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How bad is the California drought?

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: How bad is the California drought?

#31

Post by steven2012 »

I think the issue isn't only the lack of rain, it's the immense use of water. I read at some point recently farmers have moved to crops such as pistachio nuts which have high margins, but take something like 1 gallon of water per nut.

And water usage in rich areas actually increased year-over-year, which is infuriating. We had rain throughout the winter, and even a couple of summer showers recently which is rare, and if you look at Crystal Springs reservoir, the water levels don't look as bad as some of the pictures you see on the news.

So I think this is more a case of demand vs supply. What hasn't increased however, is our water rates. Places in Hillsborough, a rich area of SV, use in excess of 300 gallons per day to water their lawns, vs other areas. I personally have stopped watering my lawn down to zero, and my property is a big patch of dirt now. I think there should be a tax on people who want to water their lawn during these times, because it's so unimportant. For a household of 2 adults and 2 kids, we use less than 85 gallons per day, and my water bill is $15/month.

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#32

Post by raldi »

akoncius wrote: post #27
spikels wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domestic water is probably overpriced not underpriced. It's the farmers who pay way too little (often zero!) for water. This has created screwed up incentives for farmers. Many crops are worth less than the true cost of the water needed to grow them! This is what happens when you have a system driven by politics and not the market - it's prone to lose touch with reality (actual cost/value). Unfortunately it will be v…

food industry should be partly subsidized by government, otherwise country could end up in trouble when people don't get enough neccessary basic food and stuff

Yes, the federal government.

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#33

Post by te_chris »

dkokelley wrote: post #21

It is very frustrating to me that we are dealing with such significant drought, while most of us Californians live within 100 miles of the ocean. Using that water seems like the answer. The problem with desalination is that it's an expensive solution to a sometimes problem. http://www.wateronline.com/doc/santa-barbara-to-reboot-desal... Santa Barbara built and then shut down an expensive desalination plant in the ear…

Surely you have to ask yourself, if your proposed solution is energy intensive desalination, perhaps the problem actually is using too much water?

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#35

Post by pstuart »

jedberg wrote: post #8

It's bad. I recently drove to LA through the central valley, and in 18 years of doing that drive, I've never seen it so dry. Whole farms are just gone, everything is brown. There are a couple of problems preventing us from saving more water though. #1, we had a drought in the 80s. A lot of people learned to conserve then and never changed their habits (like me). There is no way I could use 20% less water -- I already…

A classic, Forget Shorter Showers: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801...

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#36

Post by tghw »

Terr_ wrote: post #22
meeks wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number 1 way to conserve water is to eat less meat. I don't think that people have learned this yet and most people have not changed their habits to consume less meat. Serious question: why is it acceptable to change all kinds of behaviors, take shorter showers, fix leaks, turn off taps, and even install gray water systems, yet not change our behavior to eat less meat? If you didn't eat beef for one day (1/2 lb b…

> The number 1 way to conserve water is to eat less meat. Sure, but that's more of a global issue than a local one, insofar as meat (and food for livestock) is shipped much further than water is.

California produced about 2 billion pounds of beef last year. That comes out to 8% of the US market for beef, the vast majority of which comes from the US.

The numbers I found said that each pound of beef requires anywhere between 1000 and 5000 gallons of water. (I suspect the high end is probably too high, so let's go with the low end.) That gives us 2 trillion gallons of water used in California each year for beef production.

Back of the napkin: If 10% of people who get their beef from California replace it chicken (which uses about a half the water per pound, both are about 1,000 calories per pound), the state would save 100 billion gallons of water per year. That's about 3 days worth of water for the whole state.

(Apologies for lack of sources, I didn't realize this would turn into a research piece, so I didn't save them, but they seemed reputable.)

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#37

Post by anigbrowl »

Cyther606 wrote: post #23

If you want to understand the drought conditions better, I implore you to watch this Ted talk by environment scientist David Keith: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_c... To sum it up, governments are engaged in cloud seeding to fight climate change, and they're staying silent on the issue because informing the public is a moral hazard. As a side effect of cloud seeding, certain areas are bou…

Evidence please - surely you have something better than a 7 year old talk about a proposal and a conspiracy-mongering chemtrails website. I looked at the Documents section there and it's a joke - one white paper from 1966, one guy's investigation of his single diseased rhododendron plant, one unpassed bill introduced by Dennis Kucinich and written by a couple of UFO researchers, and a slide deck on possible geoengineering methods.

http://contrailscience.com/kucinich-chemtrails-and-hr-2977/

Sorry, this is kooksville. A reasonable argument would start with a review of meteorological classification and then assert novel observations before introducing theories about possible causes. Instead we have some guy who drones into his camcorder about how sheeple can't remember what real clouds look like.

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#38

Post by tomohawk »

akoncius wrote: post #27
spikels wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domestic water is probably overpriced not underpriced. It's the farmers who pay way too little (often zero!) for water. This has created screwed up incentives for farmers. Many crops are worth less than the true cost of the water needed to grow them! This is what happens when you have a system driven by politics and not the market - it's prone to lose touch with reality (actual cost/value). Unfortunately it will be v…

food industry should be partly subsidized by government, otherwise country could end up in trouble when people don't get enough neccessary basic food and stuff

I would appear that the current subsidies are leading to an actual shortage of water.

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#39

Post by nathan-muir »

steven2012 wrote: post #31

I think the issue isn't only the lack of rain, it's the immense use of water. I read at some point recently farmers have moved to crops such as pistachio nuts which have high margins, but take something like 1 gallon of water per nut. And water usage in rich areas actually increased year-over-year, which is infuriating. We had rain throughout the winter, and even a couple of summer showers recently which is rare, and…

85 Gallons per day - Interestingly. In Australia [In my particular urban region] - that same usage would cost AUD$38 per month (Roughly $3.90 per 1000L)

Re: How bad is the California drought?

#40

Post by genwin »

te_chris wrote: post #33
dkokelley wrote: post #21

It is very frustrating to me that we are dealing with such significant drought, while most of us Californians live within 100 miles of the ocean. Using that water seems like the answer. The problem with desalination is that it's an expensive solution to a sometimes problem. http://www.wateronline.com/doc/santa-barbara-to-reboot-desal... Santa Barbara built and then shut down an expensive desalination plant in the ear…

Surely you have to ask yourself, if your proposed solution is energy intensive desalination, perhaps the problem actually is using too much water?

or too many people even when each uses a reasonable amount of water
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