did. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/08/us-universities-africa-land-grab. Again who is buying this land? Is it really a bunch of easlily consolidated holding companies?
3) US agencies are allowing more and more experimental planting of toxic trees (someone said large weeds) in fertial farm land areas commentor (Eucalypts are superb trees…in their own environments. Here in Western Australia they have a wide range of uses, from food and medicine, to tools and building. I would also argue that they are a weed anywhere outside of their normal range. It never ceases to amaze me of the stupidity of planting species way out of their normal habitat to become the next generation’s weed problem.)
4) And here at home in the US our own EPA, USDA, FDA, are implimenting crippling and controling regulating more and more effecting the means of production of everything? commentor And here is the US government involvement again. (This is the tree of choice for carbon credits an aggressive invasive plant) Genetically Modified Eucalyptus Trees Ignite Controversy Eucalyptus trees are good for making paper. They are terrible for just about everything else – soil, insects, plants, and water. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just approved ArborGen’s request to plant various test forests across seven southern states. Nicknamed “America’s Largest Weed,” it comes as no surprise that communities are worried about introducing the eucalyptus into new environments, which include 300 acres of test sites in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. …… Worse, they create toxic conditions in the soil and their canopies block out sunlight for underlying plants. They hog water and yet easily catch fire, relying on fire to spread their seeds (are they again trying to detroy us from within in this case our farm lands. remember we cut off water to the CA central Valley farm land and killed everything their – liberals) …..And we have not even talked about the agency like NLRB, Forced Unions, EPA cross state clean air regs.
My point is when you piece it all together the are setting up more than just financial global controls the are trying to control the means to live where you want, grow what you want, be an employee how you want, and the list is endless.
This is much much more in my opinion. And Obama at this point in time is their only hope of gettng this country on board. If it does not happen (by the 2012 election) then they will have a long wait for the next opening.
FOI.org thank you and Gale and all here thanks for digging just keep going follow the money and find out who is buying what where and why. They are nibbling at stuff everywhere and Clmategate 2.0 is going to force them to move quicker (I just read German and France want control over other EU countries budget and decisions) Not a single vote on that.
Late sorry for the typos.
I am not running this through word before I post I think the main points can be seen through my many typos…..
I always found these emails interesting.
http://www.au.agwscam.com/cru/emails.php?eid=152&filename=941483736.txt
From: Tom Wigley
To: Mike Hulme
Subject: Re: CONFIDENTIAL: CRU scenarios
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 14:15:36 -0700 (MST)
Cc: rwatson@worldbank.org
Dear Mike,
Thanks for your detailed response about your use of the SRES scenarios.
I’m sure it will be useful to Bob Watson. I wish I could explain better
what Bob’s problem entails — it is intensely political. My judgement is
that, if I tell you more, then this will indirectly help Bob in answering
the questions posed of him by Sensenbrenner; particularly should Bob need
to get back to you. Please note that this is confidential information.
Please note, too, that I am making my own judgement on this in the
interest of clarifying a complex issue. I have not been authorized by
Bob, or anyone associated with IPCC, to divulge this information.
The stated concern of Sensenbrenner is that the use of the SRES scenarios
prior to their ratification might, in some way, jeopardize IPCC’s
“independence and objectivity”. Sensenbrenner apparently uses as
guidelines in making his judgement “IPCC’s ‘Principles’ (as) approved in
Vienna, Austria in October 1998” together with “June 11 and 28, 1999
letters” giving “Appendix A to the Principles, which is entitled
‘Procedures for the Preparation, Review, Acceptance, Approval and
Publication of IPCC Reports’ (which was) approved … in April 1999”.
Sensenbrenner implies that these documents “raise concerns about the use
of preliminary IPCC material by Dr. Wigley and the Pew Center on Global
Climate Change for non-IPCC purposes, apparently without IPCC sanction”.
He considers that “these issues (are) significant because they relate
directly to the integrity of the IPCC process”.
In my case, I bypassed the “IPCC process” by obtaining permission, in
writing, from the 4 groups who produced the marker scenarios. I did not
acknowledge the CIESIN web site. In your case, apparently, you did. The
problem here is that this site stated very clearly that the data were “not
for citation or quotation”. Did you take notice of this?
My view is, and has always been, that contributors to such data sets or
distribution sites do not give up the intellectual property rights to
their own data. They could do so, of course, by signing appropriate
legal/copyright documents; but I have never done this, nor, as far as I
know, has anyone who contributed to the CIESIN site. This is why I went
to the individual authors in order to obtain permission to use their data
in my Pew report. I hope you can see that there is an important
difference between what you did and what I did. At face value, it would
appear that you have ignored the clearly-stated message that the CIESIN
site data were “not for citation or quotation”. (More on this point
below.)
