Napa valley is _____.
California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
101–110 of 193 posts
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#102These 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…
Totally agree on the giant circle jerk that is California conservation politics (which IMO are all show and hot air, no realistic action - except when it comes to stopping any sort of actual necessary stewardship work like fuel reduction or development of higher density).
That said, the reason new dams haven’t been built is simple - all the areas worth damming already have been. There are only so many areas with enough dammable area and enough precipitation to make it even a little worthwhile, and those were all obvious by the 40’s and dammed up by the 70’s-80’s at the latest.
It isn’t even about how close something is - hetch-hetchy slaked the thirst of most of the Bay Area, and that is a solid 5+ hr drive away.
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There are already 1500 reservoirs in California. It's a myth that there are un-impounded streams waiting to be captured. There really are not. Just look at the area around Placerville. There is Sugar Pine, Loon, Big, French Meadows, Ice House, Hell Hole, Stumpy Meadows, Union Valley, Sly Park, and, of course, Folsom Lake. That's all in a diameter of only 30 miles.
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In the most extreme scenario, can the US create new agricultural fields in other states, cutting down forests if needed ? The weather will change but surely the US will still have arable land enough to feed its citizens (even if they have to forget some kind of crops (pistachio, etc.) aside) ?
As climate bands move, which areas become suitable change as well. I don't think it's obvious yet exactly where, if anywhere, makes sense since the place you move it to might be untenable ten years later at this rate.
Of course such moves would heavily entrench large agricultural companies who have the resources to build speculative farms.
I'm personally expecting that farmers will adapt to local conditions and grow crops that use less water and don't mind the heat, or else find a way to reduce water losses from evaporation.
If fruits and vegetables that are no longer tenable to grow in California become more expensive, and they probably will, there will be more incentive to both find a way to grow them more carefully in California as well as more reward to exploring growing them elsewhere.
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#105These 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. I don't think this is a fair statement and rather it seems like you want just to put a label on the whole state to avoid having to research into why didn't California build more reservoirs; frankly, to me it makes you look like a troll.
For sure. Motivated reasoning is a huge problem around political issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you considered drip irrigation? It was designed with desert agriculture in mind. Shade can also make a big difference.
My garden has drip irrigation and looks like a burned mess unfortunately. I think it is just the effect of the hot dry air on the leaves.
It might just be the sun burning your plants, which droplets of water would only make worse (by acting as a lens). Try hanging shade cloth above them. It's what I have to do here in California for tomatoes, especially at higher elevations
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that California is the breadbasket for a ton of US goods. You're right, we need to stop but it's gonna be painful for a lot of industries.
What are the major agricultural commodities for which California is the breadbasket, and how many of those commodities could be sustainably grown elsewhere in the US and/or imported from abroad? Besides maybe almonds (which can presumably be easily imported), nothing springs to mind as predominately californian.
California totally dominates the fruit market. Georgia might call itself the Peach State but California produces 20 times more peaches. California produces 90% of the nation's grapes and twenty times more wine than the second-place state. It's not necessarily that you couldn't grow these elsewhere, but it is a path-dependent process by which government subsidies have pushed all this production to California and killed the industries elsewhere. Changing this so fruits and vegetables are widely produced in every state would involve an abrupt discontinuity that entrenched California growers are sure to oppose.
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In the most extreme scenario, can the US create new agricultural fields in other states, cutting down forests if needed ? The weather will change but surely the US will still have arable land enough to feed its citizens (even if they have to forget some kind of crops (pistachio, etc.) aside) ?
Sure, but nothing will fully replace the productivity of the California central valley, which has some of the most fertile soil in the world. The Willamette valley up in Oregon is incredibly fertile as well, though it is currently too cold to grow lettuce and strawberries year round. That will change in the coming years but the Willamette valley is about the third the size. Additionally, the Pacific northwest is drought prone just like California, it's just not quite as bad yet. When I was there earlier this summer the reservoirs we're quite low
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#109Anyone 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…
> it's nice to stop driving etc but the big issue is fossil fuel consumption. That's in the hands of big money.
Driving is the biggest source of fossil fuel consumption. Where are you getting your talking points?
Think about the last time you filled up your gas tank. Let's say it's 20 gallons of gas. That's an absolutely massive massive amount of fossil fuel, if you think in terms of 5-gallon buckets.
Each gallon of gas emits 20 pounds of CO2 when burned (it gets heavier because each carbon atom gets two oxygen atoms are arched to it). That's 400 pounds of CO2.
Now let's compare that to meat. A pound of beef, something that lasts 2-10 meals, averages 20 pounds according to the all-in estimates that I've seen. (Note that the 400 pounds of CO2 from a tank of gas underestimates true emissions because it skips the 10%-50% extra energy for extraction transport and refinement, that gets cou United against beef).
Other meats, from non-ruminants that don't emit methane from digestion, have a fraction of the carbon footprint.
Run the numbers on flight, and it's about the same emissions as a single passenger gas vehicle driving that distance.
Run the numbers on your fossil gas furnace fossil gas water heater, and it's about as much as a typical car.
All the stuff you buy that's not directly fossil fuels? Tiny fraction of this all.
Climate change will not be solved by individual action. It will be solved by collective action to change everybody's behavior. Everybody. The biggest impediment to that change is politics, and the biggest impediment to political change are the forces mobilized by big money interests. But what you are repeating here plays right into their hands, not into the changes we must make to all of society.
Re: California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being
#110Real 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…
> people would be coming from Fresno, not San Francisco
Yeah. Bay Area is privileged to have the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct to bring them water from a reservoir in the Yosemite national park, independent of the local weather conditions.
