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California is not in drought

latimes.com

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Re: California is not in drought

#201

Post by nonameiguess »

xyzzyz wrote: post #59
a11r wrote: post #53

The pricing for water in California is highly asymmetric, with urban users paying significantly more (one to two orders of magnitude more) for water than agricultural users. If agricultural users are charged a higher rate (or equivalently the state cuts back on their subsidies ) and "free' rights to water are regulated and distributed more evenly across the population then wasteful use of water will immediately becom…

Agricultural water and municipal drinkable water are two different things. The farm water does not come from the same distribution system as city water. For example, pulling water straight from a river to irrigate farm is agricultural water. Maybe the cost of agricultural water is too low, it probably is at least in some places. However, it is not clear at all that agricultural uses even compete with urban uses. Urba…

Excellent comment by dragonwriter. Unfortunately, you're wrong about California, even if what you write is true in most places. You can read more about the history of water in Los Angeles here: https://waterforla.com/water/history/

Most today comes from the State Water Project, which pumps all the way from northern California where the Sierra Nevadas drain into rivers and this is the principle source for both Los Angeles and for the Central Valley. Los Angeles also still gets some from the Colorado River pumped across the Mojave, but this is arguably even more insane as it feeds four major metros in Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, none of which have their own local water sources to sustain a large city.

LA basin was a pretty terrible place to put the country's second largest metro. LA did originally get its water from local groundwater basins, but those tapped out when the population was still around 6,000. It was solved by building the original Los Angeles aqueduct to pump all the way from Owens Valley. What other city can say its most famous street is named after a water engineer?

Re: California is not in drought

#202

Post by dqv »

colechristensen wrote: post #113
dqv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the 77.3 million acres to grow the plants we eat pales in comparison to the 781 million acres we use for animal agriculture.[0] Why turn almond orchards into cropland when we can just use less of the land we use for animal production and turn that into cropland? I highly doubt all 781 million acres can only be used for animal grazing. [0]: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bloomberg-illustrates-how-...

Because those grazing lands don’t support crops. They support a little bit of grass and in their natural state had herds of animals not too different from cattle grazing on them. People don’t seem to grok this. On land with little rain you can raise animals where you give a huge expanse per animal. They eat grass and fertilize and participate in the ecosystem. If you wanted to do anything else with the land you would…

I again repeat what I said in my original comment:

I highly doubt all 781 million acres can only be used for animal grazing.

Re: California is not in drought

#203

Post by npsimons »

trimbo wrote: post #95

1000 word opinion piece and not one mention of the Delta Smelt? The author is right though, this climate is the norm. A better way to put it is that California has always been in drought. So when politicians say "drought", they actually mean "deficit". There's more than enough rain and snowpack, but we're not collecting enough of it to meet demand. We could collect more--at great expense--or use less. As i mentioned…

> through the growing of insanely water-needy crops like almonds[1]

Deal with beef and dairy first, then we can talk about almonds: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

Re: California is not in drought

#204

Post by npsimons »

testfoobar wrote: post #41

We use a lot of water growing nuts in California. From 2015: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts... "it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. Residents across the state are being told to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns, but the acreage devoted to the state’s almond orchards have doubled in the past decade. The amount…

Beef and dairy are by far worse than almonds, in every conceivable way, yet we don't hear people bitching about production of those in California: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

Re: California is not in drought

#205

Post by npsimons »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #52
testfoobar wrote: post #41

We use a lot of water growing nuts in California. From 2015: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts... "it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. Residents across the state are being told to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns, but the acreage devoted to the state’s almond orchards have doubled in the past decade. The amount…

This is poor logic influenced by the politics of the LA aqueduct and water project. Nuts are calorie dense, and most foods require as much if not more water per calorie. Food simply requires a lot of water. For example, A 5 oz glass of wine takes 34 gallons. A head of iceberg lettuce takes 16 gallons of water. You will note that the motherJones article compares almond water things like home use, not other food source…

> and most foods require as much if not more water per calorie.

Yup. Beef and dairy are far worse, yet almonds get shit on: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

Re: California is not in drought

#206

Post by dqv »

kemiller wrote: post #200
dqv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the 77.3 million acres to grow the plants we eat pales in comparison to the 781 million acres we use for animal agriculture.[0] Why turn almond orchards into cropland when we can just use less of the land we use for animal production and turn that into cropland? I highly doubt all 781 million acres can only be used for animal grazing. [0]: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bloomberg-illustrates-how-...