You refer back to the July 1998 Bureau meeting agreeing that the
preliminary SRES scenarios (in your words) “could, and should, be used by
scientists”. From my reading of the background material, this is subtly
wrong — the Bureau only agreed that the data could be used by “the GCM
modeling community”. As it happens, I am part of that community, and I
acted as the interface between the scenarios and the rest of the NCAR GCM
team, providing SRES data to them in a form that could be used for our GCM
runs. I do not think you can claim to have filled this particular and
quite specific role in your work.
However, there are some interesting subtleties here that, I think,
vindicate your position. The issue is what is meant by the “GCM modeling
community”. In my view, anyone who uses GCM data either to provide data
sets to the impacts community or to carry out diagnostic studies directly
to improve GCMs is part of this community. (Note that this does *not*
allow one to include the impacts modelers as part of the GCM community.)
The two stated aspects are precisely what you do. Furthermore, SCENGEN
(which I presume you have used in your work) makes direct use of GCMs in
order to produce spatially-specific climate results based on any given
emissions scenarios (including the SRES scenarios). The SCENGEN method is
simply an alternative way of translating emissions scenarios into
GCM-based and GCM-type output. In my view, anyone using the SRES
scenarios in the development of SCENGEN, or applying SCENGEN to produce
spatially-specific climate results for dissemination to others, must be
included as part of the “GCM modeling community” referred to in the
Bureau’s agreement regarding use of the SRES scenarios. You may have
interpreted the Bureau’s statements even more broadly than this — but
this is of no consequence, since what you have done also falls squarely
within the more restricted interpretation that I have given above.
Nevertheless, I think it would have been wiser for you to have done things
the way I did, rather than to have acknowledged the CIESIN site as your
source.
The next issue, raised in your email, concerns the DDC. I have not looked
at this site, but I presume it duplicates what was on the CIESIN site. If
so, then its use (and the use of the preliminary SRES data) must be
controlled by the rules under which the DDC was set up and operates. The
key questions, therefore, are:
(1) Do these rules allow the use of these data by anyone?
(2) Do the SRES data, as it appears on this site, include the statement
“not for citation or quotation”?
(3) Does this make moot the whole issue of the use of the SRES scenarios?
In other words, if these data are available to all and sundry, with no
restrictions, through DDC, then no one can complain about their use.
(Although, in your case, since you acknowledged CIESIN rather than DDC,
you may still be subject to criticism.)
What this could amount to is a loophole in the IPCC rules of procedure.
Sensenbrenner might then argue that this loophole should be closed by
clarifying and tightening the rules for the DDC.
The bottom line is that I think you have done things in a perfectly
legitimate way. Even acknowledging the CIESIN site is legitimate, since
your primary application was in the production of climate change scenarios
as a member of the “GCM modeling community” as I believe this community
should be defined. You have then distributed these results to the global
climate impacts community who, in turn, will be feeding their results back
into the IPCC process through WGII. Your chosen method of distribution
(especially the WWF pathway) might be judged as less than ideal; but I
cannot see anything that you have done that goes explicitly or implicitly
against IPCC regulations.
Below the bottom line is the concern expressed by Sensenbrenner that these
actions (yours and mine) might, in some way, have undermined the
“integrity of the IPCC process”. It would be interesting to hear from
Sensenbrenner just how he thinks that might have happened. All we have
done is distribute credible and defensible scientific information. If
this information were to be in conflict with the currently best-available
science, this might be an issue of concern — but it is not. The more
such credible scientific information is distributed to the community,
particularly when it is presented in an easily-read, non-technical yet
authoritative way, the better. I can see no way that this can distort the
IPCC process. Some people, however, appear to think that it might. (A
less kind interpretation might be that they are just trying to slow down
the process by tying it up in legal and procedural knots — but I have no
evidence that this is what they are trying to do.)
I hope you can see from the above quotes and somewhat convoluted arguments
what a legal and political minefield this is. These sorts of issues do
not seem to arise outside of the USA; but here they take on an enormous
importance. One must tread very cautiously.
Cheers,
Tom
…………………………..
More at the link
The UN and World Bank have nothing on the EU and ECB.
Merkel said the proposals for more intrusive powers to enforce EU budget rules, including the right to take delinquent governments to the European Court of Justice, were a first step towards deeper fiscal union.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065800/Germany-France-plans-greater-fiscal-union-meeting-new-Italian-leader-time.html#ixzz1ehhefYq7
You do what we say or we take all your money away.
My above post is referenced to this
> > From: Tom Wigley
> > To: Mike Hulme
> > Cc: Robert Watson
> > Subject: CONFIDENTIAL: CRU scenarios
> > Date: 27 October 1999 19:02
> >
> > ****In strictest confidence****
> >
> > Dear Mike,
> >
> > Bob Watson contacted me last week asking about some climate results that
> > he apparently saw on the CRU and/or WWF web pages. The CRU web site
> > states that you have produced (and already distributed) a set of regional
> > scenario leaflets based on “new ghg emissions scenarios”, which I think
> is
> > what Bob may be concerned about.
> >
> > I hope that “new” does not refer to the SRES scenarios. You may recall
> > that, when I was in CRU, I showed you, in confidence, a letter from F.
