4 ms·

This is quite interesting. The explanation was quite simple and wonderful even. For what it’s worth, I never thought of a drought as causing the rainfall to be

This is quite interesting. The explanation was quite simple and wonderful even. For what it’s worth, I never thought of a drought as causing the rainfall to be evenly spaced throughout the year but technically it’s true. On a tangential note, I wonder how much the dust bowl played a part in making California the agricultural powerhouse it is today.

jf___ 6y ago
> I wonder how much the dust bowl played a part in making California the agricultural powerhouse it is today Definitely this played a massive factor, the documentary of Ken Burns is fascinating and insightful [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/ken-burns-dust-bowl-the-greatest-man-made-eco-disaster-in-us-history/265249/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/ken-b... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOmjQO_UMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOmjQO_UMw
fakedang 6y ago
Or an agricultural disaster, which way you look at it.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Which way of looking at it makes it look like a disaster? Only way I can think of is in terms of the rest of the country's dependence on it, but I'm no agriculture expert.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    You do realize that California's pursuit of agricultural production is largely fuelled by a massive expenditure of its water resources right?
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      Yes but is this a problem that is actually alleviated by having this farming elsewhere, or is this just farming at California scale takes an enormous amount of water? Certainly there’s some “non-ideal” water intensive farming (eg cotton in Arizona) but I don’t have a good sense for how much water expenditure is actually wasteful/where else we’d grow it.
      - fakedang 6y ago
        It's most certainly the latter, California isn't designed to handle as high a load for the extreme hot weather. Growing cotton in Arizona is plain madness. This year, Arizona was hotter than Saudi Arabia during summer. Honestly, I don't see how the US can dig itself out of this one. The Chinese circumvented this problem by reducing the agrarian population significantly while acquiring massive land tracts in Africa for cultivation, but the US will be bound by the farming lobby. Perhaps government incentives to shift water utilization to newer technologies, instead of effectively subsidizing agriculture, might help.

jf___ 6y ago

> I wonder how much the dust bowl played a part in making California the agricultural powerhouse it is today Definitely this played a massive factor, the documentary of Ken Burns is fascinating and insightful [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/ken-burns-dust-bowl-the-greatest-man-made-eco-disaster-in-us-history/265249/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/ken-b... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOmjQO_UMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOmjQO_UMw

fakedang 6y ago

Or an agricultural disaster, which way you look at it.

ethanbond 6y ago
Which way of looking at it makes it look like a disaster? Only way I can think of is in terms of the rest of the country's dependence on it, but I'm no agriculture expert.
- fakedang 6y ago
  You do realize that California's pursuit of agricultural production is largely fuelled by a massive expenditure of its water resources right?
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Yes but is this a problem that is actually alleviated by having this farming elsewhere, or is this just farming at California scale takes an enormous amount of water? Certainly there’s some “non-ideal” water intensive farming (eg cotton in Arizona) but I don’t have a good sense for how much water expenditure is actually wasteful/where else we’d grow it.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      It's most certainly the latter, California isn't designed to handle as high a load for the extreme hot weather. Growing cotton in Arizona is plain madness. This year, Arizona was hotter than Saudi Arabia during summer. Honestly, I don't see how the US can dig itself out of this one. The Chinese circumvented this problem by reducing the agrarian population significantly while acquiring massive land tracts in Africa for cultivation, but the US will be bound by the farming lobby. Perhaps government incentives to shift water utilization to newer technologies, instead of effectively subsidizing agriculture, might help.