261–270 of 405 posts
A historical view: http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_california-drought.htm...
The definitive history of water development in California is this book: http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-... It's almost thirty years old now, but the history is just as relevant, and the warnings issued similarly prescient.
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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.…
@glesica I'm not sure I understand the putative difference. Can you explain more?
As for the global warming bit, people (not me, some other commenters seem confused on this fact) are blaming global warming for the drought itself, not for the empty reservoirs. In other words, they are saying that global warming is why it hasn't rained or snowed very much. In this sense, it wouldn't matter one bit (in the big picture) if California had more reservoirs, if the state turns into a desert, the largest reservoirs in the world would still eventually run out.
If the state hadn't removed dams, perhaps they could capture a larger percentage of what precipitation there is, but a larger proportion of a vastly smaller total is still small. The Sierra Nevada snow pack is apparently only 20% of its normal size this year [1]. That means that if the rate of capture was twice as high as it is, the amount captured would still be less than half of normal (back of the envelope calculations).
The link I responded to originally was clearly written by someone playing politics, not by someone actually trying to help others understand the situation.
[1] www.sierranevada.ca.gov/factsheets/snc_factsheet_drought.pdf
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I can't speak for most places, but New Hampshire is almost all new-growth forest. If you roam the woods you'll find miles of ancient stone walls demarking the edges of long-gone farms. Of course, there's not much LAND in New Hampshire so it definitely can't take on California's role (even disregarding all the other problems), but I wanted to give an example of abandoned farmland.
How competitive is NH with a region like California weather-wise? I would imagine that the growing season is much shorter in NH, making it way less attractive. Farming in New England is either specific to the climate or exists mainly because that's where many Europeans first colonized America. Just because farming made economic sense there 50-100 years ago, doesn't mean that it makes economic sense there today.
[1] source: my family's garden when I was growing up.
This could be a boon for middle eastern water companies (Israel has some geniuses in this space) for selling into California. There are a few tactics for tackling this problem (disclaimer: I didn't read the article) - Reduction of waste (leaks, more efficient plumbing, rationing) - Desalination (only useful along the coast) - Deep wells - water extraction from the air - water recycling - what else?
I think in the long-term California needs to consider desalinization but that hardly seems like something that could happen in the next year.
Warning: strong language and opinion I'm glad each time climate change consequences hit the US instead of other countries that contributed way less, like Tuvalu. You consider this rude? Fair enough, I consider it rude to destroy the planet we are living on, at least in a way that makes it habitable for humans. Of course other countries are not innocent either, but the (institutions of the) US stand out in many ways.…
Someone should, I don't know, start a startup or something.
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 produ…
The Midwest would make a good alternative place to grow. It won't be as prone to droughts and will have a longer growing season due to climate change. Either that or giving farmers a subsidy for growing crops that require less water. Our huge Almond industry is a giant water-guzzler.
The Colorado river is also running dry, sometimes it does not even make it to the ocean, which is a basic sign of environmental health -- when rivers run dry significant changes occur rapidly. The Rockies which feed this river has had lower annual snow pack than expected for many years running now.
New agricultural land in the US will be coming from the north as the climate continues to become dryer and warmer, already Canadian farmers have experienced a renewed vigor and development. Unfortunately there will likely be some land and water use competition between fracking as well as the Canadian Boreal forest, one of the largest and most pristine wildernesses in the north american continent.
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Growing water intensive crops like rice in California, which it grows a good deal of, is just stupid. That is an industry which needs to die. I'd argue the same for almonds, which are basically a water intensive cash crop.
Almonds use 10% of the state's water supply. The irony is that almonds and apricots have been grown in the Santa Clara valley and surrounding areas without irrigration until tech booms led to orchards being pulled out and replaced with office complexes.
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There are other places in the world where these crops can be grown. People in those countries will be more than happy to trade us almonds, rice, bananas and the like in exchange for things we are great at producing like software and music. It's a win-win.
Although I would not consider myself an expert, I know it is far more complicated than you appear to think it is. It is not just the climate, as previously mentioned, or the access to fresh water sources, it is also the fertility and durability of the topsoil. There are significant tradeoffs regarding the productivity and soil durability that lead to depletion or pollution because our demand is far beyond sustainable…
Agreed, definitely a thorny issue, and there probably isn't a simple fix. And even if the fix were as simple as "cut off subsidies for water-intensive crops", that would itself be hard in today's political climate.
> no matter how many tricks you come up with and how hard you push the pendulum, it will eventually come swinging back with a vengeance, especially the farther it is pushed out of its range.
Source? Human population is supposed to top out around 10-12B, last I checked, and then level out or even drop off a little bit. In a pinch, modern agriculture could probably feed that many, just with today's methods, but that would mean less in the way of meat and resource-intensive foods like almonds.
There are resource scarcities (e.g. oil, fresh water), but food is not really one of them.
This 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…