4 ms·
It is not all crops but far too many stories focus on crops, California actually expends most of its water on livestock if you count the water used for crops to
by Shivetya 11y ago
It is not all crops but far too many stories focus on crops, California actually expends most of its water on livestock if you count the water used for crops to feed the livestock.
Regardless who is using the water is a man made disaster not one created by nature or climate change. Turning a desert into a breadbasket requires a large amount of water and eventually your going to exhaust your supplies when there no one was ever really charged proper rates for the water they used. They kept the prices artificially too low for too long that people became dependent on the prices and now feel entitled. In a way they are, the government through mismanagement created it.
Still would it not be a good idea to treat areas of severe drought like those of severe flooding? You will be paid for the lands and no one comes back?
- masterleep 11y agoNo, it wouldn't. What would be a good idea is charging the market price for water and seeing what uses make sense.
- 001sky 11y agoWater rights have massive externalities, so this is a classic 'wrong' answer to the problem.
- bronson 11y agoHow are you going to determine market price? For example, what would the Sacramento Delta smelt (the fish) pay for their water?
- mapt 11y agoThe history of ecosystem services pricing is one of a government bureaucracy slapping an arbitrary figure into that variable with little relation to reality, marketing the hell out of it through international NGOs, and their environmental policies improving rapidly as a result of this fairly small exogenous incentive* *So long as they don't find a workaround, like coffee/palm plantation reforestry
- barney54 11y agoIf the numbers in this article are correct, more water goes to environmental purposes (ie. Protecting the Delta Smelt) than for Agricukture. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416918/no-farmers-dont-use-80-percent-californias-water-devin-nunes http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416918/no-farmers-dont... I don't know if the numbers are correct, but this use of water was not included in the water you chart in he article.
- Retric 11y agoDon't worry its numbers are not correct. The most obvious example is they ignore Agricultures use of both rainwater and ground water. But, also environmental diversion often counts water several times as the same water passes several dams. Not that 80% is actually 100% true either, but it's much closer to the truth than 40%. PS: "During a normal year, 30% of the state’s water supply comes from groundwater (underground water). In times of intense drought, groundwater consumption can rise to 60% or more." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California
- anigbrowl 11y agoDoesn't it strike you as strange that he doesn't provide any source for this 50% claim, after providing 4 links in the previous paragraphs to what he claims are untruthful media narratives about agriculture's overuse of water. All those links make it look like a really well-sourced article, and yet he expects you to accept his major factual claim on nothing more than his say-so, because he holds political office.
- swombat 11y agoIf you're interested, this post by Scott Alexander does a fairly thorough analysis of where the water is going: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do... TL;DR: No, more water does not go for environmental purposes than agriculture. California uses about as much water for growing just Alfala (used as food for cows, among other things) as it does for the whole Delta.