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 comin…
it's not just pistachios and almonds, it's a full 1/3 of the country's vegetables and 2/3 of the country's fruits and nuts. California's water problems are everyone's water problems.
One of the things that has puzzled me for a long time is how little thought we have applied over time towards designing and building better homes. Energy and water usage are two elements of this. Regarding water. Every time I wash my hands I wish that water went into a gray water tank instead of being wasted. This water, perhaps with some filtration (or maybe not [0]) could then be used for irrigation. The same is th…
Storm drains do need some flow to keep them clear.
Grey water systems seem most viable at the water district level, e.g. water treatment plant recycles clean water from drains back into the fresh supply. This is what some cities in Nevada are doing.
A grey water system in your house would be a duplicate set of plumbing, and you’d have a hard time keeping it clean & unclogged in the long run. The scale is small so the cost efficiency would be poor compared to district level.
Geologically, that area has ALWAYS been desert, with the only exception being the past 150 years. Not surprised.
Exactly. Cadillac Desert is a great account of the water politics of California and it also highlights that the agreements and contracts were set during an unusually wet period.
Growing water intensive crops in the high desert is insanity.
>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…
The bills go up anyway, in order to maintain the permanently growing army of bureaucrats. The only realistic way to solve it is to bring back competition. If you have multiple competing small operators, and one of them offers better infrastructure at a reasonable extra cost, people will switch. If you let them all get merged and managed centrally, of course all you get is a carefully written apology letter blaming climate change.
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…
I’ve seen this posted a lot and I read it as an excuse to throw our hands up and do nothing individually. However culture matters and as we shift our behaviors as individuals, pressure builds on corporate behavior as well. Both through local politics and internal politics within the company. We do need drastic regulatory changes, but we also need as a society to put our weight into it.
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.
Either way they can’t wring any more water from urban users. Rural users will get hit 90% faster than urban users as water becomes more scarce simply because they consume more now.
One of the things that has puzzled me for a long time is how little thought we have applied over time towards designing and building better homes. Energy and water usage are two elements of this. Regarding water. Every time I wash my hands I wish that water went into a gray water tank instead of being wasted. This water, perhaps with some filtration (or maybe not [0]) could then be used for irrigation. The same is th…
There are buildings built like this. In Europe. It is more expensive to add these specs.
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…
There are some great points being made here and Im really glad to see the generational issue come up. Wondering what role people think California boomers are playing in these problems as a distinct subset from Californias population as it will exist in ~30 years when they're gone?
Geologically, that area has ALWAYS been desert, with the only exception being the past 150 years. Not surprised.
Californians seem to be suprised. I know its a different use case. But, it always brings to mind Las Vegas.
It strikes me as a gross statment to the sheer will of man to remake resources into its will. Additionally it stands as an example of our current priorities and how power manifests. Don't get me wrong, I love Vegas and also the food California produces.
At somepoint in the near future we will need to have difficult disscussions more widely about resources which were bountiful until late.
Your point could be valid. A quick googling of water demand in CA produces the following. Urban water use is only 10% of total water use in California. Agriculture uses anywhere from 30% (wet year) to 70% (dry year). Just raising cattle in the state uses anywhere from 100-250 million gallons per day.
How much does almonds and rice do? And could you grow plants on the cow land?
Makes you wonder wtf is going on there (Almonds/Rice)? Just as insane as irrigating Alfalfa fields to harvest hay for cattle to eat.