If we could be using that land for high-value crops, we probably would — look at the land values for cropland vs rangeland and you'll see all the incentive needed to allocate more cropland. I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't reduce some of the more wasteful ways we raise food animals — big concentrated feedlots where they get corn and soybeans. We should. But it's misleading to just point out how much land gets use…

>If we could be using that land for high-value crops, we probably would — look at the land values for cropland vs rangeland and you'll see all the incentive needed to allocate more cropland.

I doubt this. The "think of the farmers" argument against increasing plant food production often goes a little something like "farmers don't want to change from what they've already specialized in". The market is never as efficient as people want it to be.

You also suggest that what is currently used as rangeland is rangeland because it can only be used as such. The truth is that neither of us really knows the true capabilities of the 654 million acres of rangeland. The difference here is that I don't suggest all of that land should have a single use. Rather, I argued that it's unlikely that all 654 million acres can only be used for grazing.

>But it's misleading to just point out how much land gets used for what without considering the capability of the land in question.

There is nothing misleading about what I've said. I said we use a lot of land for animal agriculture and that I doubt all of it can only be used for rangeland.

>Ending the corn and soy subsidy regime would help a lot right off the top.

Sure sounds good. You know we subsidize meat and dairy too? How does that factor into the incentive to allocate more cropland?

Re: California is not in drought

#207

Post by npsimons »

ramraj07 wrote: post #55
s1artibartfast wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is poor logic influenced by the politics of the LA aqueduct and water project. Nuts are calorie dense, and most foods require as much if not more water per calorie. Food simply requires a lot of water. For example, A 5 oz glass of wine takes 34 gallons. A head of iceberg lettuce takes 16 gallons of water. You will note that the motherJones article compares almond water things like home use, not other food source…

Can you give more sources? First time I see someone refuting that growing almonds is a water shit show

It's not so much that almonds aren't water intense, as that things like beef and dairy (which are also heavily produced in California) are so much worse: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

Yet we never see beef or dairy demonized the way almonds are.

Believe me, there are better plant milks than almond milk (pretty much any of them), but dairy has such a higher impact on the environment (as does beef), it's incredibly disingenuous and hypocritical to complain about almonds before addressing dairy and beef.

Re: California is not in drought

#208

Post by npsimons »

harles wrote: post #57
testfoobar wrote: post #41

We use a lot of water growing nuts in California. From 2015: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts... "it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. Residents across the state are being told to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns, but the acreage devoted to the state’s almond orchards have doubled in the past decade. The amount…

I’m always dumbfounded when almonds are pointed to as poor water usage. It’s an order of magnitude less egregious than meat and dairy on a per serving basis.

Shh, you'll upset the meat eaters, beef/dairy shills, and people who have been brainwashed by the almond hit pieces put out by the beef/dairy shills.

Re: California is not in drought

#209

Post by npsimons »

njarboe wrote: post #134
mullingitover wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California isn't big on dietary staple agricultural goods. The five biggest ag businesses are dairy, grapes, almonds, cattle, pistachios, and strawberries, none of which we really need to grow here. They're luxury foods generally. There's not that much that's grown here that couldn't be grown elsewhere.

The California central valley is probably the best climate on Earth for growing almonds and that is why about 70% of the world almond production happens there. If we don't really need to grow them here, then one does not really need almonds at all. But what singular food item does the world really need?

> about 70% of the world almond production happens there

80% actually[0], and that only uses 8% of agricultural water in California. Given that dairy consumes 15% and only produces 1.4% of world yield (plus it can easily be done elsewhere), perhaps we should focus on that first.

[0] - https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

Re: California is not in drought

#210

Post by npsimons »

kibibyte wrote: post #144
missedthecue wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cow grown in Wyoming or Michigan, where they have more water than they know what to do with is less of a problem than water intensive plants grown in California, where people paint their lawns because it's illegal to water them.

California dairy is totally a thing though. We had this TV ad campaign decades ago that always ended with "great milk comes from happy cows; happy cows come from California". Also, Harris Ranch is a pretty decently sized cattle farm down near Coalinga (you know that you're getting close to it when you smell the cow poop while driving down I-5). The missing information from these almonds vs cows debate is how big the…

See this: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths
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