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California is not in drought

latimes.com

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Re: California is not in drought

#101

Post by mixmastamyk »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #91
tzs wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, California's water is probably best used in high value add industries like semiconductor manufacturing. California has some of the best soil for farming in the country (or even the world). A gallon of water used for agriculture in California will be more effective than a gallon used for agriculture in most other places. As far as I know there is nothing that makes California a great place for semiconduct…

The South Bay area where Silicon Valley is has some of the best of that best soil. Deep loamy soil that really doesn't need much or any preparation and in that climate you can grow just about anything. I'm a gardener and I always try go grow a garden wherever I've lived, when I lived in the south Bay the soil was just the best I've seen anywhere by a long ways - it was so easy to dig and it was quite rich. That's why…

That industry led to lots of chemical dumping in the area, so watch out.

Re: California is not in drought

#103

Post by tomcam »

devmunchies wrote: post #35
npsimons wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef and dairy use more water, use more land, generate more GHG[0]. Deal with animal agriculture first, then we can talk about the fruits and nuts. [0] - https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

> Deal with animal agriculture first, then we can talk about the fruits and nuts I'm trying! I can only eat them so fast!

Username checks out

Re: California is not in drought

#104

Post by scriptkiddy »

rsj_hn wrote: post #54
zbrozek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many CA communities make it hard to cut down trees ("conservationism"), and also don't religiously enforce clearance rules that they do have on the books. The combination means that there's a huge pileup of fuel even in suburban neighborhoods. To those downvoting - this is a town-owned parcel in my neighborhood, just a few miles down the hill from the CZU complex evacuation zone. https://i.imgur.com/PVUoUVg.jpg

Indeed "Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres[...] California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire." https:/…

Who are these "academics"? The article you linked uses politically biased language and provides no sources.

Seems like you're talking out your ass about something you don't understand. To make the claim that "90% of California's forest shouldn't exist"(paraphrasing, correct me if I misinterpreted) as you did in one of your other comments is absolutely absurd. It illustrates a complete lack of understanding regarding the extremely varied and countless ecosystems present in California. California is not "a desert", California "has a lot of desert".

To be clear though: It definitely HAS been proven that the absurd amounts of fire suppression California has engaged in over the past several decades has indeed increased the severity of wildfires[1].

[1] https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/ES14...

Re: California is not in drought

#105

Post by bcrosby95 »

zbrozek wrote: post #50
rsj_hn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

Many CA communities make it hard to cut down trees ("conservationism"), and also don't religiously enforce clearance rules that they do have on the books. The combination means that there's a huge pileup of fuel even in suburban neighborhoods. To those downvoting - this is a town-owned parcel in my neighborhood, just a few miles down the hill from the CZU complex evacuation zone. https://i.imgur.com/PVUoUVg.jpg

I live in SoCal and the park backing up my house has giant piles of dead wood everywhere. It basically looks like your picture but everything is brown and 1/3 of the fuel is dead trees. The Woolsey fire went right around our city - mountains on 3 sides of it, and all 3 of them were on fire at one point.

Been thinking of trying to organize something to clear out some of that crap. I know our neighbors take it upon themselves to cut park trees that encroach on their properties.

Re: California is not in drought

#106

Post by eigen »

jessaustin wrote: post #96
eigen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. this is for large-scale harvesting. I'm seeing individual lot tree removal is a pretty straightforward form [2]. provide reason, site plan, maybe arborist report, etc. [1] https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees…

Before reading that link, I wouldn't have believed that a USA citizen might have to get permission from the county to cut a tree on her land.

to be fair, its only "to conduct any development activity or remove one or more protected trees, where such development activity or removal is not associated with a discretionary project, shall make application to the Planning Division for a Minor Tree Permit". so county approval needed if you are building a house or if you want to remove protected tree species (mostly oak, heritage, and riparian). so if you want to cut down that grey pine that drops all its needles every year, no permit needed.

Re: California is not in drought

#107

Post by eweise »

trimbo wrote: post #95

1000 word opinion piece and not one mention of the Delta Smelt? The author is right though, this climate is the norm. A better way to put it is that California has always been in drought. So when politicians say "drought", they actually mean "deficit". There's more than enough rain and snowpack, but we're not collecting enough of it to meet demand. We could collect more--at great expense--or use less. As i mentioned…

Maybe no mention of delta smelt because Sonoma doesn't get its water from the delta.

Re: California is not in drought

#108

Post by colechristensen »

tzs wrote: post #68
testfoobar wrote: post #41

We use a lot of water growing nuts in California. From 2015: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts... "it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. Residents across the state are being told to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns, but the acreage devoted to the state’s almond orchards have doubled in the past decade. The amount…

That gallon of water to grow one almond or the 5 gallons for one walnut obviously does not actually end up in that almond or walnut. Only a tiny amount of water is in the nut itself, and so exported from the state when the nut is exported. Some of it will end up in the ground and eventually become part of the water table in that region, eventually coming back out via wells to be reused. A lot of it will be transpired…

The argument question you are looking for is “does irrigation increase water supply through evaporation and rainfall?”

Of course the atoms are conserved. Any plant matter that is consumed by humans or burned will end up back as water while it isn’t tied up in your body or buried.

Certainly some will go to groundwater and some will evaporate and get locally precipitated... but depending on weather patterns some water vapor will leave the state and rain down past the mountains or into the sea.

A large ecological transformation could be undertaken to plant forests and other plants to increase water capacity and make more water cycle locally, but that kind of transformation would be terrificly expensive and environmentally controversial. (but could work in places... there are a lot of rainforests out there where if you burned them down they would be deserts.)

Re: California is not in drought

#109

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #96
eigen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. this is for large-scale harvesting. I'm seeing individual lot tree removal is a pretty straightforward form [2]. provide reason, site plan, maybe arborist report, etc. [1] https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees…

Before reading that link, I wouldn't have believed that a USA citizen might have to get permission from the county to cut a tree on her land.

[deleted]

Re: California is not in drought

#110

Post by [deleted] »

ramraj07 wrote: post #55
s1artibartfast wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is poor logic influenced by the politics of the LA aqueduct and water project. Nuts are calorie dense, and most foods require as much if not more water per calorie. Food simply requires a lot of water. For example, A 5 oz glass of wine takes 34 gallons. A head of iceberg lettuce takes 16 gallons of water. You will note that the motherJones article compares almond water things like home use, not other food source…

Can you give more sources? First time I see someone refuting that growing almonds is a water shit show

[deleted]
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