
Epic Drought in West Is Literally Moving Mountains - markmassie
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epic-drought-in-west-is-literally-moving-mountains/
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debt
I'm not from here but the nonchalance most native Californians have about the
drought is quite alarming. "We're always in a drought" they say. Anyone who's
read just a little bit of California history will find that to be somewhat
true.

However, the current drought situation is the absolute worst it's ever been
though and there really seems to be no fix for it.

Its very much a "kick the can down the road" mentality in California about the
drought. It reminds me of the pension crisis in my home state of Illinois.

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ChuckMcM
Since it is a drought, there is literally no "fix" for it, and California has
been responding per their plan to the length of it. You need only drive down
the central valley (I-5) and see the thousands of acres of farmland reverting
to desert.

The next step is mandatory rationing of drinking water. At some point one
might consider the option of building an aqueduct to connect the Missouri
river to the west coast, or at least to headwaters of the Colorado.

Since we cannot manipulate the weather, or the ocean currents, we're unable to
'fix' the root cause. When mandatory rationing hits, people will gripe more
loudly. When importing water in trucks from Oregon becomes profitable people
will really grumble.

~~~
bmelton
Mandatory rationing of drinking water may be _a_ step, but should definitely
not be the _next_ step.

Despite California's attempts to "crack down" on the ALS challenge and such,
there are still companies sourcing bottled water from the state that should
likely be dealt with first.

Agriculture is (obviously) the largest source of water consumption in
California as well.

Beyond that, there are some wacky laws (and logistical issues) complicating
the import of water from places like Canada, but in my opinion, the _next_
step should be to curtail (or impose costs upon) the alfalfa hay being
exported from California to China.

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majormajor
> California's attempts to "crack down" on the ALS challenge and such

I don't think this has actually happened. The only source I've seen for that
is a satire site.

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bmelton
Ha! Yes. I'm an idiot. And sadly, while I grew up with the Onion and such,
this is not the first time in recent history that I fell for something like
that.

I don't know if I'm getting older, or the weirdest news is getting too
believable.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
The real news almost seems like a joke at times. It is getting harder to tell
the difference. I fell for the satire article about the ALS crackdown. It
didn't have anything in it that was over the top to tip you off that it was
satire. At least The Onion usually throws in something to tip you off. But I
could be biased about that because I already know The Onion is satire. I'd
never heard of the one that ran the ALS crackdown article.

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enraged_camel
I love how they put the most important sentence at the very end of the
article:

>>But, Jacob said, the significance of the study is that it shows a new way
for scientists to estimate total water loss during times of drought, which
would be more difficult to estimate without being able to detect how much the
land is being uplifted in dry years.

Because really, the fact that the land has risen a few millimeters, in and of
itself, is not important, since it doesn't have any implications (at least for
humans). What is important is that being able to measure this increase will
allow us to gather water loss data from other regions.

~~~
rosser
I'm skeptical that this has _no_ implications for humans. (Not to say that I
think it _has_ implications; rather, I feel the claim that it has none isn't
obviously substantiated.) IIRC, undersea earthquakes can be more common at low
tide, because the reduced water mass sitting atop a fault line can allow it to
slip more easily.

I'd be tremendously surprised if a reduction in water weight equivalent to a
year's losses from the Greenland Ice Sheet doesn't change the strain pattern
on some of the incredibly overdue fault lines in California. Enough to
facilitate or even induce a slip? I have no idea. But absent better
information, I have to be skeptical of a claim that there are "no
implications".

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Daishiman
It's really funny how everyone is completely ignoring the profound effects
this will have on California's wildlife and native flora.

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TulliusCicero
I know they said this change shouldn't really have any impact on humans by
itself, but still, that's terrifying.

~~~
trhway
lets hope it willn't affect earthquakes in CA. Though considering that
handling comparable amounts of liquid in shale gas production in CO does
affect earthquakes...

~~~
malandrew
On the other hand, for those of us living on bedrock, earthquakes might
provide some rent relief. FWIW, I'm only being half ironic. The rent situation
in the Bay Area is so out of control, that only an earthquake will really
relieve some of the upward pressure on prices.

~~~
mahyarm
No a damaging earth quake will just make prices rise even more because of
further supply reduction. Is Google going to move it's HQ because of an
earthquake?

~~~
jarek
Is Google going to keep its HQ in an area newly bereft of non-collapsed
infrastructure and non-dead significant portion of employees? Are the hipsters
going to be as attracted to SF when their favourite restaurants go up in gas
fires and the Dolores hill slides?

~~~
mahyarm
People here in the SF bay area think that cities will implode like it's the
apocalypse when a major earthquake happens. But that never actually happens,
and only approaches it in developing countries. Most buildings in the USA can
withstand a major earthquake due to building code regulations. I bet if the
SFBA had a major earthquake, not counting a tsunami, at most about 5000 non
elderly adults would die, which is a miniscule number in a metro area of ~7.5
million.

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schainks
I think people in California should adopt an alternative to the "Ice Bucket
Challenge." Make it the "dirt bucket challenge" or __<something cheeky>___
challenge to save water.

Is there any connection between the increasing smog output of China and the
lack of rain/show in California?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I recall seeing something within the last few years that said that North
American industrial pollution was resposible for the growth of the Sahara
desert. If that research is still good, then it's entirely plausible that
Chinese pollution is contributing to California's drought.

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rosser
I wonder how much additional strain this puts on the fault lines that riddle
the area.

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danteembermage
One weeks worth of plate tectonic tension apparently

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djloche
Water Rationing is not necessary. When it becomes a life threatening problem,
people who want water will pay for desalination projects to be quickly
completed in order to supply water for people to live. Forward thinking
politicians are already putting these things on the fast track to get ahead of
the game.

~~~
mattip
That's what happened in Israel which now gets a significant percent of
municipal water from desalination, (a bit of marketing here [0] but the facts
seem correct)

[0]
[http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994202](http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994202)

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snake_plissken
Just stop growing Alfalfa in the desert.

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bostonvaulter2
The current XKCD is very relevant:
[http://xkcd.com/1410/](http://xkcd.com/1410/)

