Oh happy day! I never expected to see such a staunch defence and enthusiasm for central government command economies here on HN! Who knew that all it took was the idea of buying food from foreigners to bring out HN's closeted Marxists.
California has about one year of water left
241–250 of 405 posts
Re: California has about one year of water left
#242Disclaimer: 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 produ…
If the rest of the country could grow the same crops as "America's Salad Bowl" we would. California is ideal for those crops and without the large population would be fine. It is probably past time to actually push desalination plants or convince a lot of people to move somewhere else.
Please not WA. We have enough Californians moving here and driving up prices already.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think simply phasing out water subsidies would be a huge win. I've read a fair number of reports suggesting that, while not great, the situation would be considerably improved if farmers had an incentive to invest in more efficient irrigation techniques or switch to more drought-tolerant crops. The catch is that it costs money and that's risky if you're the first one in the industry doing it – if the government ann…
There's a related issue of perennial, tree, and more orchard-like agriculture rather than seasonal crops. These farmers cannot reduce their water consumption without suffering massive losses - they're price insensitive on water to a large extent, and their choices are irrigate or go bankrupt. IIRC, avocado trees are a big culprit for California's future commitment to consuming water for agricultural purposes.
Avocados are produced much more efficiently in Michoacán. Now that 85% of avocados sold in USA are imported, the conversion of these orchards to more sustainable agriculture would be less of a blow to the consumer.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#244What has happened before will happen again. California had similar issues with mild winters and the reduced water associated with them back in the 1930s. [1][2] The difference now of course is that there are a great many more people there and a great many more farms. The Bureau of Reclamation is pretty much at fault for the lack of water available for human consumption because of mismanagement and prices below the co…
The other difference is the ground water reservoirs are significantly more drained now than in the 1930s.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
The entire Midwest and plains states. They would just need to switch from growing field corn to something that people can actually eat.
It's not that simple. Farm crops are what works well for the soil and climate of that region. You don't see fields of corn in California because it's not an attractive climate for corn. Likewise, you don't see fields of broccoli in Iowa, for the same reasons. Midwest corn mostly goes to feed for cattle, hogs, and chickens. The corn may not be really great human food, but it gets made into great human food through an…
You don't see fields of corn in California because it's not an attractive climate for corn.
Why? I've seen corn grown in California. I think the lack of corn has more to do with the ability to grow more profitable crops than corn in California.
I can't see why corn wouldn't grow well here.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#246This thread is long so this comment will likely fall pretty quickly, but this page is pretty telling in terms of usage by sector: http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108
1. Environmental 50% 2. Ag 40% 3. Urban 10%
(btw, this is particularly topical when my landlord just informed us he'd be swapping our shower heads for lower-flow ones due to increased costs in Southern Cal (bringing a toothpick to a gun fight?))
The thought process for how to decrease use, though, would be: 1. Can we tap into environmental use and, if so, how much, or is that verboten? 2. If no, which ag can we forgo with the least human/economic impact? 3. If no easy answer looking at both human and economic impact of ag, which ag can we forgo with the least human impact (e.g., if none of us had an almond ever again, would the world be worse off for it? That makes killing almonds purely economic) 4. If there's not enough from 1-3, then we've probably gotten to a life-threatening lack of water and so we get rid of crops that have the least "nutritional" value (i.e., crops that are best at sustaining life are the ones we keep) 5. If we still can't support life, looks like it's time to desalinate, create a pipeline from east or move
Of course, even though it's a drop in the bucket, we should just immediately save the 5% that's used for urban and residential landscaping (see article; ~50% of urban use is landscaping) because there's nothing "essential" about that even though there would be an economic impact (and a whole lotta angry golfers).
Re: California has about one year of water left
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
That reads like it was written by a clueless reactionary. Draining reservoirs didn't cause the drought. It caused the water supply to dry up sooner in the midst of a drought. > Then they alleged that global warming, not their own foolish policies, had caused the current crisis. One of the most brain-dead sentences I've ever read. No one is claiming that global warming is responsible for the reservoirs being depleted.…
> They are claiming that global warming is responsible for the fact that the reservoirs have not been replenished by rain and snow melt. Even Mother Jones and NOAA disagree with you: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/12/new-study-cal...
Did I say I was saying that? I said "they", meaning the people referred to in the linked article.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Golf courses account for probably not more than 0.5% of all human water usage in California annually. Human water usage in CA is about 80% agricultural, 20% "urban". "Urban" covers all residential, (non-agricultural) commericial, landscaping, etc. Of the "Urban" usage, about 60% is residential, with indoor usage as the majority. Residential landscaping (lawns, pools, etc) uses at least 3 times as much as all commerci…
> Golf courses account for probably not more than 0.5% of all human water usage in California annually. Great! That's half percent point gain of a life-constraining resource at the cost of a little non-essential entertainment for a small minority of people. It's the same when you are trying to make a tight budget. First you cut off all the stupid impulse purchases. Then you figure out how much of each useful expense…
Eh, I cut out Spotify (what, $9.99/month) and saved some $120/year. Woopty do. I cut out Starbucks ($2/day since I get regular coffee) and make coffee at home I save at least twice that. I cut out fast food lunches ($6/meal) and bring cheap cold cut sandwiches (no more than $2/meal with some veggies as a side) and I save close to $1k/year.
It's like profiling code. Sure there are some easy cheap gains, but when you find that 80% of your time is spent on task X you may want to focus your performance profiling on that section.
EDIT: I'd like to add, that in other parts of the country (I saw this in OK and GA, at least) golf is reasonably popular even amongst the lower middle class. I don't know how it is in CA (or what percentage of courses are accessible to that economic group), but it may not be just the rich elite that would lose out if you eliminated golf courses from the state.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which in turn means US will have to do with about 50% less vegetable/crop to consume.
No, because the price would go up and some of the crop would get grown in other states. Hard to say what the exact percentage would stabilize at, though, and it certainly takes a long time to plant orchards, etc. But what is the percentage of income taken by produce? Not very high, I'd guess. Probably affect the poor the most.
Some crops would take years to rebound, like nuts, which are both water intensive and take years to mature.
Re: California has about one year of water left
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until new farms capitalize on the opportunity to capture the market in places where there's an abundance of water.
Spoken like a true city dweller. Like other have alluded to, farmers think in terms of years. Ever hear the expression "the best time to plant a fruit tree was 5 years ago". I wonder where that came from.
"...and the second best time is today"