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The title of the article assumes a drought. The sentence in question is arguing that there is enough water, using the word drought casually (I don't think the w
by Tloewald 11y ago
The title of the article assumes a drought. The sentence in question is arguing that there is enough water, using the word drought casually (I don't think the writer is arguing whether technically a drought exists).
The basic point is that if people collected rainwater instead of channeling it into the ocean they could have more than enough water. Don't argue at the margins and ignore the main point.
- CONTRARlAN 11y agoAs an aside, it's been my experience that titles are often written not by the person who wrote the article, but by someone who is tasked with writing titles that are intended to attract attention, and not necessarily perfectly reflect the views of the author.
- airza 11y agoHe very much is, you can also see later in the article: Yes, to solve the "drought" in a few short years, there are two basic tasks that California needs to undertake. The argument made in the earlier part is clearly intended to be on-the-level as he assumes at this point that the reader is convinced by it enough to not call the current once-in-a-millenium drought a drought anymore.
- Tloewald 11y agoHe's trying to engineer a solution to the drought. Engineering a solution to X does not imply X does not exist; that would be stupid. But if we want to dwell on semantics -- a drought is defined as being an aberration from some norm. Given climate change, the drought in california isn't a "drought" but a change in norms -- this isn't a "once-in-a-millenium-drought" but, in fact, a new normal (didn't NOA just predict a multi-decade drought in California to be a virtual certainty in the next century?)