7 ms·

These are all great ideas and should be implemented. But also keep in mind that every bit helps. There are a lot of restaurants in CA and it all adds up.

by electic 12y ago

BurningFrog 12y ago
This is Hacker News, and any hacker needs to know that it's pointless to waste effort on optimizing things that already are a microscopic cost. It does NOT add up to anything useful, and it wastes time and focus to do. 80/20 rule, people!
x0x0 12y ago
Yeah, but we're quibbling about a fraction of a percent going to drinking water in restaurants while 1 - the lawns in ruby hills and atherton are still green; 2 - agriculture -- and my problem here is profligate doesn't begin to describe how they use water; wantonly wastes is not even accurate -- is, collectively, delusional. CA grows rice. In desert. Rice is the most water intensive crop in the world. CA grows almonds, which use 1.1 gallons of water per almond. We grow alfalfa. We grow cotton. Etc etc. Farmers have giant sprinklers running in 90+F weather in near zero humidity at 1pm in the afternoon. CA needs to have a serious discussion about what crops should be grown here, and that probably ends with both adding at least 2 if not 4 zeros to the water price paid by agriculture, and not permitting the growth of the most water intensive crops. That's not to say cities are blameless; Sacramento doesn't even meter water. They hope to do so by 2025. Oh, and (imo) the worries about food are overblown. We export lots of those food crops, and people can live without almonds. (a quick google claims 10% of the state's water use is for almonds!!! [1]) I love almonds, but we will survive without them. Here's a quote About 70 percent of alfalfa grown in California is used in dairies, and a good portion of the rest is exported to land-poor Asian countries like Japan. Yep, that’s right: In the middle of a drought, farmers are shipping fresh hay across the Pacific Ocean. The water that’s locked up in exported hay amounts to about 100 billion gallons per year—enough to supply 1 million families with drinking water for a year. [1] In the midst of a severe drought, there is zero reason to permit export of incredibly water intensive crops. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/0...
- ihaveajob 12y ago
  All great points. What baffles me is that in Spain, the world's second largest almond producer, almond trees are largely not watered. I suppose production suffers, but still...
  - latch 12y ago
    According to Wiki, the US gets 10x+ the almond yield by weight per hectare versus Spain. (Not saying it justifies the use of water, just providing the numbers).
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Spain also has nearly 2x the average rainfall of California. Rainfall in California is also mostly concentrated in places where we're not growing almonds - I don't know if that's true of Spain.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "1 - the lawns in ruby hills and atherton are still green; " These lawns are 50% of urban use, which is 10% of total water use. While it is not a great sign of conservation efforts, The problem is that by pretending that it's a real problem, we keep avoiding the real problem - our agriculture is simply unsustainable in it's current form. IE it enables people and politicians to avoid the real problem, by selling a line to people that it's their non-conserving neighbors that are the problem, when it simply isn't. California needs to have a long and hard discussion about what should be happening in agriculture. Not a long and hard discussion about lawns in atherton. The oft-repeated "well, it helps people understand they need to conserve" is clearly false. It not only doesn't do that (hasn't for years!), it enables a smoke screen over the real issue. Now, instead of hearing on the radio that "politicians are seriously considering what to do about our agriculture issues", i hear, "politicians have enacted lawn watering restrictions to help ease the drought". That's what focusing, at all, on urban usage, does.
  - x0x0 12y ago
tlrobinson 12y ago
Let's do some math. USGS says California consumes about 38 billion gallons of water per day [1]. Coincidentally, there are about 38 million residents of California. That's 1,000 gallons per capita per day. Even if every single resident dined at a restaurant every single day, and was served a glass of water, and they didn't drink it, that would be 1/16,000th of the water consumed for that resident for that day. [1] http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3977#.VQkNfxDF-L4 http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3977#.VQkNfxDF-L...
- fletchowns 12y ago
  California feeds a lot more than just its own residents with all that agriculture production. Pretty sure we produce more than the next 2 states combined.
  - tlrobinson 12y ago
    Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that not serving water at restaurants will reduce water consumption by less than 1/16000th.
- dasil003 12y ago
  It's still worth doing from an awareness standpoint. Everyone in California needs to internalize the scarcity of water, and this is a reasonably effective way to do so. It is no harm to anyone to have to ask for water.
  - mapt 12y ago
    What is the goal of internalizing it? What is the goal of personal responsibility here? There are fantastically profitable cash crops that the Central Valley is rapidly desertifying itself to produce, because that is what the regulatory framework incentivizes. They will do this regardless of whether half of LA feels shame about how long they spend in the shower. These things are ridiculous debacles that connect the well-meaning with the entrenched money to completely avoid the real issues. They're an attempt to get some people who don't use much water to point the finger at other people who don't use much water, and have a bitter culture war about it, and distract from the few people using most of the water. Water could and should be put into easy sustainability range by pricing it in accordance with how bad the local situation (reservoirs or water tables) has gotten. Instead it's doled out as a strange mix of feudal fiefdom and public service. And that includes pumping groundwater - which seems to be completely unregulated and unmonitored at present. California's problem is that it hasn't brought itself to manage water effectively, and it has erected obstacles to doing so during eras when water was neither heavily used nor well-understood. https://www.c-win.org/water-rights-primer.html https://www.c-win.org/water-rights-primer.html

These are all great ideas and should be implemented. But also keep in mind that every bit helps. There are a lot of restaurants in CA and it all adds up.

by electic 12y ago

These are all great ideas and should be implemented. But also keep in mind that every bit helps. There are a lot of restaurants in CA and it all adds up.

