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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

#141

Post by jjav »

rcpt wrote: post #112
epistasis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> opposition is from older folks from the 70s who are worried about "population" Absolutely yes and thanks for calling it out. Water is weaponized all over coastal California. "There's not enough water here" is a very convincing argument to stop construction on new housing. Santa Cruz does the same thing as Monterrey as does Malibu. The results are often horrible infrastructure with septic tanks leeching into creeks…

> "There's not enough water here" is a very convincing argument to stop construction on new housing. Santa Cruz does the same thing as Monterrey as does Malibu.

I don't know details of the others, but in Santa Cruz water sources are limited to rivers and one small reservoir (Loch Lomond) which is getting low. Concerns about water availability are very real. Without rain all of these could dry up.

https://www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-departments/...

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

#142

Post by throwaway894345 »

jeffbee wrote: post #107
throwaway894345 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kille…

Interesting. This seems believable. Supply chains don’t turn on a dime and unsustainable farmers will always support the unsustainable practices on which they depend, but we should start making moves in the right direction now.

> Changing this so fruits and vegetables are widely produced in every state

This isn’t the requirement. The requirement is that we source sustainably grown food. That can come from Mexico or the lusher regions of the US or wherever. I don’t think we need to grow oranges and lemons in Alaska or corn in Hawaii, we just need to be able to get sustainably-grown food to those places.

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

#143

Post by epistasis »

jjav wrote: post #141
rcpt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> opposition is from older folks from the 70s who are worried about "population" Absolutely yes and thanks for calling it out. Water is weaponized all over coastal California. "There's not enough water here" is a very convincing argument to stop construction on new housing. Santa Cruz does the same thing as Monterrey as does Malibu. The results are often horrible infrastructure with septic tanks leeching into creeks…

> "There's not enough water here" is a very convincing argument to stop construction on new housing. Santa Cruz does the same thing as Monterrey as does Malibu. I don't know details of the others, but in Santa Cruz water sources are limited to rivers and one small reservoir (Loch Lomond) which is getting low. Concerns about water availability are very real. Without rain all of these could dry up. https://www.cityofsa…

But the idea that new housing is connected to increased water usage does not, as they say, hold water.

https://santacruzlocal.org/2021/02/15/does-more-housing-mean...

As Santa Cruz's population has increased, water usage goes down. Replacing old inefficient single family homes with terrible appliances and plumbing, with 4x as many people in a multifamily building with highefficiency appliances and faucets, and modern landscaping, will likely reduce water consumption.

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

#144

Post by dredmorbius »

johnchristopher wrote: post #92
scrumbledober wrote: post #81

Earlier 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) ?

Table crops require ample irrigation and mild temperatures.

The parts of the US which have the most rain also tend to see more severe winters. The parts of the US which have more sunshine and warmth ... tend to be dry.

It's possible that table-crop cultivation --- lettuce, fruits, vegetables, etc., could move to the southeastern US. That's closer to larger population centres as well, which might reduce shipping times and costs, and improve produce quality in Eastern and Central grocery stores. Traditionally, the South is known for cotton, peanuts, stone fruits (peaches), oranges (Florida), and tobacco.

The magic California offered was hot, dry, sunny summers, with the only thing required to make the fields bountiful being a reliable supply of water. The state's mountain dams fed a slowly-released pulse of meltwater from snowpacks delivered this.

There is the added bonus that although the Central Valley is famously hot, it has low humidity, making farm-labour conditions far more tenable, helps as well. Mississippi in August is not a dry heat.

That's now severely imperiled.

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

#145

Post by dredmorbius »

azinman2 wrote: post #127

Back in 2015, another drought year, the head of the water board gave a really interesting talk to the MIT Bay Area club: http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/mitcnc/videos/31839-califo... In it she said that California didn’t have as much a water problem as a water capture and storage problem. All of the capture and storage was built during wet years and if we could capture storm runoff even in places like LA we’d be in…

Turns out the video's hosted on YouTube for those prefering to stream audio via mpv (or similar tools):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5z-XIahirdk

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

#147

Post by dredmorbius »

ii550 wrote: post #80

Geologically, that area has ALWAYS been desert, with the only exception being the past 150 years. Not surprised.

Depends.

Much of the central valley was an at-least-intermittent lake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862

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

#148

Post by xeromal »

jeffbee wrote: post #107
throwaway894345 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kille…

Explained it better than I could!

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

#149

Post by dredmorbius »

epistasis wrote: post #109
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…

> 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…

First: the bigger point is that it will be systemic and collective actions which result in meaningful change. Individual mindfulness and advocacy help, but they're by no means sufficient.

On fossil-fuel consumption and carbon emissions:

Natural gas and coal combined exceed total petroleum usage (measured in quadrillion BTUs) for the United States. Much of the coal and gas is used in electrical generation, though also in industrial and commercial use.

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/energy/us/...

It looks as if transportation net carbon emissions are slightly less than 50%:

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Car...

It's close enough that this is something of a niggle, but in terms of accuracy, whilst it's fair to say that transport is a major source of CO2 emissions, it's not quite the majority contributor.

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

#150

Post by akomtu »

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…

What if every manufactured good had a nutritional label that told how much energy, oil and minerals were spent on it?
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