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California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

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Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#71

Post by skybrian »

john_moscow wrote: post #67
eplanit wrote: post #11

These droughts were anticipated, but here in California preparing for climate change means preaching at others, and setting up a carbon exchange. Not a single new reservoir has been built since 1979. It's impossible to take California seriously about much of anything, but especially not regarding the environment: "In 1979, California’s population was a little more than 23 million. Today, it is more than 39 million. Y…

>They're really just stupid out here. Oh, they are not stupid. I can bet the ruling class in California has their own generators and does not have to drain their swimming pools due to water shortage. In fact, they are very successful at manipulating the general public at turning a blind eye at them and even not wanting all these things. Why build infrastructure for the plebs if you can pick a few activist groups, giv…

Rich people aren’t a monolith and some of them live in rural communities with severe water shortages. There are stories about people having water trucked in, which has to be very expensive.

But the politics is basically that people don’t want to pay for expensive new infrastructure and see their utility rates go up. This isn’t just water - you see the same thing for replacing outdated sewer treatment plants. I don’t think it’s the rich who are worried about their utility bills?

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#72

Post by kart23 »

telesilla wrote: post #18

Anyone worrying about what you can regarding climate change, it's nice to stop driving etc but the big issue is fossil fuel consumption. That's in the hands of big money. How that changes is another story but they've been clever to put the blame on domestic, urban consumers when we're a tiny minority of the polluters. Knowing that should help those keen to help out know better where to look. In the meantime, no or li…

Source? At least in the US, cars make up a decent share of our carbon emissions, around 16%. Other greenhouse gases like NOx or Fluorinated gases are mostly produced by industry though.

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-...

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#73

Post by epistasis »

skybrian wrote: post #69
epistasis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a very complete picture of what's going on with water in California. Even as population has almost doubled, and as agricultural output increases, we have decreased our water usage: https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ There's a lot to be said for simply not wasting lots of water. If California stopped growing alfalfa, a low value product that is the largest agricultural use of water, w…

You might look at the politics around building a desalination plant near Monterey. A lot of people are against building the plant because they think we can avoid it through water conservation and a water reclamation project. Although I haven’t studied it enough to say for sure, this seems short-sighted to me. In particular, the water restrictions prevent building more housing, and existing water sources seem vulnerab…

I don't live very far away from there, and what I've learned about local politics is that: 1) it's very dirty, you encounter the worst sort of lying and meanness from people that are otherwise normal, and 2) almost nobody publicly states what they want or why they want it, and everything is argued on what will be the most effective vicious political attack rather than heartfelt beliefs.

With desalination, much of the underlying opposition is from older folks from the 70s who are worried about "population" in particular less wealthy and non-white people. Environmentalism of that sort is about a person living in a suburban home with greenery around them more than reducing overall pollution or environmental impact. There is a toooooooon of extreme wealth in the Monterey area right next to the most extreme poverty, which is really at the heart of a lot of the opposition to desalination.

Then there are people who earnestly are worried about environmental damage from water intakes and brine dumps, but I think those concerns lie with fewer people, and not with those who wield the most political power in the area.

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#74

Post by frazbin »

Real quick thing about the water in California: it's important because it is used to make food, which is exported from the state's central plains to the rest of the country. Your mental model should not include the direct water use of humans.. this is and always has been about the economics of food production.

So if people leave California, it will be because they can't get jobs in agriculture.. people would be coming from Fresno, not San Francisco. Also the increase in food prices brought about by the collapse of that titanic industry will be borne by everybody in the country, and is therefore the problem of everybody in North America who likes pistachios and such.

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#75

Post by akiselev »

pixl97 wrote: post #56
akiselev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water cycle covers the entire state so as long as you don't set up in a desert or a hundred miles from the nearest waterway, chances are the reservoir can be filled up on a regular basis. We're storing a teeny tiny fraction of all the water that goes through the system.

2 things. One is you want to keep the rivers flowing in the first place. If you impound too much water, you don't have rivers, you have dry creeks and all the wildlife in them dies. The big one is water rights. The water is not the states to impound in the first place in many cases. If I have particular water rights, and you block them, I can sue you out of existence under existing laws, laws that are going to be ver…

> One is you want to keep the rivers flowing in the first place. If you impound too much water, you don't have rivers, you have dry creeks and all the wildlife in them dies.

That's only if we build massive dammed reservoirs that try to serve dense populations from a single source like Hetch Hetchy supplying the Bay Area. A system of smaller reservoirs dotted across the state would serve the same function without the concentrated ecological impact. San Francisco has three terminal reservoirs within its city limits, for example.

> The big one is water rights. The water is not the states to impound in the first place in many cases. If I have particular water rights, and you block them, I can sue you out of existence under existing laws, laws that are going to be very hard to break with our current legal system.

That's why utilizing the whole water cycle is important, rather than concentrated sources like rivers and streams. A farmer can prove you're taking his inch of water by comparing upstream of the installation but it's much harder to do that if snowmelt is being collected in hundreds of smaller reservoirs along the mountains. (IANAL, so grain of salt and all that)

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#76

Post by pepperonipizza »

MiscIdeaMaker99 wrote: post #26

I wonder how long it'll take before California starts to see a decrease in population due to scarcity of water.

And how long since we consider that an ever growing population is not a good thing for the environment?

When I read medias like Bloomberg, they seem legitime in their climate change coverage, but they always lament the slow growth of US's population.

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#77

Post by skybrian »

telesilla wrote: post #18

Anyone worrying about what you can regarding climate change, it's nice to stop driving etc but the big issue is fossil fuel consumption. That's in the hands of big money. How that changes is another story but they've been clever to put the blame on domestic, urban consumers when we're a tiny minority of the polluters. Knowing that should help those keen to help out know better where to look. In the meantime, no or li…

Collectively, consumer behavior makes a big difference, as we saw when oil prices dropped very low during the pandemic and are shooting up now.

But it’s true that what an individual does makes little difference, unless you figure out how to make it scale.

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#78

Post by ip26 »

eplanit wrote: post #11

These droughts were anticipated, but here in California preparing for climate change means preaching at others, and setting up a carbon exchange. Not a single new reservoir has been built since 1979. It's impossible to take California seriously about much of anything, but especially not regarding the environment: "In 1979, California’s population was a little more than 23 million. Today, it is more than 39 million. Y…

Are there any suitable valleys left that haven’t already been dammed, aside from Yosemite?

Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being

#79

Post by ip26 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35
MiscIdeaMaker99 wrote: post #26

I wonder how long it'll take before California starts to see a decrease in population due to scarcity of water.

10% of water in California is used for urban needs, it’s more likely agriculture will get hit by water shortages first than population growth. But then again, the permitting process is already limited to an extent by available water resources, it’s part of the infrastructure needed to build.

Agriculture often has the more senior water rights, so I wouldn’t be too sure.
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