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The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

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Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#301

Post by colechristensen »

mistersquid wrote: post #186
wudangmonk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they have ever added one of these useless restrictions on California yet it's been mostly posturing. They blame the lawn, and you have people peacocking about their dry lawns in an effort to gain social brownie points. I'm surprised they still blame the lawn and havent moved on to pools or something more easily associated with wealth to really try and stir the poor vs rich debate. Meanwhile even if no g…

> I'm surprised they still blame the lawn and havent moved on to pools or something more easily associated with wealth to really try and stir the poor vs rich debate. I understand these figures may not mean anything because private individuals consume relatively imperceptible amounts of water compared to (the agriculture) industry. But reflect for a moment that Kim Kardashian blew through over one quarter million gal…

For context vs the quarter million figure for a month for a celebrity:

yesterday it rained about 20 million gallons of water on my family’s small Iowa farm. Like a middle class income size of farm.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#302

Post by gsk22 »

samatman wrote: post #269
Siddarth1977 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agricultural use of water is actually productive though. Most of us prefer having food to starving. Having a lush, green front lawn in the desert however helps no one (and actively harms the natural plants and animals that belong in a given climate). Additionally, while some water issues are over very large areas (eg, piping water from Colorado River to LA) lots of places have far more local water issues, where a giv…

If you ever drive through the part of the Imperial Valley which is just artichokes, you'll viscerally get the point I'm about to make: you shouldn't be deciding whether square miles of artichokes are a more productive use of water than someone's lawn. No one is starving without artichokes, lawns make people happy. We solve this kind of problem with markets, or in California's case, we flagrantly ignore the solution a…

Markets solve problems efficiently, but not equitably. In the case of water, an equitable solution is a moral prerogative, no?

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#303

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

s0rce wrote: post #184
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think people live in the cities in the desert near the CA central valley?

I'm not sure what you mean, what cities in the desert near the central valley? Reno, Lancaster?

I'm not sure "cities in the desert" the GGP was meaning. Typically this means places like Phoenix, but that's not in California.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#304

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

lazide wrote: post #180
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not just the story of California, but the entire US southwest. Unlike back east, where water is subject to municipal authority and policy (thus allowing a town/city/county/state to decide what the best way to use the water is, especially in times of actual or imminent shortages), the western states ended up with this absurd "water rights" concept that prevents effective policy making.

Eh, back east water isn’t life and death - in the sense that for the vast majority of the east coast, everyone has plenty unless you’re a gigantic super metropolis. In the west, water is scarce and the most limited resource in most areas - and literally life and death. An old saw here is, ‘whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over’

> Eh, back east water isn’t life and death

You'd have said that in the UK and Western Europe if you're less than 100 years old ... until this summer. Sure, it may not literally be life or death the way it could be if you were lost on foot in the deserts of Nevada, but the prospect of running out of water for agriculture in certain parts of what has hitherto been a well-watered part of the world became quite tangible this summer.

The old dividing line for "agriculture without irrigation" was the 100th meridian. It has already moved at least two degrees east, and there are some forecasts that predict that climate change could move it as far as the 90th. So "the east" is a bit of a mutable concept at this time.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#305

Post by nradov »

gsk22 wrote: post #302
samatman wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever drive through the part of the Imperial Valley which is just artichokes, you'll viscerally get the point I'm about to make: you shouldn't be deciding whether square miles of artichokes are a more productive use of water than someone's lawn. No one is starving without artichokes, lawns make people happy. We solve this kind of problem with markets, or in California's case, we flagrantly ignore the solution a…

Markets solve problems efficiently, but not equitably. In the case of water, an equitable solution is a moral prerogative, no?

Everyone has a different option about equity when it comes to distribution of natural resources. It's highly subjective.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#306

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

juve1996 wrote: post #190
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you reduce residential use to zero (clearly impossible, but what's a thought experiment for anyway?), you've reduced water consumption overall by 7-10%. That means that every single problem you faced before is still with you, despite having performed the impossible. Low hanging fruit, and all that ....

That's a huge percentage. 10%! If that's true then it's a no brainer even if other things are more egregious

Do you not understand that this thought experiment reduced residential usage to ZERO ?

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#307

Post by lazide »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #304
lazide wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, back east water isn’t life and death - in the sense that for the vast majority of the east coast, everyone has plenty unless you’re a gigantic super metropolis. In the west, water is scarce and the most limited resource in most areas - and literally life and death. An old saw here is, ‘whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over’

> Eh, back east water isn’t life and death You'd have said that in the UK and Western Europe if you're less than 100 years old ... until this summer. Sure, it may not literally be life or death the way it could be if you were lost on foot in the deserts of Nevada, but the prospect of running out of water for agriculture in certain parts of what has hitherto been a well-watered part of the world became quite tangible…

‘literally life and death’ is exactly what I mean.

And it doesn’t require being on foot for it to be so. Las Vegas could literally not be more than a tiny town of desert rats without the water rights on the Colorado they have, same with Phoenix.

Instead they’re huge bustling metropolises.

Even with the issues going on in Europe, crops may die, farmers may go bankrupt - but no one will be literally without water and die from it, or even have to resort to overland tanking.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#308

Post by [deleted] »

lazide wrote: post #273
arrosenberg wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, thats just a completely revisionist history. All of these works projects were funded by federal dollars or city dollars, including the infrastructure to get it to the farmers. They pay a fraction of the delivery cost the cities pay. All the purification and recapture facilities are built and paid for on top of that. Western farmers have never, ever paid a fair price for the water they use.

That's bullshit, at least in California. Most of the problem water usage from Farmers, for example in the central and antelope valley, has been from private wells on private property they themselves sunk, or an equivalent small co-operative they were a member of did. They've been tapping huge underground fossil aquifers that way for nearly 100 years now, to the point it's been collapsing. No canals required. [ https:…

[deleted]

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#309

Post by gsk22 »

nradov wrote: post #305
gsk22 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets solve problems efficiently, but not equitably. In the case of water, an equitable solution is a moral prerogative, no?

Everyone has a different option about equity when it comes to distribution of natural resources. It's highly subjective.

For other natural resources, sure. But without water humans _die_. That's not subjective.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#310

Post by Thorrez »

gsk22 wrote: post #309
nradov wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has a different option about equity when it comes to distribution of natural resources. It's highly subjective.

For other natural resources, sure. But without water humans _die_. That's not subjective.

How about making the price graduated. Each household has a low price up to a certain point (a reasonable amount for indoor use of the household) and after that it's market price.
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