BurningFrog 12y ago

This is Hacker News, and any hacker needs to know that it's pointless to waste effort on optimizing things that already are a microscopic cost. It does NOT add up to anything useful, and it wastes time and focus to do. 80/20 rule, people!

x0x0 12y ago

Yeah, but we're quibbling about a fraction of a percent going to drinking water in restaurants while 1 - the lawns in ruby hills and atherton are still green; 2 - agriculture -- and my problem here is profligate doesn't begin to describe how they use water; wantonly wastes is not even accurate -- is, collectively, delusional. CA grows rice. In desert. Rice is the most water intensive crop in the world. CA grows almonds, which use 1.1 gallons of water per almond. We grow alfalfa. We grow cotton. Etc etc. Farmers have giant sprinklers running in 90+F weather in near zero humidity at 1pm in the afternoon. CA needs to have a serious discussion about what crops should be grown here, and that probably ends with both adding at least 2 if not 4 zeros to the water price paid by agriculture, and not permitting the growth of the most water intensive crops. That's not to say cities are blameless; Sacramento doesn't even meter water. They hope to do so by 2025. Oh, and (imo) the worries about food are overblown. We export lots of those food crops, and people can live without almonds. (a quick google claims 10% of the state's water use is for almonds!!! [1]) I love almonds, but we will survive without them. Here's a quote About 70 percent of alfalfa grown in California is used in dairies, and a good portion of the rest is exported to land-poor Asian countries like Japan. Yep, that’s right: In the middle of a drought, farmers are shipping fresh hay across the Pacific Ocean. The water that’s locked up in exported hay amounts to about 100 billion gallons per year—enough to supply 1 million families with drinking water for a year. [1] In the midst of a severe drought, there is zero reason to permit export of incredibly water intensive crops. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/0...

ihaveajob 12y ago
All great points. What baffles me is that in Spain, the world's second largest almond producer, almond trees are largely not watered. I suppose production suffers, but still...
- latch 12y ago
  According to Wiki, the US gets 10x+ the almond yield by weight per hectare versus Spain. (Not saying it justifies the use of water, just providing the numbers).
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Spain also has nearly 2x the average rainfall of California. Rainfall in California is also mostly concentrated in places where we're not growing almonds - I don't know if that's true of Spain.
DannyBee 12y ago
"1 - the lawns in ruby hills and atherton are still green; " These lawns are 50% of urban use, which is 10% of total water use. While it is not a great sign of conservation efforts, The problem is that by pretending that it's a real problem, we keep avoiding the real problem - our agriculture is simply unsustainable in it's current form. IE it enables people and politicians to avoid the real problem, by selling a line to people that it's their non-conserving neighbors that are the problem, when it simply isn't. California needs to have a long and hard discussion about what should be happening in agriculture. Not a long and hard discussion about lawns in atherton. The oft-repeated "well, it helps people understand they need to conserve" is clearly false. It not only doesn't do that (hasn't for years!), it enables a smoke screen over the real issue. Now, instead of hearing on the radio that "politicians are seriously considering what to do about our agriculture issues", i hear, "politicians have enacted lawn watering restrictions to help ease the drought". That's what focusing, at all, on urban usage, does.
- x0x0 12y ago

tlrobinson 12y ago

Let's do some math. USGS says California consumes about 38 billion gallons of water per day [1]. Coincidentally, there are about 38 million residents of California. That's 1,000 gallons per capita per day. Even if every single resident dined at a restaurant every single day, and was served a glass of water, and they didn't drink it, that would be 1/16,000th of the water consumed for that resident for that day. [1] http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3977#.VQkNfxDF-L4 http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3977#.VQkNfxDF-L...

fletchowns 12y ago
California feeds a lot more than just its own residents with all that agriculture production. Pretty sure we produce more than the next 2 states combined.
- tlrobinson 12y ago
  Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that not serving water at restaurants will reduce water consumption by less than 1/16000th.
dasil003 12y ago
It's still worth doing from an awareness standpoint. Everyone in California needs to internalize the scarcity of water, and this is a reasonably effective way to do so. It is no harm to anyone to have to ask for water.
- mapt 12y ago
  What is the goal of internalizing it? What is the goal of personal responsibility here? There are fantastically profitable cash crops that the Central Valley is rapidly desertifying itself to produce, because that is what the regulatory framework incentivizes. They will do this regardless of whether half of LA feels shame about how long they spend in the shower. These things are ridiculous debacles that connect the well-meaning with the entrenched money to completely avoid the real issues. They're an attempt to get some people who don't use much water to point the finger at other people who don't use much water, and have a bitter culture war about it, and distract from the few people using most of the water. Water could and should be put into easy sustainability range by pricing it in accordance with how bad the local situation (reservoirs or water tables) has gotten. Instead it's doled out as a strange mix of feudal fiefdom and public service. And that includes pumping groundwater - which seems to be completely unregulated and unmonitored at present. California's problem is that it hasn't brought itself to manage water effectively, and it has erected obstacles to doing so during eras when water was neither heavily used nor well-understood. https://www.c-win.org/water-rights-primer.html https://www.c-win.org/water-rights-primer.html