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> no matter if it rains or doesn't. Except for one thing. There was actually nothing keeping that water from flowing except for the delta smelt. The Central

> no matter if it rains or doesn't. Except for one thing. There was actually nothing keeping that water from flowing except for the delta smelt. The Central Valley went from green to brown in a single year. Nobody else was affected. Irrespective of the politics of "who should get this water", the reality is that the people who were for protecting the Delta Smelt created an environmental disaster. It's the same logic that they used to prevent thinning forests via logging and clearing underbrush--and lo and behold we have too many trees and when the fires burn, they're too hot! It's the same logic that the U.N. used to ban mahogany exports, which led to those countries burning thousands of years of trees to make room for farmland, as it was their only economic recourse. At some point, the environmentalists might want to ask themselves if "they're the baddies", given that other, supposedly less enlightened cultures have similar ecological situations and different outcomes.

jeffbee 6y ago
You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? > The Central Valley went from green to brown This is a normal tactic of California water cranks, to use "Central Valley" to mean something else. The "Central Valley" is a huge, 400-mile-long flood plain, most of which is always ankle-deep in water. But the place you are talking about is just the bit of western Fresno County that you can see from I-5, what informed people call Westlands. Before 1968, the Westlands was never green. Not even once. Its natural hydrology is that of absence. > Nobody else was affected. Not sure what you could possibly be talking about with this sentence. The whole state was greatly affected by the drought. You have bought into the propaganda of a Beverley Hills billionaire. If you are actually interested in the reality of this topic, i urge you to read Mark Arax's latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California-ebook/dp/B07GD4N31V https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California...
abernard1 6y ago
> > You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? I've lived in Bakersfield for over 15 years. All of these arguments are things that people have been talking about when I was there 20 years ago. There's no crankery about it. It's just now--all of a sudden the effete sensibilities of San Franciscans are affected by these problems. Oh we care now. What is remarkable, and I know you won't listen, but is to consider that perhaps a certain worldview got this wrong. When information goes one way, from privileged to unprivileged, the unprivileged know more than the privileged. They know both the situation of the privileged (because the privileged are sure to tell them) as well as their own. People in the Central are directly affected by this stuff constantly. It's the reason they'd leave and make a new state if the Bay Area wasn't holding them hostage.

jeffbee 6y ago

You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? > The Central Valley went from green to brown This is a normal tactic of California water cranks, to use "Central Valley" to mean something else. The "Central Valley" is a huge, 400-mile-long flood plain, most of which is always ankle-deep in water. But the place you are talking about is just the bit of western Fresno County that you can see from I-5, what informed people call Westlands. Before 1968, the Westlands was never green. Not even once. Its natural hydrology is that of absence. > Nobody else was affected. Not sure what you could possibly be talking about with this sentence. The whole state was greatly affected by the drought. You have bought into the propaganda of a Beverley Hills billionaire. If you are actually interested in the reality of this topic, i urge you to read Mark Arax's latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California-ebook/dp/B07GD4N31V https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California...

abernard1 6y ago

> > You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? I've lived in Bakersfield for over 15 years. All of these arguments are things that people have been talking about when I was there 20 years ago. There's no crankery about it. It's just now--all of a sudden the effete sensibilities of San Franciscans are affected by these problems. Oh we care now. What is remarkable, and I know you won't listen, but is to consider that perhaps a certain worldview got this wrong. When information goes one way, from privileged to unprivileged, the unprivileged know more than the privileged. They know both the situation of the privileged (because the privileged are sure to tell them) as well as their own. People in the Central are directly affected by this stuff constantly. It's the reason they'd leave and make a new state if the Bay Area wasn't holding them hostage.