> > James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives
> > Committee on Science, criticizing IPCC for “allowing” me to use these
> > scenarios in my Pew Report.
> >
> > Unfortunately, this issue is not going away, and any further perceived
> > “misuse” of the SRES scenarios prior to their IPCC ratification would
> > exacerbate the problem considerably.
> >
> > I do hope, therefore, that you have *not* used the SRES scenarios. I
> > expect not, since I explained the potential problems to you in July.
> > Please reassure me — and Bob.
> >
> > If, by chance, you *have* used the SRES scenarios, but not yet
> distributed
> > the WWF leaflets, I urge you to hold fire until you have contacted Bob.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> >
> > Tom
> >
… The green bay tree.
Gail,
re arborgen, they did their trials in NZ and some gm trees were worked on in aus,(they say…they canned them? hmm?
the guy managing, the arborgen show is?
an ex Monsanto man, and with the monsanto revolving door seen so easily in usa already I suspect somewhere they have a large slice of pie still in this.
as to bluegums, well they grow fast but never seen the 20feet a year from stumps here, maybe usa has better water supply. I can say theyve ruined already poor land and decimated communities in aus, and now all the tax havens have fallen over we have heaps of acres of em that no one wants.(they arent gm,,maybe, just a bloody nusiance and fire hazard.)
Getting this information disseminated to the public including what it means in lay terms will be vigorously opposed by the ‘elite’ and their accomplices, the media.
Why Eucalyptus? Surely not because of 20′ annual growth. Hell, our own cottonwoods come close enough to that. They work for paper – don’t they? There must be some overriding advantage to selecting an alien invasive species and the significant environmental risk to their introduction. GK
” Shevva says: November 25, 2011 at 12:32 am
You do what we say or we take all your money away. ”
Actually it is the opposite. Apparently (rumor) the Germans have said “do it our way or we go back to the Deutschemark and you can have the Euro”. They are the only country that could leave the Euro and have their native currency go up in value. Everyone else would instantly be 10% of previous value.
John says:
November 24, 2011 at 11:58 pm
….My point is when you piece it all together they are setting up more than just financial global controls they are trying to control the means to live where you want, grow what you want, be an employee how you want, and the list is endless.
…. just keep going follow the money and find out who is buying what where and why. They are nibbling at stuff everywhere and Clmategate 2.0 is going to force them to move quicker (I just read German and France want control over other EU countries budget and decisions) Not a single vote on that.
_____________________________________
The takeover is very much by stealth and we do not even know it or would recognize it.
A good example is the “Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010” The Act actually turns control of our food supply over to the World TRADE Organization.
Since it was created in 1995 the WTO, in conjunction with the OIE and FAO branches of the United Nations, have been writing regulations covering every aspect of farming. The USDA and FDA have been partners in writing these soon to be regulations ever since.
FAO:http://www.fao.org/prods/gap/
OIE: http://www.oie.int/doc/en_ListDocument.php?line_0%5Bvalue%5D=3573905&line_0%5Bfield%5D=descripteur&typerec=Index
Using the new 1996 HACCP regs and orchestrated food contamination scares, the public was hoodwinked into asking for new laws thus opening the door to international regulation of the US food supply and the death by Red Tape of family farms in America.
SEE:
Serious Flaw in USDA’s HACCP Food-safety System: http://mfu.org/node/276
Shielding the Giants: http://www.whistleblower.org/storage/documents/Shielding_the_Giant_Final_PDF.p
Section in the Actual Law:
The USA bureaucrats are in on the treason, and it IS TREASON to undermine our Constitution.
Straight from the FDA a few years (2008?) ago:
Here are some of FDA’s viewpoints on your right to procure food expressed in its response on ‘freedom of food choice’ during the FTCLDF lawsuit
As several others have said this is HUGE and very deeply embedded in our governments, universities, corporations and financial institutions. I am very much afraid if we do not fight this NOW we will wake up to find all our freedoms gone having been taken by stealth under various pretexts such as “Save the Children” and “Save the Environment”
ozspeaksup says:
November 25, 2011 at 4:15 am
Gail,
re arborgen, they did their trials in NZ and some gm trees were worked on in aus,(they say…they canned them? hmm?
the guy managing, the arborgen show is?
an ex Monsanto man, and with the monsanto revolving door seen so easily in usa already I suspect somewhere they have a large slice of pie still in this.
as to bluegums, well they grow fast but never seen the 20 feet a year from stumps here, maybe usa has better water supply…..
________________________________________
The 20 ft was from a commenter at a garden blog. And yes we do have a good water supply in some places in the USA.
The person could be commenting from his own experience (I think he did) or it could be a misquote from the document below. Either way that type of growth is going to be a royal pain for subsistence farmers and the oil/fire hazard makes slash and burn a problem.
That was California. A bit more search and we find far wetter Florida.
This is NOT a nice tree to dump on African and South American third world farmers.