California has about one year of water left • Hacker News Board

Re: California has about one year of water left

#71

Post by doktrin » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:03 PM UTC

zedpm wrote: post #43

sp332 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, if people can't afford water to drink, they're clearly not valuable enough to live. If a farm can't afford water for crops, the crops weren't profitable enough to grow anyway. And if the rest of the nation can't afford food since some foods will be scarce without California farms, they should just be more productive. No need for regulation!

Come on, you're not even trying to engage in a rational discussion. I've seen figures that put 1,000 gallons of water at around $1.50, so even doubling the price leaves water at a fraction of a penny per gallon. At ordinary levels of consumption, nobody is getting priced out of drinking water. What starts to get expensive is washing your car, doing many loads of laundry, watering that thirsty lawn every day, taking l…

This is a sound point. There's nothing wrong with some price flexibility.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#72

Post by rjett » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

Disclaimer: I have no clue if what I'm proposing is realistic or not, but:

Perhaps the federal government should step in and gradually step down the level of subsidies given to farmers in California and gradually increase subsidies given to NEW farmers in other, more water rich parts of the country. This would have the effect of moving farms to more sustainable locations in the country. Sure, the types of crops produced would change and consumer demands would have to shift with that, but that isn't the worst thing in the world.

Another solution is to allow utilities to drastically increase water prices for communities that import most of their water anyways.

All in all, both solutions are geared towards population displacement in unsustainable locations. Just as New Orleans is probably destined for another Katrina, SoCal is probably destined to be a desert despite the demands we've put on the land in the last century.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#73

Post by IndianAstronaut » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #18

tdees40 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that under most scenarios water for humans is fine, but agriculture will be totally dead in California.

Which would still be absolutely catastrophic considering how much of US (and world, for that matter) supplies of produce come from CA.

Not really. If the US opened up its agricultural markets much more to the rest of the world, there will be no shortage of suppliers. Problem is that to sell crops to the US there is a maze of regulations and tariffs.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#74

Post by freehunter » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #41

treehau5 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until new farms capitalize on the opportunity to capture the market in places where there's an abundance of water.

Get real. Where is there that has the same amount of arable land and infrastructure and semi-skilled labor to just ramp up to where California is now?

The entire Midwest and plains states. They would just need to switch from growing field corn to something that people can actually eat.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#75

Post by baddox » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

victoro wrote: post #61

blake8086 wrote: post #11

I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.

Perhaps you should crack open that Econ 101 textbook first, because that same Econ 101 textbook would likely have water as the canonical example used to explain elasticity of demand. Demand for water is inelastic, both for agriculture and home use, so letting the "supply and demand curve" take care of it would likely cause a sharp increase in price in a very short period of time, which, from a policy perspective, see…

Would it cause more panic and economic instability than California having zero water next year, but at a great price?

Re: California has about one year of water left

#76

Post by EdSharkey » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

stdgy wrote: post #21

blake8086 wrote: post #11

I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.

Wouldn't changing the price agriculturists pays for water be exactly the kind of regulation you're deriding? Though perhaps you are referring to the price of something else?

I would prefer if we just remove the government distortion in price of water that drives down the price farmers have paid and force them to pay a market-driven rate. (Deregulate, then?) Perhaps if they would pay the market-dictated rate, smart farmers will get to keep their farms by choosing to not do idiotic things like plant rice patties and walnut groves in a desert.

Water is one of those scarce resources that have alternative uses. If we would just charge farmers what the water in California is truly worth, rational decision making will return to agriculture there. Or, agriculture could move to a more suitable place.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#77

Post by acomjean » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

nfriedly wrote: post #45

How feasible is desalination? If they can make that work on a large scale, then there's quite literally an ocean of water available to California.

Desalination is expensive and not great for the environment, but its starting to happen.

http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/533446/desalin...

Re: California has about one year of water left

#78

Post by tlrobinson » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #16

blake8086 wrote: post #11

I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.

You're right, if people can't afford water to drink, they're clearly not valuable enough to live. If a farm can't afford water for crops, the crops weren't profitable enough to grow anyway. And if the rest of the nation can't afford food since some foods will be scarce without California farms, they should just be more productive. No need for regulation!

> "You're right, if people can't afford water to drink, they're clearly not valuable enough to live."

Let's do the math.

Adults need about 3 liters of water per day [1], but let's round up to 1 gallon. Where I live, in SF, a single family residence is currently charged about $5 for the first "unit" of water per month, which is 748 gallons, so about $0.007 per gallon.

Residential water prices could go up at least an order of magnitude and no one would die of dehydration. People may have to cut back on showers/laundry/car washes, but isn't that exactly what we want?

[1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healt...

[2] http://www.sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=168

Re: California has about one year of water left

#79

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

ebbv wrote: post #53

toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really think "OK, so what? People can move." You are totally detached from reality. That's not what would happen. There would be riots. So, there isn't enough water, people don't want to move to where there is water, what's your solution? Water costs, whether thats to pump it out of the ground, import it from places that do have water, or desalinate it. Someone has to pay for that. Would it not be those who…

There isn't an easy solution that I can write up in a short paragraph in the HN comments. That's the point. It's a complex issue.

/u/timtadh summed it up perfectly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9198672

"From my perspective the problem with water in the US is that no one is charged for the actual water. You are only charged for the processing costs. This means that the market never acts to regulate how much water you use. People will use less water if it costs them more."

Re: California has about one year of water left

#80

Post by omegaham » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #16

blake8086 wrote: post #11

I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.

You're right, if people can't afford water to drink, they're clearly not valuable enough to live. If a farm can't afford water for crops, the crops weren't profitable enough to grow anyway. And if the rest of the nation can't afford food since some foods will be scarce without California farms, they should just be more productive. No need for regulation!

The first people to be hit by the price increase will be the farmers of water-intensive crops. The people will be paying much, much less.

The current situation is due to aggressive subsidy of agriculture. Get rid of the subsidies, and the problem will take care of itself. Of course, it will badly hurt California's agricultural sector, but it still needs to happen. You can't fool nature.