Of course you're going to have a lot of dams in California-- it's southern half is basically a desert that some moron decided to turn into a lush green playground. Not exactly hard to imagine that when you couple massive over population in the Orange County area with massive agricultural issues that were accelerated with the Dust Bowl in the 1930's you end up with state with water issues.
Our problem as a nation has been that we've allowed California push the entire Southwestern region into a ecological disaster. We need to face it that Almond Milk and Pistachios are a huge ecological problem not just for California but the entire country.
We have to say no to the green lush lawns in the middle of a desert. That is a problem. We need more realistic expectations of deserts-- that sand is your new lawn. Or maybe one of those cool zen stone gardens.
Do you cover the Dam failure in 1928 in LA? The St. Francis Dam? The failure isn't the issue I'm getting at but the fact that reservoirs it created were already going dry after about a year of use because of the amount of water the California Citrus Growers were using. And now because of the 22 year drought reservoirs in Northern California are still extreme low--even after a significant amount of snowfall this winter.
I think it is simple the state of California is not sustainable given its population and resource allocation. The next answer for California is Desalinization Plants but they destroy the local ecology of the ocean they are located near with their super-salty brine.
And then we have the mad dash to the electrification of personal transport in CA. How does anyone think that a state right now that cannot handle all the AC units on during the summer will handle .25 percent of its new cars being electrically powered? Where is this new power going to come from exactly? And what will happen to the already over taxed and under funded electrical grid of CA when they plug in hundreds of thousands of electric cars all at once?
yeah california is fucked. but it won't be evenly spread out. for instance in sf, hetch hetchy is almost completely full while others run dry. so the richer areas will do just fine. same with the electric cars. they'll mostly be in expensive urban zip codes with the best electrical grids so no problem there. the poors can just continue to get burned by pg&e caused forest fires and have their wells run dry.
Silicon Valley will be certainly one of the areas that pushes for more Desalinization Plants if this drought continues--and they will get it. After all no one in SF working at Google should be limited 5.5 gallons per day of water. That's just not going to happen. And the same will be true for electricity in CA-- poor neighborhoods will have too choose if they want to charge their car or live in 100F housing during a heatwave. Or perhaps poor neighborhoods won't choose at all they will just forced with rolling blackouts, insane prices, and no future. The problem will be when those people do a mass exodus from CA to other states. What is CA going to do without cheap labor for the Big Agriculture, house maids, or regular day stuff? Does anyone really believe in JohnDoe the Robo-worker is going really be a truly cost effective solution to picking Strawberries? What happens if some hacker breaks into your Robo-Workers locks you out and demands a 100,000 in the latest crypto currency crazy.
The more we expand our business model to promote income inequality and discontent in the classes the more unstable local , state and federal governments become.
to be honest, a mass exodus out of california would be a good thing. but then, where are people gonna go? to canada? other areas will have similar ecological catastrophes unfolding at the same time.
too many people, too much industrial plunder, too much consumerism, not enough finite resources — that's the general story here.
I agree that an exodus is necessary to fix California. And I agree that the overall problem is that we've accepted the only solution is more consumption and more industrialized growth. So, while CA might reduce its population and that will help sustainability. However, it will only shift that problem to other states as their populations grow and the model is repeated.
I really want to hear how Shahid Buttar would describe the issues with Water Oligarchs? I wonder if could set to a nifty bongo rhythm while telling us that he is grassroots activist working for a Washington Lobbyist. Maybe I am just a masochist person deep down inside.
I grew up and played around the Sweetwater Dam in Spring Valley. Funny place with a buffer zone fenced off all around it. If you messed around in there, you eventually ended up running from the "water bugs" in baby blue trucks coming to scare you off or arrest you if you got caught too many times. Ironically, it is some of the only undeveloped land left in the area these days.
Some mike Davis-esque research going on here. He might be a cool person to interview for this.
