Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Tom Clancy novel, really?
"The detailed research is so believable that I expect this unique thriller to be an instant best seller in the Kremlin."
Again: it’s a Tom Clancy novel. It’s fictional
Editorial: California should say goodbye to grass that’s only there for looks
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Re: Editorial: California should say goodbye to grass that’s only there for looks
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great point. We should shut down all markets and grocery stores as well- if people can’t survive on their own, we shouldn’t be supporting that, it’s unnatural.
People having food to eat and people having green lawns aren't even remotely equivalent dude, come on. Literally the whole point of "we should use less water on lawns" is so we'll have more water for food, for humans. Because lawns contribute nothing that humans want or need.
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Re: Editorial: California should say goodbye to grass that’s only there for looks
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great point. We should shut down all markets and grocery stores as well- if people can’t survive on their own, we shouldn’t be supporting that, it’s unnatural.
People having food to eat and people having green lawns aren't even remotely equivalent dude, come on. Literally the whole point of "we should use less water on lawns" is so we'll have more water for food, for humans. Because lawns contribute nothing that humans want or need.
I mostly wanted to call attention to the lazy argument that we shouldn't do things that require human intervention.
"Use less water on lawns so we have more water for food, for humans".
That is a very one dimensional take. California's non-residential water usage doesn't just get used for human food, nor human food for Californians. Famously it gets bottled by Nestle, it gets used by Saudi Arabia to grow alfalfa for their cows, and it's used to grow almonds and other products that are exported outside of California.
So we have all these organizations using water in California, making a profit, exporting water from the state. (It's something like an 80/20 split for agriculture vs residential/urban water usage by the way).
So no, I don't agree that individual Californians should need to justify a patch of grass so that corporations and foreign nationals can continue exploiting our water resources. Sacramento should go fix literally all of that first.
Re: Editorial: California should say goodbye to grass that’s only there for looks
#44For water, grass doesn’t matter. Golf courses don’t matter. Californians water “shortage”, like its housing crisis, is a political choice. In this case, it’s entirely a problem of agriculture. (The other arguments against ornamental lawns are valid. As someone allergic to many grasses, I have no love lost for lawns.)
They could probably dramatically reduce the amount of water used by agriculture while still having plenty of agriculture. Decades ago, I saw an article about making little basins to capture rain water in the right amount to sustain a tree in the desert to grow fruiting trees in places like the Middle East using natural rainfall in order to increase productivity of arid lands without stressing the environment. I don't…
Pooled water is tightly restricted in California by law. The combination of the climate and the land continuity with Mexico and Central America makes them particularly vulnerable to mosquito-borne illness and those concerns have been built into the water-management system for many decades.
So that's one reason they can't do that.