

The End of California? - primroot
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-california.html?_r=0

======
claar
Sam Altman: "it's remarkable how many other problems reduce to the energy
problem"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239063)

I hope in 100 years, a "water shortage" on earth will be a silly concept, as
you can always just pull more from the ocean.

~~~
melling
You don't think there will be consequences to massive desalination?

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-impacts-of-
rel...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-impacts-of-relying-on-
desalination/)

~~~
CHY872
There won't be. Scientific intuition and the available studies suggest that
apart from perhaps in the immediate vicinity of where they pump the salt back
in, the effect is minimal, no matter how much desalination you perform.

It's what you'd expect, in fact. The state of California (if my back of
envelope calculations are correct) uses in total about 66 cubic kilometres of
water each year.

If you produced California's entire water supply by desalination, this would
be akin to removing 1/10,000,000 of the Pacific's water every year. It's a
miniscule amount, and is of order of magnitude the same as not letting the
Colorado reach the ocean.

~~~
markkat
I've wondered if cargo ships couldn't use the very salty water as a source of
electricity (ion gradient), slowly draining the saltier water as it traverses
the ocean.

~~~
cpeterso
Or could the very salty water be used, somehow, for renewable energy storage
for off-peak hours?

------
dxbydt
Is this a particular style of writing ? He takes 3 sentences, makes 1
paragraph. Then repeats with the next 3, and the next 3 etc. The paragraphs
are completely disjoint - so he mentions almonds in a para, then Romney in
another, then Glenn Beck, then something about Yosemite....its like a
whirlwind tour of the drought landscape with no central thesis or conclusion.
No flow, just lots of disparate facts. What is his point ? How exactly does
one go from one freak drought to the end of California, which has what - the
fourth or fifth largest GDP on the whole planet ( if it were a country ) ?

~~~
throwaway344
8th.

[http://www.ccsce.com/PDF/Numbers-July-2014-CA-Economy-
Rankin...](http://www.ccsce.com/PDF/Numbers-July-2014-CA-Economy-
Rankings-2013.pdf)

~~~
FullyFunctional
Interesting, thanks, but those are 2013 numbers. The article claims California
grew/is growing faster than Texas which isn't the case in your linked report,
so I wonder where one might find more recent data.

~~~
chomp
This is the most recent I could find, I can't vouch for the
accuracy/truthfulness of the data though:

[https://www.aei.org/publication/texas-great-american-job-
mac...](https://www.aei.org/publication/texas-great-american-job-machine-
solely-responsible-1m-net-us-job-increase-since-2007/)

------
istvan__
Where I live the management companies are watering the decoration plantation
every day regardless if it was raining the previous day or not. The also have
some leaks, but guess what, they don't care because they are not motivated
financially to solve these problems. If you report them to the authorities
they simply defer the cost to the renters. Now, the question is how long it
takes it the local authorities to close these loopholes and put effective
measure to stop wasting water. Wait, they are also not interested. Nevermind.
:)

~~~
greggman
I've never seen a municipal/public grass area that isn't over watered in
California. Drive down some street that has a grass covered divider or grass
lined public areas between the sidewalk and the street. Come by when it's
being watered. Watch the water run all over the street instead of in the
grass. That of course then makes every car that goes by dirty which then has
to be washed (more water)

~~~
mturmon
This has begun to change -- not fast enough, though, I agree.

LADWP and the City of LA have both begun to convert their own buildings'
landscaping to drought-tolerant plantings. It's very slow, I think because of
a color-of-money issue. Upkeep may come from a already-available pile of cash,
while replacement comes from a different and much smaller pile.

Also, for a couple of years now, LADWP has been offering cash payments to
customers who replace their lawn with drought-tolerant plants
([http://www.ladwp.cafriendlylandscaping.com](http://www.ladwp.cafriendlylandscaping.com)).

It's having a noticeable effect, although I have to say that many of the jobs
done by contractors are atrocious. Exhibit A is these guys,
[http://turfterminators.com](http://turfterminators.com), who will replace
your front yard with 2'' stones and a few sad succulents for free, and claim
your DWP payment. I removed my lawn 14 years ago.

------
nomass
I find the entire development very terrifying.

Even if I don't live in the US and being not particularly interested I've
heard about California’s water problem more then 10 ago. That means the
problems and dangers are well know a relatively long time ago. There is a ton
of publications and research on various levels and domains.

It seems to me that we are completely incapable to handle the challenges that
come with (finite) natural resources. Our system works as long as it works and
then it halts full stop. Like a massive train, there is no change of course.

