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The drought could get much worse than disrupting home irrigation. Depending on how bad it gets, the price of water could rise and force people out, leaving them

The drought could get much worse than disrupting home irrigation. Depending on how bad it gets, the price of water could rise and force people out, leaving them with no choice but to leave. I don't know what that would look like or how it would affect households already economically strained with limited capacity to move, but I doubt it will be a good situation. The disruption to California's ability to produce food will also affect people outside of the state, raising prices. There's probably water around to import if the price is right if it came to that, so I think it just becomes a question of market forces and how the drought will impact California's economy and the country. I don't think many people are going to die of thirst, although that is a real possibility for immigrants who cross the border illegally who may encounter less water because of the drought.

spydum 12y ago
If history teach us much, the scarcity will spark innovation in water efficiency. Most of the US has been pretty lax when it comes to water usage. Perhaps large scale desalination efficiency will be found, or atmospheric moisture extraction will take off. Imagine if you could get some order of magnitude improvements on these technologies.. Consider reversing the flow of water now: pump from ocean, back up the land, and let each consumer desalinate on premise?
- deciplex 12y ago
  Another thing history might teach is that when critical resources like food and water are so poorly and corruptly managed that the result is famine and drought, millions of people can die. I suppose we're going to call that disruptive innovation?
declan 12y ago
> I don't think many people are going to die of thirst Remember 80% of California's water goes to agriculture. More water is used to grow almonds than for all of residential irrigation. There are far more non-farmers than farmers; I expect the next step will be to cut back more on agricultural uses. In a few generations we may look back and wonder why we were flooding fields half a foot deep with increasing scarce water to grow rice in an extremely dry climate. Especially when rice grows perfectly well in areas of the world that actually, you know, get rain all year round.

spydum 12y ago

If history teach us much, the scarcity will spark innovation in water efficiency. Most of the US has been pretty lax when it comes to water usage. Perhaps large scale desalination efficiency will be found, or atmospheric moisture extraction will take off. Imagine if you could get some order of magnitude improvements on these technologies.. Consider reversing the flow of water now: pump from ocean, back up the land, and let each consumer desalinate on premise?

deciplex 12y ago
Another thing history might teach is that when critical resources like food and water are so poorly and corruptly managed that the result is famine and drought, millions of people can die. I suppose we're going to call that disruptive innovation?

declan 12y ago

> I don't think many people are going to die of thirst Remember 80% of California's water goes to agriculture. More water is used to grow almonds than for all of residential irrigation. There are far more non-farmers than farmers; I expect the next step will be to cut back more on agricultural uses. In a few generations we may look back and wonder why we were flooding fields half a foot deep with increasing scarce water to grow rice in an extremely dry climate. Especially when rice grows perfectly well in areas of the world that actually, you know, get rain all year round.