8 ms·

I'm not from here but the nonchalance most native Californians have about the drought is quite alarming. "We're always in a drought" they say. Anyone who's read

by debt 12y ago

I'm not from here but the nonchalance most native Californians have about the drought is quite alarming. "We're always in a drought" they say. Anyone who's read just a little bit of California history will find that to be somewhat true. However, the current drought situation is the absolute worst it's ever been though and there really seems to be no fix for it. Its very much a "kick the can down the road" mentality in California about the drought. It reminds me of the pension crisis in my home state of Illinois.

fourstar 12y ago
Born and raised here. It's bad. We know it's bad. But like you said we can't do anything about it. Articles like this help though spread awareness of global warming.
- vixin 12y ago
  Nice to know you're sure of the cause. Nothing to do with anything other factors of course. Meawhile this https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of-climate-change/ https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of... - a cost/benefit analysis - suggests re-evaluation of those other issues which <can> be fixed.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Since it is a drought, there is literally no "fix" for it, and California has been responding per their plan to the length of it. You need only drive down the central valley (I-5) and see the thousands of acres of farmland reverting to desert. The next step is mandatory rationing of drinking water. At some point one might consider the option of building an aqueduct to connect the Missouri river to the west coast, or at least to headwaters of the Colorado. Since we cannot manipulate the weather, or the ocean currents, we're unable to 'fix' the root cause. When mandatory rationing hits, people will gripe more loudly. When importing water in trucks from Oregon becomes profitable people will really grumble.
- debt 12y ago
  It's completely dead down the I-5. At first, because I'm not from here, I thought it was pretty normal. But as time when on it's pretty obviously not the case. Off I-99 we had to take some farm roads and we can just see water near the edge of the farms just gushing groundwater into their irrigation systems. It's absolutely incredible. No regulation, just 100's of gallons of water flowing out of a groundwater pipe into a larger irrigation pipe.
- jfb 12y ago
  It can't be "fixed", per se, but there is an argument that a market price for water would at least be a better system for allocation. Of course, this is easy to say from Toronto.
- bradleyjg 12y ago
  There is more than plenty of water for human consumption. Restrictions like forcing restaurants not to put water on the table are conservation theatre. A serving of California grown rice represents 20-25 gallons of water. If there are to restrictions on restaurants it should be to serving produce and livestock sourced from the arid west. What California needs to do is reform its outdated water laws to move from the incredibly inefficient prior appropriation system to an auction system. Let the farmers and ranchers bid against the cities for their acre-feet of water.
  - radicality 12y ago
    How can one get that 20-25 gallons of water figure? I don't know much about agriculture/life-cycle of water, but say you water your rice field – then some of the water is absorbed by rice so that it can grow, but the rest clearly must stay in the ground, evaporate, and then come back down as rain, no? How does a serving of rice then use up 20-25 gallons of water?
    - monort 12y ago
      According to this table you need 2500 liters of water per 1 kg of rice: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-muc... 25 gallons per serving seems to be underestimated.
mullingitover 12y ago
The vast majority of the water consumption in the state is from agriculture. Agriculture is only a tiny sliver (~2%) of the state's GDP. California could easily afford to halve its agriculture output (and severely curb water consumption in the process) and while this would be a hit to the state's 17th largest sector, it would not be the end of the world.
- itbeho 12y ago
  And where would we get our fruits and vegetables? And at what cost?
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    You seem to view cheap year round access to fresh vegetables of all varieties as some kind of basic right. We are used to that luxury now, but a mere fifty years ago...
  - jfb 12y ago
    We'd pay more. And? Out of season access to fresh fruits and veg is even more recent a development than dense human settlement in LA.
    - declan 12y ago
      Yep. When I go to my neighborhood grocery store in the SF bay area, half of the fruits and vegetables tend to be arriving from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America or Washington state already. The percentage is even higher in the off-season. Put another way: Where do Maine or Texas or Hawaii get fruits and vegetables that aren't local? (And why are we growing rice in drought conditions?) Also: desalination puts a floor on the cost of water for drinking purposes. Modern desalination techniques are very electricity-bound, though, in terms of cost.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - 12y ago
palderson 12y ago
As someone from Australia who's quite accustom to experiencing droughts, I can tell you such a scenario is handled very differently overseas. Off the top of my head, this is how I've seen it approached in Melbourne: 1. No outdoor water use, whatsoever. That includes washing the car, the dog, watering the garden, hosing down a sidewalk. If you're caught doing any of these, you're in for a $500 fine 2. You're not allowed to fill a swimming pool and all public fountains are turned off 3. The water company will go door-to-door exchanging water restricting shower heads for those currently installed. Egg timers for use in the shower are also given away 4. A marketing campaign is launched promoting the 4 minute shower (the duration of the above-mentioned egg timer) 5. Water saving products receive government subsidies. I.e. rainwater tanks, low water use toilets, etc I see almost none of this happening in CA and, for the life of me, I can't understand why.
- chc 12y ago
  Don't water-saving products always receive government subsidies in California due to our perma-drought?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
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tomjen3 12y ago
It really is a case of the government crying wolf. If there is always a drought then people get used to that as the normal.