~~~
humanrebar
I'm confused why the price per gallon for water isn't skyrocketing in
California.

If the state is artificially keeping the price low, of course people aren't
going to change their habits and business models. And the end game is running
out of water instead of innovating to keep your water bill down.

~~~
rconti
Well, for one, water prices are not really set by a free market. Residential
water providers are monopolies regulated by the local governments. They're not
allowed to jack up their rates as it would hurt the poor. In San Juan
Capistrano, the plaintiffs recently won a suit against tiered pricing on the
argument that the water cannot be sold at a cost greater than the cost of
providing it.

Agricultural interests with senior water rights have a legal right to a much
greater amount of water at much lower cost. Those with riparian rights
(upstream) have the right to take as much water as they can use.

There are hundreds of reasons why it's not as simple as "turn this knob to
raise price".

~~~
dchichkov
/sarcasm: I wonder why there aren't air access riparian rights (upstream) or
senior air rights. It seems logical if there are such rights for water, there
should be similar rights for air.

~~~
hydrogen18
In actuality, it is one of enforcement. It is relatively easy to track and
identify water usage. You can disguise a well only for so long. If the US
federal government had the means to regulate air usage by so many cubic feet
per year, they would.

For some industries this already exists in the form of the regulation of
emissions. If you're capping an industries carbon output into atmosphere what
you are really capping is the mass of oxygen they can consume from the
atmosphere. If you do the thermodynamic analysis of it, you're basically
putting a cap on the amount of energy that a business can acquire from using
the atmosphere. Most industries run 24/7, so it is really easy to calculate
how much oxygen they'll use each year and how much carbon they'll emit into
the atmosphere.

It isn't so easy for individuals and smaller businesses. For example, I own a
generator that uses oxygen from the atmosphere to get electrical energy.
However, I only use it for a tiny fraction of each year.

------
AdamFernandez
Why do crops need to be grown in California or 'shipped' to China? Can't these
crops be provided by other states in the U.S. that are more conducive to
farming? It seems California is not a great state for farming, and was
engineered to be suitable. I understand the economic value to the state, but
using 80% of the water during a drought? It seems like an incredible waste of
resources for the financial gain of a single state.

~~~
cjensen
Contrary to your entirely reasonable assumptions, California is more conducive
to farming than most places. There is little to no frost, a nearly yearlong
growing season, and plenty of water thanks to the natural reservoir that is
the Sierra snowpack. The catch is that California has always been prone to
multiyear droughts; while this is the worst single season on record, the
drought itself is not particularly notable -- the last similar drought was
just 40 years ago.

So why do we clamp down on residential watering while allowing almonds to be
grown? Simple: residential watering provides no economic purpose, and dead
grass will grow back when the water comes back. Almonds provide an economic
benefit and we usually have plenty of water for them. Diverting water from
residences to almonds during a drought is simply the price of keeping that
part of the economy alive.

~~~
Quanticles
Almond growers better be paying a premium then in order to compensate the
residents of the state who lost their water to them. If California is
conducive to farming other than water then the high price in water should be
fine.

~~~
curun1r
I think it's a mistake to keep harping on Almonds. California produces so much
of the world's supply that ceasing production here would be hugely disruptive.
Beef and Dairy, on the other hand, are produced in areas with far more
available water. California could stop producing livestock and the world (and
the state) would, for the most part, shrug and go about their normal business.

Almonds get so much attention, but if you look at the amount of water
necessary to produce almond milk vs the amount of water necessary to produce
cow's milk, almonds start to look at lot more attractive.

------
hyperion2010
The solution to this problem is very, very simple: actually force farmers to
pay market price for the water they use. The end.

~~~
rscott
That's not what I would call simple. America has a long history of subsidizing
farmers, which in turn keeps food prices down.