Also I’m not sure if you saw but apparently there was a “Chinatown” style leaking of 26m $ worth of water from a reservoir in Fresno recently.
haha. yeah, saw that. “leaking”
Of course you're going to have a lot of dams in California-- it's southern half is basically a desert that some moron decided to turn into a lush green playground. Not exactly hard to imagine that when you couple massive over population in the Orange County area with massive agricultural issues that were accelerated with the Dust Bowl in the 1930's you end up with state with water issues.
Our problem as a nation has been that we've allowed California push the entire Southwestern region into a ecological disaster. We need to face it that Almond Milk and Pistachios are a huge ecological problem not just for California but the entire country.
We have to say no to the green lush lawns in the middle of a desert. That is a problem. We need more realistic expectations of deserts-- that sand is your new lawn. Or maybe one of those cool zen stone gardens.
Do you cover the Dam failure in 1928 in LA? The St. Francis Dam? The failure isn't the issue I'm getting at but the fact that reservoirs it created were already going dry after about a year of use because of the amount of water the California Citrus Growers were using. And now because of the 22 year drought reservoirs in Northern California are still extreme low--even after a significant amount of snowfall this winter.
I think it is simple the state of California is not sustainable given its population and resource allocation. The next answer for California is Desalinization Plants but they destroy the local ecology of the ocean they are located near with their super-salty brine.
And then we have the mad dash to the electrification of personal transport in CA. How does anyone think that a state right now that cannot handle all the AC units on during the summer will handle .25 percent of its new cars being electrically powered? Where is this new power going to come from exactly? And what will happen to the already over taxed and under funded electrical grid of CA when they plug in hundreds of thousands of electric cars all at once?
no we don't cover that.
yeah california is fucked. but it won't be evenly spread out. for instance in sf, hetch hetchy is almost completely full while others run dry. so the richer areas will do just fine. same with the electric cars. they'll mostly be in expensive urban zip codes with the best electrical grids so no problem there. the poors can just continue to get burned by pg&e caused forest fires and have their wells run dry.
Silicon Valley will be certainly one of the areas that pushes for more Desalinization Plants if this drought continues--and they will get it. After all no one in SF working at Google should be limited 5.5 gallons per day of water. That's just not going to happen. And the same will be true for electricity in CA-- poor neighborhoods will have too choose if they want to charge their car or live in 100F housing during a heatwave. Or perhaps poor neighborhoods won't choose at all they will just forced with rolling blackouts, insane prices, and no future. The problem will be when those people do a mass exodus from CA to other states. What is CA going to do without cheap labor for the Big Agriculture, house maids, or regular day stuff? Does anyone really believe in JohnDoe the Robo-worker is going really be a truly cost effective solution to picking Strawberries? What happens if some hacker breaks into your Robo-Workers locks you out and demands a 100,000 in the latest crypto currency crazy.
The more we expand our business model to promote income inequality and discontent in the classes the more unstable local , state and federal governments become.
to be honest, a mass exodus out of california would be a good thing. but then, where are people gonna go? to canada? other areas will have similar ecological catastrophes unfolding at the same time.
too many people, too much industrial plunder, too much consumerism, not enough finite resources — that's the general story here.
I agree that an exodus is necessary to fix California. And I agree that the overall problem is that we've accepted the only solution is more consumption and more industrialized growth. So, while CA might reduce its population and that will help sustainability. However, it will only shift that problem to other states as their populations grow and the model is repeated.
I really want to hear how Shahid Buttar would describe the issues with Water Oligarchs? I wonder if could set to a nifty bongo rhythm while telling us that he is grassroots activist working for a Washington Lobbyist. Maybe I am just a masochist person deep down inside.
I grew up and played around the Sweetwater Dam in Spring Valley. Funny place with a buffer zone fenced off all around it. If you messed around in there, you eventually ended up running from the "water bugs" in baby blue trucks coming to scare you off or arrest you if you got caught too many times. Ironically, it is some of the only undeveloped land left in the area these days.