by debt 12y ago

fourstar 12y ago

Born and raised here. It's bad. We know it's bad. But like you said we can't do anything about it. Articles like this help though spread awareness of global warming.

vixin 12y ago
Nice to know you're sure of the cause. Nothing to do with anything other factors of course. Meawhile this https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of-climate-change/ https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of... - a cost/benefit analysis - suggests re-evaluation of those other issues which <can> be fixed.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Since it is a drought, there is literally no "fix" for it, and California has been responding per their plan to the length of it. You need only drive down the central valley (I-5) and see the thousands of acres of farmland reverting to desert. The next step is mandatory rationing of drinking water. At some point one might consider the option of building an aqueduct to connect the Missouri river to the west coast, or at least to headwaters of the Colorado. Since we cannot manipulate the weather, or the ocean currents, we're unable to 'fix' the root cause. When mandatory rationing hits, people will gripe more loudly. When importing water in trucks from Oregon becomes profitable people will really grumble.

debt 12y ago
It's completely dead down the I-5. At first, because I'm not from here, I thought it was pretty normal. But as time when on it's pretty obviously not the case. Off I-99 we had to take some farm roads and we can just see water near the edge of the farms just gushing groundwater into their irrigation systems. It's absolutely incredible. No regulation, just 100's of gallons of water flowing out of a groundwater pipe into a larger irrigation pipe.
jfb 12y ago
It can't be "fixed", per se, but there is an argument that a market price for water would at least be a better system for allocation. Of course, this is easy to say from Toronto.
bradleyjg 12y ago
There is more than plenty of water for human consumption. Restrictions like forcing restaurants not to put water on the table are conservation theatre. A serving of California grown rice represents 20-25 gallons of water. If there are to restrictions on restaurants it should be to serving produce and livestock sourced from the arid west. What California needs to do is reform its outdated water laws to move from the incredibly inefficient prior appropriation system to an auction system. Let the farmers and ranchers bid against the cities for their acre-feet of water.
- radicality 12y ago
  How can one get that 20-25 gallons of water figure? I don't know much about agriculture/life-cycle of water, but say you water your rice field – then some of the water is absorbed by rice so that it can grow, but the rest clearly must stay in the ground, evaporate, and then come back down as rain, no? How does a serving of rice then use up 20-25 gallons of water?
  - monort 12y ago
    According to this table you need 2500 liters of water per 1 kg of rice: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-muc... 25 gallons per serving seems to be underestimated.

mullingitover 12y ago

The vast majority of the water consumption in the state is from agriculture. Agriculture is only a tiny sliver (~2%) of the state's GDP. California could easily afford to halve its agriculture output (and severely curb water consumption in the process) and while this would be a hit to the state's 17th largest sector, it would not be the end of the world.

itbeho 12y ago
And where would we get our fruits and vegetables? And at what cost?
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  You seem to view cheap year round access to fresh vegetables of all varieties as some kind of basic right. We are used to that luxury now, but a mere fifty years ago...
- jfb 12y ago
  We'd pay more. And? Out of season access to fresh fruits and veg is even more recent a development than dense human settlement in LA.
  - declan 12y ago
    Yep. When I go to my neighborhood grocery store in the SF bay area, half of the fruits and vegetables tend to be arriving from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America or Washington state already. The percentage is even higher in the off-season. Put another way: Where do Maine or Texas or Hawaii get fruits and vegetables that aren't local? (And why are we growing rice in drought conditions?) Also: desalination puts a floor on the cost of water for drinking purposes. Modern desalination techniques are very electricity-bound, though, in terms of cost.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - 12y ago

palderson 12y ago

As someone from Australia who's quite accustom to experiencing droughts, I can tell you such a scenario is handled very differently overseas. Off the top of my head, this is how I've seen it approached in Melbourne: 1. No outdoor water use, whatsoever. That includes washing the car, the dog, watering the garden, hosing down a sidewalk. If you're caught doing any of these, you're in for a $500 fine 2. You're not allowed to fill a swimming pool and all public fountains are turned off 3. The water company will go door-to-door exchanging water restricting shower heads for those currently installed. Egg timers for use in the shower are also given away 4. A marketing campaign is launched promoting the 4 minute shower (the duration of the above-mentioned egg timer) 5. Water saving products receive government subsidies. I.e. rainwater tanks, low water use toilets, etc I see almost none of this happening in CA and, for the life of me, I can't understand why.

chc 12y ago
Don't water-saving products always receive government subsidies in California due to our perma-drought?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

tomjen3 12y ago

It really is a case of the government crying wolf. If there is always a drought then people get used to that as the normal.