Israel produces about one-third of its water from desalination. Its largest plant produces 165 million gallons per day. The firm that built and runs that plant is building one in Carlsbad, CA going on-line in 2016 and producing 50 million gallons per day.
California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
161–170 of 249 posts
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not when it's just random chance. An X year drought by definition is supposed to happen every X years.
What's the dividing line between a changing climate and a very highly randomly varying unchanging climate? Also, minor nit, "X year event" doesn't mean the event should happen every X years, but that over a span Y >> X, the event happens Y / X times.
Yes I meant on average.
The dividing line is simple; it's when the average changes. You can't objectively measure this, but you can get certainty bounds by using many data points. The smaller the change, the more data points you need.
A single huge drought in a place prone to droughts is not a very strong data point by itself. Unless it literally doesn't end, we'll need many more years of rain measurements to know if the baseline has changed.
If you go global it's a lot easier to take independent measurements and show climate change exists at all. But to ask whether the level of rain in California is from climate change simply can't be answered as quickly.
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't give away what you down own. When the state gave rights to water to land holders it was well before we had the technology to meaningfully impact water levels and thereby impact other peoples access to water. Since Roman times land ownership went from the highest heavens to the the deepest deeps, but the law was changed after blimps and other aircraft needed it and they certainly didn't need to pay off milli…
When the state gave rights to water to land holders it was well before we had the technology to meaningfully impact water levels and thereby impact other peoples access to water. Droughts, floods, dams, and aqueducts are older than any currently standing government. If water rights laws can already consider those events and structures, they can be adjusted to incorporate manmade climate change as well.
That would be true if there was a "water rights law". The problem is that there is no single law. Water rights are tied to real property law, especially when farming is involved. The American legal tradition, as adopted from the brits, places the property owner as a king on his land. It has great trouble allowing others, non-landowners, to tell that king what he can and cannot do with his land.
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any evidence of this that they are not growing more because California subsidizes water usage?
Just basic economics. Subsidies increase supply which reduces prices. Lower prices discourage production. Net result is that production shifts to the place with the subsidies.
So your suggestion is to get rid of the subsidies?
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#165There's water, and then there's water. You can put just about any water on a farm field or orchard, but not into someone's tap. Water for taps has to be treated. This means that you can have more than one kind of water shortage. There's shortage of water, and shortage of treatable/treated water. What's more, water is difficult to (efficiently) transport long distances. Aquaducts are about the only way to do it. This…
I think this is one of the better posts on this thread but I take issue with two things. First, I think it's hilarious that you think northern californians live in harmony with nature. I would say the nature harmony declines as you go north, terminating in the "state of jefferson" region where all they want is to clear cut every single tree. Secondly, because of the almond rush there are comparatively few 30-year-old…
Thanks! Replying to your two points:
Taking the city of San Francisco and comparing it to the city of Los Angeles, I think that SF has a considerably stronger environmental movement, so the statement was not complete nonsense. It may not reflect the whole of Northern California.
As to the orchards: I pulled "30 years" out of thin air; I have no particular attachment to that number. My point was that the orchard loses considerably more than this year's crop.
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many farmers are getting no [0] water this year and are relying on ground water to keep trees alive or not planting seasonal crops. Others get a very small fraction of their typical allotment [1]. California water rights are complicated... [0] http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article11355200... [1] http://hanfordsentinel.com/news/in_focus/california_drought/...
The trees they're trying to keep alive have ridiculously high water consumption, almonds for instance consume 10s of litres of water for each _individual_ almond. They need to stop growing trees like that in a desert, which is what they're doing. The wells they are digging are tapping into the underlying aquifers that are the last resort, so they are in fact getting _free_ water while complaining about the cost. In e…
The figures I found put it more at 1 gallon per almond. They aren't even the largest culprit, yet they get talked about so much. No one seems to want to mention the biggest spenders in terms of water, meat and dairy. This handy article, http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/from-lettuce-to-beef-wh... puts into comparison water taken up by each food source. Meat and dairy are way up there.
If you want to compare by source in California, animal agriculture takes up 47% of California's water, far more than any crop or other source, http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ft... (take a look at page 3 of the pdf).
Lets get our priorities straight here, lets stop talking about almonds (mentioned 24+ times in this thread) and start talking meat and dairy (mentioned twice in this thread...).
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#167California needs to raise the price of water. Isn't it ironic that water in Seattle (which has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fresh water) is more expensive than it is in SF and LA? http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp-content/uploads/201... If you want people to use less water, simply raise the price.
California needs to raise the price of water. [. . .] If you want people to use less water, simply raise the price.
This is absolutely correct and Alex Tabarrok just wrote a similar post on Marginal Revolution: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the...
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
someone has to protect our poor farmers, everyone loves farmers.
food shortage leads to revolution. The real problem here is we tried to turn a desert in to our national bread basket.
Unnecessary and inefficient foods are farmed in California. There is a huge margin for improvement in land and water use before we come close to food shortage.
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah it seems pretty crazy that they are targeting the smallest sliver of water use for restrictions. I'd think we would want to limit the restrictions on everyday citizens and focus on the farmers who are fewer in number and, I would assume, easier to control as a whole than every citizen in CA...
Residential users are a dispersed interest group. Industrial users are (mostly) concentrated interest groups. These results are exactly what you should expect.
In political chess it would make sense to put the squeeze on the masses in an effort get popular support behind putting the squeeze on corporations. Everyone needs to contribute.
Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought
#170There are limits to the governor's powers here. Much of the agricultural water comes from "rights" or easements attached to specific land. Ownership of farm X comes with the right to water from river Y. This is the "free" water often mentioned in news reports. Any reduction in these rights is viewed as a legal "taking" or condemnation of a property right by the state. Lawsuits for compensation will result. And they w…
In Australia the government has bought back vast amounts of water from land owners allocations to save a river system.