California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought • Hacker News Board

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#211

Post by pjlegato » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:51 AM UTC

djur wrote: post #200

pjlegato wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't help but notice that americans (seem to) completely lack this sense of responsibility/playing your part/restraining yourself for the greater good/whatever Of course there are exceptions, but in general Americans are much more oriented to the rights of the individual and much less to collectivism and the 'greater good' than Germans. We tend to view collectivism as an inherently oppressive and dictatorial mod…

> We tend to view collectivism as an inherently oppressive and dictatorial mode of social organization, a cruel enslavement and subjugation of the individual, who is prohibited from doing anything but following the mandates of the collective handed down by some vast inhuman and opaque bureaucracy. The number of people I have met who actually 'tend to' believe anything of the sort is very small, and they are all big-L…

Sure, there are lots of US group activities, but they are not collectivist in the sense I was using the word. Churches and sports teams and even the US military today are free and voluntary associations. Nobody forces you to join if you don't want to. It's entirely your choice. If you choose to join the group, great -- it's nobody else's business unless you are harming someone else. It's not an intrinsic or automatic part of you, it's a choice you've made.

What I mean by collectivism is the psychological self-perception that one is involuntarily, primarily, and inherently a member of a group (rather than foremost an individual who happens to choose to join some groups) and then considering all decisions in this context of "what effect will it have on this group that I have found myself in?"

Of course these are broad generalizations and they do not describe everyone in either country, and this short summary is incomplete in some ways. Americans do indeed have a somewhat automatic collective identity as Americans, but it's different in character in that it expressly emphasizes individualism as a core value. I think nonetheless that these broad summaries are also not entirely inaccurate.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#212

Post by x0ra » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:01 AM UTC

Crito wrote: post #146

jbritton wrote: post #132

How come I never hear any talk of building a new water pipeline from Alaska.

Because that would be ridiculous? The distance between Alaska and California is huge ; there is tons of fresh water that is closer to California than Alaska.

Moving liquids over large distances is not a problem for oil...

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#213

Post by duderific » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:04 AM UTC

astrocyte wrote: post #203

A state with questionably the highest concentration of some of the most intelligent people in the U.S and some of the dumbest politicians in the U.S. Question : What were all of the Californian's doing when the state was running out of water for years? Why do you elect bozos? Too busy making apps to be concerned with where you're going to get water from? Ever wonder where all that tax revenue goes? Apparently not to…

Zuckerberg is not a leader of anything except Facebook, so it seems kind of silly to expect him to do anything about it.

California actually passed a bond measure last year to improve the water situation[1]. It's easy to sit back and say how dumb everyone is, but I would say most states don't do so well planning for events that may or may not happen every 40 years.

[1] http://www.acwa.com/spotlight/2014-water-bond

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#214

Post by duderific » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:14 AM UTC

usefulcat wrote: post #147

tibbon wrote: post #35

Wait, they just imposed water restrictions? Wouldn't have that made sense to start like... near the beginning of all of this?

I was kind of surprised by that too. Even down here in Tea Party HQ (TX), at least Austin and San Antonio have had water restrictions for years if not decades.

Well, Texas is probably drier on average than California. California has wide swings between very wet winters and very dry winters. See this chart of Fresno, which is pretty dry on average, but ranges from a high of 22" in a year to a low of 4" over the last 80 years or so. http://www.bytemuse.com/post/drought-historical-rainfall-cal...

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#215

Post by seanflyon » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #193

kemiller wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do need food, but much of what California farms produce is exported, often to places with plenty of water. It doesn't make sense to export water from an arid state in a drought. If the water's real economic value were priced in, that would not be so bad.

You have a point. I just thought water bottlers like Nestle, who continue to use CA water for bottled water, are considered different from agriculture. Besides I feel that people are missing my main point, which is what's wrong with going after low hanging fruit? Reducing our water intake in the form of lawns and in the bathroom is neither a major inconvenience nor is it a financial burden. In fact, it saves people m…

Low hanging fruit mean the most impact for least effort. You are talking about inconveniencing almost all the people so that a few can avoid any changes at all. We should just charge more for water for both residential and agricultural use and let people vote with their dollars on how big of an inconvenience it is to them.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#216

Post by mikekij » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:36 AM UTC

astrocyte wrote: post #203

A state with questionably the highest concentration of some of the most intelligent people in the U.S and some of the dumbest politicians in the U.S. Question : What were all of the Californian's doing when the state was running out of water for years? Why do you elect bozos? Too busy making apps to be concerned with where you're going to get water from? Ever wonder where all that tax revenue goes? Apparently not to…

The Western Hemisphere's largest water desalination plant is opening in Carlsbad this year. It cost $1B, and project planning started almost 10 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#217

Post by seanflyon » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:40 AM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #98

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalination is incredibly expensive. At this point, they aren't completely out of water, as the crisis continues desalination will become more viable (expensive or not, people need water to survive).

According to Wikipedia it's really cheap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Economics

Rainwater is cheaper. IF you look at how much residential users pay, then yeah you see that desalinization would not break the bank, but most water is for farms and they get it by the acre-foot.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#218

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

jconley wrote: post #43

olliej wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know this is all straw man, but interesting stuff... Many crops use much more water than Almonds [0], I guess they're just fun to pick on. It'd be interesting to see a calorie/water comparison of many foods. Also, my family's farm spends more money on well water than the government supplied water due to the high cost of electricity for pumping. I do agree that a real market for water might help. The root of the pro…

What does "many crops are badder" have to do with anything? California produces and incredible number of almonds, and almonds are incredibly water intensive. That's why they are being "picked on".

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#219

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #193

kemiller wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do need food, but much of what California farms produce is exported, often to places with plenty of water. It doesn't make sense to export water from an arid state in a drought. If the water's real economic value were priced in, that would not be so bad.

You have a point. I just thought water bottlers like Nestle, who continue to use CA water for bottled water, are considered different from agriculture. Besides I feel that people are missing my main point, which is what's wrong with going after low hanging fruit? Reducing our water intake in the form of lawns and in the bathroom is neither a major inconvenience nor is it a financial burden. In fact, it saves people m…

So we are going to inconvenience the largest population, smallest demand base? How is that low hanging fruit? Even if the cities disappeared, and thereby California's population, there would still be a water issue from AG alone.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#220

Post by vijayr » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #206

vijayr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad part is, a huge portion of agriculture is to feed animals which then become our meat. It is just not sustainable. The best way to conserve water is to eat less meat. This book has lots of interesting numbers - http://www.amazon.com/Meatonomics-Rigged-Economics-Consume-S...

+1 you are exactly right on this. It takes about 10 times the water and 10 times the energy to eat mostly meat. I would argue that a mostly vegetarian diet is healthier also. One problem is that it takes some degree of skill to cook a delicious vegetarian meal, but is fairly easy to make a tasty meal out of meat.

Meat consumption is a hugely unpopular topic. Take just this HN thread for example. There is way more discussion on crops like almond, than on meat and dairy industries. Meat and dairy consume way more resources than any crop/food grown for human consumption.

We can water our lawns less, and take showers once a week. It will not make much of a difference until we eat less meat. Same goes for sea food too. We are literally eating some of the fish species to extinction - it is just sad.