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Nobody is suggesting we stop (yet). But uh, how about instead of trying for "the absolute most lucrative crop that happens to use 10x as much water as the nex

Nobody is suggesting we stop (yet). But uh, how about instead of trying for "the absolute most lucrative crop that happens to use 10x as much water as the next most lucrative crop", we say that this 10x isn't worth it. Here's california 2008 GDP broken down by sector: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Gross_Domestic_Product_of_California_2008_%28millions_of_current_dollars%29.svg/690px-Gross_Domestic_Product_of_California_2008_%28millions_of_current_dollars%29.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Gro... (The data is similar for newer years). So 2% of our economy is using 80% of our water. This seems like a bad tradeoff, even if it meant a 30% increase in food prices or whatever. (Since california exports the vast majority of it's agriculture, this isn't likely)

dllthomas 12y ago
"So 2% of our economy is using 80% of our water. This seems like a bad tradeoff [..]" I don't think this comparison is actually terribly meaningful. Most of California industry just doesn't have much use for much water. The tradeoffs aren't so much with the next industry over (yet, or for a while) but with future years and with local ecologies. The 80% figure alone means it's probably where we need to be looking in terms of improving efficiencies, whether it was 1% or 20% or 90% of our economy. Certainly, we need to start actually charging appropriate amounts for water (including depletion of groundwater) so that people will find those efficiencies. But I'm not so sure that 80% number will change.