Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 280 posts

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#181

Post by soperj »

willturman wrote: post #177
gosub100 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wildfire is part of nature.

Yes, of course, those natural wildfires started by downed power infrastructure [1], bullets [2], and campfires on red flag days [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Fire [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldor_Fire [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Fire

Most of the actual wild fires just get put out. The big ones are happening because the build up is too big since all the smaller ones have been put out. It's all in service of the forestry industry.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#182

Post by nandomrumber »

jama211 wrote: post #161
offsign wrote: post #108

Makes for a catchy headline, but you only have to go back to Jan 9, 2024* to find a similarly 'drought free' California: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/CompareTwoWeeks.aspx (*Technically slivers of the state in the far north/south were 'abnormally dry' in 2024, a small difference from 2026)

Wait so who is being dishonest, the old article, the new one, or both?

There’s ample dishonesty to go round, no one has to miss out if they don’t want to.

Arguably, there are an infinite number of things that are dishonest, and only a finite number of things that can be honest at any given moment.

Therefore one can honestly say that there are effectively zero honest things, and the entirety of human thought and speech, the noosphere as it where, is the singular dishonesty.

The dishonest-gularity.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#183

Post by stouset »

awesome_dude wrote: post #127
trollbridge wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall rather absurd demands such as telling restaurants not to offer water (as if a glass of water makes any difference) and telling residents to skip showers.

> as if a glass of water makes any difference Just FTR, it's not a single glass of water, it's n glasses of water per day multiplied by some number of days and some number of restaurants So, more likely, 2 or 3 glasses of water :-)

No, the amount of water conserved through these measures was absolutely meaningless even at scale. You are talking about a fraction of a fraction of a percent of use.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#184

Post by awesome_dude »

stouset wrote: post #183
awesome_dude wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as if a glass of water makes any difference Just FTR, it's not a single glass of water, it's n glasses of water per day multiplied by some number of days and some number of restaurants So, more likely, 2 or 3 glasses of water :-)

No, the amount of water conserved through these measures was absolutely meaningless even at scale. You are talking about a fraction of a fraction of a percent of use.

> So, more likely, 2 or 3 glasses of water :-)

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#185

Post by Animats »

dangero wrote: post #133

It’s important to note that rainfall in CA is not 100% natural. The state actively funds cloud seeding. https://www.grants.ca.gov/grants/gfo-23-311-advancing-precip... Example of a recent $2.5M grant. This information is often buried in budgets under applied research grants. I suspect they obscure this information because it could create liabilities, for example, if gov funded rain seeding creates flooding and human…

Santa Clara County had an active cloud-seeding program from 1954 through 1994.[1] Santa Clara County used to be a major agricultural area. The goal is not to create rain, but to move it. Get the clouds to dump over the agricultural areas instead of the inland mountains. It worked, a little. But there was a concern that it was making wildfires worse, by doing what it was intended to do and thus making the inland forests more dry.

[1] https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/valleywater.org.us-west-1...

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#186

Post by gbear605 »

dcrazy wrote: post #171
Izikiel43 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'm not saying they don't, but it isn't a critical crop for day to day life, biologically speaking. No one is going to die for not eating almonds. Is it economically important? For sure. Is it critical for living? No.

We don’t decide what to grow based on what someone decides is “critical for living.” We decide what to grow based on what sells for a decent margin above cost. Some countries in the Eastern Hemisphere tried the first way and it didn’t work out very well.

Sure - the problem is that the almond farmers are being incentivized to grow almonds by giving them a significantly below market cost. If the the costs reflected reality, almonds wouldn’t be profitable.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#187

Post by NAR8789 »

xp84 wrote: post #145
avalys wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of how patronizing policies developed by intellectual authorities backfire in the real world. The premise is, the general population is too stupid to do the right thing themselves and need to be reminded of the drought by being inconvenienced by completely ineffective performative policies. All this actually does in practice is diminish trust in authorities to make good decisions. If the droug…

> just allow the market to set the price of water based on what’s available. I'm 100% with you overall on the basic thrust of your comment, however I can't help but think that if we were adjusting water prices, somehow they'd go up by 60% in the dry years and go down 10% in the wet years. Maybe that's just because here in California we pay 2x-3x what anyone else in the US pays for electricity, and 50% more than most…

I don't know why California's electricity costs so much, but the gas prices are high due to regulation distorting the market. California has special California gas produced only at in-state refineries. It's for a good cause--California's gas, "CARB gas" is cleaner. But the gas market in California is segregated from the wider US market

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#188

Post by vee-kay »

Isn't this the same state where the rich people water their plush lawns even in the peak of summer during drought?

And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as all that precious water gets piped away to feed the thirsty city-district (Los Angeles)?

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#189

Post by saghm »

nandomrumber wrote: post #182
jama211 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait so who is being dishonest, the old article, the new one, or both?

There’s ample dishonesty to go round, no one has to miss out if they don’t want to. Arguably, there are an infinite number of things that are dishonest, and only a finite number of things that can be honest at any given moment. Therefore one can honestly say that there are effectively zero honest things, and the entirety of human thought and speech, the noosphere as it where, is the singular dishonesty. The dishonest…

I'm not sure that "effectively zero" is quite right; "approximately zero" seems more correct. And on that note, there are also approximately zero instances in the history of the universe where someone has responded to your comment, but hey look, I'm doing it now!

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#190

Post by weird-eye-issue »

vee-kay wrote: post #188

Isn't this the same state where the rich people water their plush lawns even in the peak of summer during drought? And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as…

Desalination uses a lot more energy and is higher cost
Post reply on HN