~~~
bradleyjg
Not all food subsidies keep food prices down. For example, several crops have
dedicated programs where the government keeps a significant portion of the
annual crop off the open market as a means of keeping the price high (see the
recent SCOTUS case about raisins). Then there's things like ethanol mandates
which act as a subsidy to farmers but increase both the cost of food and the
cost of gasoline. An even bigger problem are import tariffs and other forms of
protectionism that again subsidize farmers but increase prices.

Food stamps are a far far better way of subsidizing food for the poor than
through a rube goldberg system of supposedly helping the poor by giving
millions to huge agribusinesses. So much so that I consider those types of
arguments a bit of a red herring. Along with the "food security" argument --
there's no impeding worldwide embargo of the united states and if there were
calories would be the least of our problems.

------
jodah
Among the many well-known statistics cited in the article, absent was the less
known point that half of California farms still use open ditch irrigation. It
makes many of the other discussions about crop selection and municipal
conservation seem trivial.

------
ktdrv
The article could be one word long: "No!" But I guess that does not sell as
many ads.

~~~
TheCapn
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

------
Spooky23
This paragraph really captures the essence of the problem:

"But California, from this drought onward, will be a state transformed. The
Dust Bowl of the 1930s was human-caused, after the grasslands of the Great
Plains were ripped up, and the land thrown to the wind. It never fully
recovered. The California drought of today is mostly nature’s hand,
diminishing an Eden created by man. The Golden State may recover, but it won’t
be the same place."

------
poke111
If only there were some science dedicated to the study of allocation of scarce
resources, the practitioners of which may be able to offer some advice...

~~~
primroot
but... who needs science when you can have free markets?

------
fweespeech
I find the article quite disingenuous given it doesn't admit the reality of
the situation. If California stops being used to farm cash crops for export
outside of California [as it is currently], the "water problem" will
mysteriously vanish overnight. Even with droughts.

[http://aic.ucdavis.edu/pub/exports.html](http://aic.ucdavis.edu/pub/exports.html)

[http://ajed.assembly.ca.gov/sites/ajed.assembly.ca.gov/files...](http://ajed.assembly.ca.gov/sites/ajed.assembly.ca.gov/files/Fast%20Facts%20on%20California%27s%20Agricultural%20Economy.pdf)

> In 2013, the total amount of agriculture and livestock products exported
> from California to the world totaled $13.7 billion.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html)

> By all accounts the current water crisis is far more urgent in the sprawling
> fields of the Central Valley. And that’s bad news for those of us who enjoy
> eating daily. Two simple facts explain why: California is the most
> productive agricultural state in the union, and agriculture uses 80 percent
> of California’s water. In a year with practically none of the stuff, that’s
> enough to send ripple effects throughout the country.

> Almonds alone use about 10 percent of California’s total water supply each
> year. That’s nuts. But almonds are also the state’s most lucrative exported
> agricultural product, with California producing 80 percent of the world’s
> supply. Alfalfa hay requires even more water, about 15 percent of the
> state’s supply. About 70 percent of alfalfa grown in California is used in
> dairies, and a good portion of the rest is exported to land-poor Asian
> countries like Japan. Yep, that’s right: In the middle of a drought, farmers
> are shipping fresh hay across the Pacific Ocean. The water that’s locked up
> in exported hay amounts to about 100 billion gallons per year—enough to
> supply 1 million families with drinking water for a year.

------
WalterSear
"The California drought of today is mostly nature’s hand, diminishing an Eden
created by man."

FFS. And the repeated mantra of almonds, along with not one mention of meat.
It's nothing but hubris and ignorance.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
it’s there, midway down — “It takes 106 gallons of water to produce an ounce
of beef — which is more than the average San Francisco Bay Area resident uses
in a day.”

I did a double take at that line you quoted, though.

~~~
batbomb
Those figures are based off of grain fed, mass produced cattle. Assuming that
all such grains originate in California, or even that it applies to all meat,
is silly. They are not accurate for grass fed beef.

Around Petaluma, for example, the cows graze on grass that is not irrigated.
They may be supplemented with grain in the winter months.

A cow itself, not including water used to grow feed, will consume about 30-55
gallons of water to every hanging pound. You can do this calculation yourself:
A decent hanging weight of a cow is about 600 pounds. A cow drinks ~25 gallons
a day, and goes to slaughter around age 3. (25x365x3)/600.

