• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

the california drought

 
author & internet detective
Posts: 41860
908
Eclipse IDE VI Editor Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
The NYTimes listed what the average American eats from California and how much water it consumes. IT was a weird read because they didn't use service sizes or a unit that makes sense to regular people. I never eat "a sliver of melon" making it harder to compare. The main point comes across - milk and meat use a lot of water.
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 789
Python C++ Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
That article is 31 flavors of strange. First, the only water that's shipped out of state is the water in the produce itself, unless maybe if they take the water to the desert. Don't know if that's a significant proportion of their problem...
 
Marshal
Posts: 79178
377
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
They take the water to the desert to irrigate the crops. I read in our newspapers that it takes 1 gallon of water to irrigate an almond tree enough to produce 1 almond. That probably really means it take 1000 gallons to irrigate almond trees enough to produce 1000 almonds.

Whether it is right to grow so much water‑requiring produce in such a dry area is another question.
 
Guillermo Ishi
Ranch Hand
Posts: 789
Python C++ Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
An article in Slate blames it on induced climate change: "But as climate change–fueled droughts continue to desiccate California, the short-term solution from farmers has been to double down on making money." How many ways is that loaded!

CNN says in isn't climate change and cites a NOAA paper.

NOAA paper on the drought:
http://cpo.noaa.gov/ClimatePrograms/ModelingAnalysisPredictionsandProjections/MAPPTaskForces/DroughtTaskForce/CaliforniaDrought.aspx

500 gallons of water to make a stick of butter? How much of it used up and turned to heat like it was electricity? You school kids, next time you need a topic for a paper how about "Superseding Print: Electronic Media and the Quality of Journalism".
 
lowercase baba
Posts: 13089
67
Chrome Java Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Why doesn't anybody ever suggest that it isn't how much water used per pound of beef (or whatever), but instead, it is the number of pounds of beef being consumed? In other words, the population of the Earth is too high. Humans are steadily choking this planet, straining it's limited resources to the breaking point.

I honestly believe that China had the right idea (although the wrong implementation) with their population control laws.
 
Saloon Keeper
Posts: 27763
196
Android Eclipse IDE Tomcat Server Redhat Java Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I used to be pessimistic about the population of the Earth. But that was before there was evidence that it's probably going to stabilize. You can get some pretty good property deals in Italy right now, because their population is shrinking, not growing. Russia also has a shrinkage "problem". Something like a third of all Japanese are now over 60, I think I read. The only reason the USA is still growing is because of its heavy immigrant stream - natives are not keeping up, which is one reason why WASPs and headed for minority status. I think as other countries develop, they too will stop growing. I've been known to say that the world's most effective birth control device is a big-screen TV. Why have many kids if sheer numbers are no longer needed to work the farm and the money spent raising them could be frittered away on idle entertainment?

I don't think anyone right now is starving because there are too many cows. A lot of people starve because they live in places where bastards keep them from having access to food, but the food supply itself is still plentiful enough to waste. I'd still recommend cutting down on the dead bodies but that's because the cows aren't having a lot of fun getting slaughtered just so a bunch of overweight people can get even fatter. Incidentally, unlike a lot of food crops, cattle are raised almost everywhere. Florida has extensive ranches, including a very large one owned by the Mormon church, and their cowboy traditions go all the way back to the Civil War or further. But I don't expect to see a "Florida dust bowl" because no part of the state is more than 100 miles away from some ocean or other. Salt water may not be potable, but at least it's treatable and the distance to ship it once treated is comparatively short. The longest distance was probably the pipeline that brought water down from Homestead to Key West (approx. 150 miles), but that was before Key West set up their own desalination plant.

You can argue whatever side you like on Global Warming/Climate Change, but the cold hard truth is that a drought is a drought and irrespective of ideology, some things that we currently depend on from California may have to be revisited. Florida has an immense citrus industry - only marijuana is a bigger farm crop - but where do we get our eating oranges? Shipped in from California. Likewise our Eureka lemons. What California has tried to pretend to be all these years was a Mediterranean climate. But the most productive parts of the Mediterranean aren't on the edge of a desert. They may have to give up that particular conceit.

 
Jeanne Boyarsky
author & internet detective
Posts: 41860
908
Eclipse IDE VI Editor Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Guillermo Ishi wrote:That article is 31 flavors of strange. First, the only water that's shipped out of state is the water in the produce itself, unless maybe if they take the water to the desert. Don't know if that's a significant proportion of their problem...


The problem is that the water is used on the crops. It eventually evaporates. But since it hardly rains, California doesn't get it back right away.

fred rosenberger wrote:Why doesn't anybody ever suggest that it isn't how much water used per pound of beef (or whatever), but instead, it is the number of pounds of beef being consumed?


That wasn't implied? If it takes a swimming pool to make a pound of beef, than it takes 10 swimming pools for ten pounds...
 
Campbell Ritchie
Marshal
Posts: 79178
377
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote: . . . But since it hardly rains, California doesn't get it back right away. . . .

The evaporated water comes to earth as rain eventually, only thousands of miles from California.
 
Jeanne Boyarsky
author & internet detective
Posts: 41860
908
Eclipse IDE VI Editor Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote: . . . But since it hardly rains, California doesn't get it back right away. . . .

The evaporated water comes to earth as rain eventually, only thousands of miles from California.


Right. Which means it has to count as being "used" since CA can't just recycle it.
 
Guillermo Ishi
Ranch Hand
Posts: 789
Python C++ Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
It would evaporate anyway unless they keep it covered....Not sure you can count that as farm use. But I guess it's really a matter of how you split what's available. I suspect something is going to hit the farmers hard soon. Seems to be some farmer hate being gen'ed up
 
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic