Obviously NOT BAD ENOUGH if California keeps using more and more water every year.
How bad is the California drought?
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#62Earlier 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 latest issue of National Geographic has a map showing meat calories consumed per-capita for various countries and regions around the world. The US is high, but more-or-less right on par (or a little under) with many other places: Brazil, western Europe, northern Europe, Australia, and China[1]. Some countries are considerably higher, including Argentina and Finland. This is, indeed, a global phenomenon, not a US…
Even if it is a global phenomenon, and even if the US is not the worst in terms of meat calories consumer per-capita, that doesn't negate the fact that we could still improve our environmental impact by eating less meat.
It's not a competition, we can still make an impact locally and globally by eating less meat.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
What percent of the population would have to stop eating meat all together in California to reduce consumption by the 20% that the Governor has called for?
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#64Earlier 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 latest issue of National Geographic has a map showing meat calories consumed per-capita for various countries and regions around the world. The US is high, but more-or-less right on par (or a little under) with many other places: Brazil, western Europe, northern Europe, Australia, and China[1]. Some countries are considerably higher, including Argentina and Finland. This is, indeed, a global phenomenon, not a US…
Argentina and Finland are mostly-mountain countries. The water usage there is probably lower, and it doesn't matter (it is not used up in the growing of livestock feed, it passes through), and both countries have large areas where you can't eat the crops that do grow, but cows can.
So you shouldn't take them as examples. That their meat consumption is higher probably actually saves water.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely you have to ask yourself, if your proposed solution is energy intensive desalination, perhaps the problem actually is using too much water?
The unfortunate truth is that we actually need to use that water. Roughly 80% of California's water consumption goes to agriculture. [1] I can't speak to whether that water is allocated or used as effectively as it could be, because I'm not familiar with the agriculture industry. [2] That said, I do know that California is a major food producer for the rest of the country. Assuming agricultural water use is as effici…
So when the governor suggested people should take measures to reduce water usage 20%, it would only help if they reduced their water usage to zero ?
Figures.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're feeding beef irrigated feed, that's crazy. But normally beef are fed crops that are highly drought resistant, like grass, alfalfa and barley. Human crops like wheat, rice and corn require a lot more water than feed crops. So if your rainfall levels are less than what is required by human food crops, you have several options: - irrigate - grow cattle feed without irrigation - idle the land The 3rd option may…
This link states that beef are normally fed corn: http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn/background.aspx Also, cows can drink up to 30 gallons of water per day: https://beef.unl.edu/amountwatercowsdrink I don't know how we could consider it to be more efficient than simply eating other foods (i.e. plants) under any circumstance when all variables are considered.
Beef in the States are normally fed corn, yes. And that's silly, yes.
Corn is heavily subsidized in the States, and also needs to be rationalized.
Under any circumstance? Please tell me what would be a more rational way of feeding people in Montana? Cows can graze on native prairie and have an ecological impact similar to the buffalo that predated them. Ripping up the native prairie to grow wheat or corn would destroy the soil and turn it into a desert in about 20 years.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely you have to ask yourself, if your proposed solution is energy intensive desalination, perhaps the problem actually is using too much water?
The unfortunate truth is that we actually need to use that water. Roughly 80% of California's water consumption goes to agriculture. [1] I can't speak to whether that water is allocated or used as effectively as it could be, because I'm not familiar with the agriculture industry. [2] That said, I do know that California is a major food producer for the rest of the country. Assuming agricultural water use is as effici…
Reduce food production is the only sustainable option. Best done by reducing the nation's population through attrition.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fusion is cool, but fission is easy and if used on Thorium in LFTRs[1], would provide us with virtually unlimited, passively safe energy that leaves extremely little waste. Unfortunately it falls under the 'nuclear' umbrella and thus carries with it all of the baggage associated with that. 5 minute elevator pitch for the LFTR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY Failing that, I don't understand why we can't j…
You know that California already drains water from the entire Colorado river basin, the Owen Valley, and numerous other sources. No way a state is going to just let California's appetite for clean water drain yet more rivers.
Alaska might be up for it.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#69So, uh, why would anyone bulldoze dead almond trees if they're not going to replace them with another crop yet? Seems like it would just increase soil erosion problems.
They're probably going to just let the land lie fallow.
Re: How bad is the California drought?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The event lasted 3 hours, and the video was shortened. Sorry but I don't have a transcript. David Lim, a doctoral researcher at the University of Reading, has a much more comprehensive presentation for the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-zRREd8DZQ "This public presentation has been created to introduce the topic of geoengineering to those with limited or no knowledge of the subject. It therefore provides a…
Look, I'm sorry if this seems rude, but do you not recognize that 90% of what you've pasted here is emotional manipulation? I'm willing to entertain your proposition but I would like to read something with specific assertions about chemicals, numbers, methods - stuff I can conduct searches on, not handwavey presentations by an expert who's dumbing it down for laypeople and so leaves me without any detail that I can c…
So you would agree the site you linked to is more scientific and empirical? The owner of metabunk.org, Mick, is thoroughly defeated in a public debate by Dane Wingington, who you apparently detest, here:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/wigington-west-geoengineeri...
Mark my words, this issue is going to become more mainstream over the next thirty years. Your position is simply anti-science.
> Dane: You know, that's a great suggestion! I appreciate that suggestion, we'll do that, not just here, because we're already arranging meters for Norway, Maine, New Mexico, and Florida. So we'll do that in each location. And you know one that makes it quite clear that the numbers are that bad Mick, and again, your suggestion is a good one and we will follow that up. The bark in the pacific Northwest is literally being fried off the trees. Completely fried off to the core wood. Trees are dying everywhere up here. It takes a tremendous amount of UV to do that. Nothing grows here, which is a known consequence of excessive UV. I mean the UV seems so staggeringly high that leaves are literally falling off the trees right now. They started falling off in July. So, we see every single sign of excessive UV. Massive insect decline. We just had a US forest service biologist re-survey the terrestrial insects - 90% decline. Bark being burned off the trees. You can't stand in the sun here. So we believe those numbers. We are actually trying to use conservative math, because if you take the UVA and if you calculate 5% of the UVA measured in milliwatts per centimeter squared, you would come out with 3.5, and if you divide that into ten, which is UVB you'd get a number that's close to 3000%.