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‘Climate change is water change’

washingtonpost.com

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Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#41

Post by niftich »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

People talk about this being "unprecedented" however there is ample evidence that the Pueblo people lived in the Colorado River watershed, and then moved on after an extended drought. That was a few thousand years ago, and frankly I don't see the residents of Las Vegas moving on, but I can imagine that changes that happen with or without anthropogenic contribution have been affecting communities in the area. Where is…

> Why not build

This is a fair question, and pops up in nearly every thread about this topic, usually replied to with a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power... and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_D...

The idea has been raised before, and dismissed because of massive costs, unprecedented environmental impacts, and the like.

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#42

Post by bcheung »

Using squaponics seems like an ideal solution. Food can be grown in a greenhouse to minimize evaporation. Water doesn't escape into the soil, and it can be done pretty much anywhere, this leading to less fuel consumption and transportation costs. Fish require much less water and feed than cattle per pound of edible flesh.

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#43

Post by dragonwriter »

douche wrote: post #36
sehr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am specifically not talking about the Central Valley. The Central Valley is not a desert, nor is it irrigated using water from the Colorado river (AFAIK). Please research this topic before responding again. Edit: spinach? I'm also talking potatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions, broccoli and cauliflower. I wish we were only at risk of losing spinach.

All of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity. Potatoes, onions and carrots can be stored for many months after harvest, even without refrigeration, and cauliflower and broccoli hold up well to freezing. Lettuce is of very questionable nutritional value to begin with... but it can be grown with minimal effort and great productivity in greenhouses.

> All of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity.

If they could without displacing some other more valuable crop, at lower total cost than what they have been with irrigation in the Central Valley, they already would be.

Losing production in the Central Valley reduces overall supply and increases prices, whether it moves some production elsewhere (displacing existing land uses) or not.

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#44

Post by danmaz74 »

kaybe wrote: post #31
codecamper wrote: post #18

Meanwhile solar panel manufacturers are suffering from oversupply, meaning not enough purchasing. This despite the fact that prices are now down to 60 cents a watt or less. Solar will never be cheaper than coal because coal is a rock. it'll always be cheaper to go dig coal than to make something else. Politicians need to deal with this or we are all doomed.

Coal is a rock, but you still need to build a plant to burn it, and ship the coal continuously. With solar when you set up the panels you're basically done.

> With solar when you set up the panels you're basically done

Unfortunately, you're done only when the sun shines.

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#45

Post by douche »

dragonwriter wrote: post #43
douche wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity. Potatoes, onions and carrots can be stored for many months after harvest, even without refrigeration, and cauliflower and broccoli hold up well to freezing. Lettuce is of very questionable nutritional value to begin with... but it can be grown with minimal effort and great productivity in greenhouses.

> All of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity. If they could without displacing some other more valuable crop, at lower total cost than what they have been with irrigation in the Central Valley, they already would be . Losing production in the Central Valley reduces overall supply and increases prices, whether it moves some production elsewhere (displacing existin…

If artificially low water costs (not to mention widespread use of illegal, sub-market rate labor) are deflating the costs, then that impacts the calculus to some degree, would you agree?

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

douche wrote: post #45
dragonwriter wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity. If they could without displacing some other more valuable crop, at lower total cost than what they have been with irrigation in the Central Valley, they already would be . Losing production in the Central Valley reduces overall supply and increases prices, whether it moves some production elsewhere (displacing existin…

If artificially low water costs (not to mention widespread use of illegal, sub-market rate labor) are deflating the costs, then that impacts the calculus to some degree, would you agree?

No, it doesn't change the fact that losing Central Valley production will reduce supply and increase consumer prices.

To extent that either of the factors mentioned is an actual subsidy (the labor one doesn't seem to be -- nor is it necessarily a differentiator from alternative production areas -- but the water one might be), that may mean that the reduced public cost of the subsidy may to some extent offset the increased sticker price of the no-longer-subsidized goods

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#48

Post by ChuckMcM »

niftich wrote: post #41
ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

People talk about this being "unprecedented" however there is ample evidence that the Pueblo people lived in the Colorado River watershed, and then moved on after an extended drought. That was a few thousand years ago, and frankly I don't see the residents of Las Vegas moving on, but I can imagine that changes that happen with or without anthropogenic contribution have been affecting communities in the area. Where is…

> Why not build This is a fair question, and pops up in nearly every thread about this topic, usually replied to with a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power... and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_D... The idea has been raised before, and dismissed because of massive costs, unprecedented environmental impacts, and the like.

Yup.

And to put my biases on the table, I believe this is where the climate change disaster is heading. Nobody, and I mean really nobody, with any scientific training believes that humans can control the climate (yes we affect the climate but we don't yet have any way of telling it to do one thing or another). Further, our models for the ways we are affecting the climate indicate that massive changes in the way water is distributed across the country are inevitable (see this article as another example of that).

As a result we will either decide to spend the money and apply our technology to mitigating the impact of climate change on the humans, or we may (some consider it likely) experience a massive die off of humans. (which oddly some people are hoping for, they don't think it will be them. See the preppers in Montana for example)

There are many ways to create the GDP for this, one would be to employ the under employed[1]. We could allocate two trillion dollars over the next 5 years and put 10M young people to work. Or we could spend the two trillion dollars like we did over the last 5 years, adventuring in the middle east.[2] Personally, I would prefer fighting a war we can win, we understand how to survive climate change.

[1] "From April to July 2016, the number of employed youth 16 to 24 years old increased by 1.9 million to 20.5 million, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This year, 53.2 percent of young people were employed in July, little changed from a year earlier. (The month of July typically is the summertime peak in youth employment.) Unemployment among youth rose by 611,000 from April to July 2016, compared with an increase of 654,000 for the same period in 2015. (Because this analysis focuses on the seasonal changes in youth employment and unemployment that occur each spring and summer, the data are not seasonally adjusted.)" -- http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm

[2] http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#49

Post by ChuckMcM »

stirbot wrote: post #39
ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

People talk about this being "unprecedented" however there is ample evidence that the Pueblo people lived in the Colorado River watershed, and then moved on after an extended drought. That was a few thousand years ago, and frankly I don't see the residents of Las Vegas moving on, but I can imagine that changes that happen with or without anthropogenic contribution have been affecting communities in the area. Where is…

If the people who want a lush green desert are willing to pay for such a project then I'm all for it, but I don't think this should be subsidized by all tax payers a la the Interstate system.

Remember its also the people in Louisiana who would rather not be up to their arm pits in water at home this week. Or the folks in Texas who 5 years ago worried about dying cattle herds and now worry about drowning them.[1]

[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/06/09/412236562/texas-cattle-rancher...

Re: ‘Climate change is water change’

#50

Post by tzs »

handedness wrote: post #8
35bge57dtjku wrote: post #6

Where is all the water going, if it's simply not precipitation enough in these areas?

It's a combination of factors. Some's being exported as food (nuts, beef). Some isn't being recaptured, as aquifers are being depleted to the point of collapsed. Etc.

I doubt that the amount exported as nuts is significant. A rough back of the envelope calculation for almonds (I picked almonds because people complain about almonds a lot whenever water is discussed) indicates that California's annual exported almonds contain about as much water as 14 Olympic swimming pools. That doesn't seem too bad considering how large the almond crop is.

Almonds use a lot of water to grow, but most of that water doesn't actually end up in the almond, and so doesn't go with the almond if the almond is exported.

The numbers I used were 10^12 grams of almonds produced per year, 5% water content per almond, 3785 grams per gallon of water, 660000 gallons per Olympic swimming pool, and 70% of California's almond crop exported.

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