Originally published by The Los Angeles Times:
Gov. Jerry Brown is calling for fines of up to $10,000 for the state’s biggest water wasters. “We’ve done a lot. We have a long way to go,” Brown said. “So maybe you want to think of this as just another installment on a long enterprise to live with a changing climate and with a drought of uncertain duration.”
That’s definitely the way it looks now.
Harsh new water restrictions are even affecting cemeteries, where caretakers worry that their carefully manicured lawns will soon begin turning brown. (Although that “even” probably shouldn’t be there, considering the relative importance of hydrating the deceased vis-à-vis, well, any other priority.)
No one knows when the drought will end. The skies could open up tomorrow. (OK, probably not tomorrow.) But the longer it goes on and the more scary records it sets, the more the drought feels like the new normal.
California just endured the driest January, and the hottest February, since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began keeping records in 1895. This comes after three years of record heat and low rainfall.
Snowpack accumulation is at a record low: 5% of the historical average.
The drought of the last three years is the worst to hit California in 1,200 years, according to one study.
Desperate thirst makes for desperate solutions, and many people are pushing for the construction of desalination plants to process seawater from the Pacific Ocean. That is, for example, how arid Saudi Arabia gets about half of its water. But desalination plants are expensive and environmentally counterproductive. They dump the extracted salt back into the ocean, where it kills sea life. And they require a lot of electricity to operate, which contributes to the production of the greenhouse gases driving climate change, which is what helped cause the drought.
Then you have those with more fanciful ideas, such as actor William Shatner’s proposal to raise $30 billion in a Kickstarter campaign to build a pipeline to move water from Seattle to California.
Venice Beach declares war on our infantile obsession with nudity
Venice Beach declares war on our infantile obsession with nudity
At a certain point, one has to pose the question no one wants to consider: Should people — not everyone, but enough people to make a difference — leave California? Desalination plants work for Saudi Arabia because the kingdom is sparsely populated. California, the most populous state, may have to become less populous in order to live in harmony with the environment under the new climate reality — one that may feature a sort of perma-drought.
“Civilizations in the past have had to migrate out of areas of drought,” said Lynn Wilson, a United Nations climate change expert. “We may have to migrate people out of California.”
In the meantime, as my cartoon points out, those with money will never run out of whatever they want or need — and that includes water.
15 Comments.
> California, the most populous state, may have to become less populous in order to live in harmony with the environment under the new climate reality
But that applies to the entire gosh-darned planet. If we want to survive into the next millennium we’re going to have to stop breeding like bunnies. It’s simple math – a finite environment cannot support infinite growth.
> Venice Beach declares war on our infantile obsession with nudity
Interesting statement embedded in the article – I suspect it’s an editing error. But I question the use of “infantile” in this context. I was definitely past infant stage when I became obsessed with nudity. “Adolescent?”
Now if you’re talking about titties, we can get real infantile with that version of upper-body nudity ~
DanD
When yer right, yer right.
When I was in high school it was, “Titties and Beer!” – in junior high it was just “Titties!” … but at some point earlier it was “Dinner Time!”
California is a big place. The southeast corner is one of the hottest and driest places in the world. The northwest corner is a magical rainforest that hasn’t changed much since the dinosaurs were stomping around. One could imagine moving the people to where the water is.
Forget it Ted, It’s Chinatown.
OK, that’s perfect 🙂
The problem with depopulating California is how will you do it ?
The best way would to be offer the people money to move and make sure they have jobs and affordable housing in their new location. Given our congress and state houses that won’t fly. The real world answer will be to beat up on the poor and falling middle class so much they move themselves but many in these groups can’t move easily. The poor can’t afford to rent a truck, they can’t afford to live on savings for weeks or months while searching for housing and employment.
The falling middle class is tied up to their homes, if the government doesn’t buy them out many will have too much of their life savings in their homes to move, unless most of the jobs leave and they abandon their homes.
Another thing to consider is those that are born in the US are slowly moving out of the state, over the last ten or twenty years the population growth in the state has been fueled by recent arrivals
We just need end landscaping as we know it in parks, golf courses and along freeways.
Parks can use artificial grass around playgrounds and drip water hearty native species that can survive on low water conditions. Golf course can dry up and use artificial turf and drip feed native plants. Sports fields can go artificial too. Freeways can be landscaped by paying artist to paint the bare spots.
Swimming pools should limited, private pools need to be very small and covered when not in use, public pools can stay large but they need covers too.
More of the state water storage system needs to be covered to prevent evaporation.
Put out a ballot measure to kill high speed rail (it was dumb idea, the money should been raised for local transit that people use everyday) and use the money for water saving projects
Farms are the biggest water users so tell farmers they can’t plant rice, almonds, alfalfa (which will send much of the livestock and dairy business out of the state) and any other water intensive crops. Insist drip agriculture be used for what is grown. Watering along dirt furrows is very wasteful
>The problem with depopulating California is how will you do it?
“Mother nature always bats last” Either we fix the problems we caused, or the problems will fix us.
Of course, even if we could pack up all the Californians and move them elsewhere – where is that where? Every other state is in the same state, even if they haven’t noticed it yet.
Shatner wants to pipe water in from Seattle? The Pacific Northwest had a very mild winter & the snow pack (where they get their water) is much smaller than normal. They’ve had watering restrictions for years.
The problem is too many people. Every other “problem” is actually a symptom.
One more thing about population, if lower your population you have to think about the following
First if every couple had one child the burden to physically and or financially take the elderly, there are countries see that right now
If you lower you population and some other nation doesn’t they can try turn there higher populations into military and or financial advantage. Really the only two practical way a global agreement backed by sanctions of fast breeding nations. Method two environmental disasters, financial crises and war start claiming millions
Oh, yeah, any sort of global agreement would require much more mature and reasonable humans than are readily available.
Me, I’m betting on eco-disaster followed by World War Last.
Alas, this is one problem that cannot be blamed on whitey. It’s every other group that’s breeding like bunnies.
@Jack – tell us again how you’re not racist.
Even in the US whites are outbreeding Asians and Natives.
Just like with crime rates, the real divide is “rich” vs. “poor” NOT “black” vs. “white” The fact that there are proportionally are more poor blacks than poor whites skew the statistics in both cases.
Was referring to worldwide, smart guy. Indians and Asians in, you know, Asia, and Hispanics and Blacks everywhere for example. You know, I just knew you could find a way to blame whitey! Could you hate your whiteness more? If only you could be…hmm…I know! A black woman! I bet you’d be thrilled!
If you really have to be told: I’m far, FAR beyond caring if anonymous, hypersensitive, PC liberals think I’m “racist.” I know you are. You use the term “whitesplaining.” Self-loathing? More like self-annihilation.
.> ” I’m far, FAR beyond caring if anonymous, hypersensitive, PC liberals think I’m “racist.” I know you are”
ROTFL I can just tell how FAR beyond caring you are. Hint: If wash off your smeared mascara *before* you reply it won’t be quite so obvious.
Insisting on objective truth is the exact opposite of being biased. However, phrases like “blame whitey!” are dead giveaways of racial bias. Especially when used as an ad hominem non sequitur.
Since most of the racist whiners making that claim are looking exclusively at the US, I assumed that was the case here. So are you worried about the declining percentage of whites in Zimbabwe?
I did look for world-wide figures, couldn’t find them in the small amount of time I cared to spend looking. I do note that China, Japan, Thailand, and (both) Koreas growth rates are all lower than that of the US or UK. Since those countries account for about 1/4 of the Earth’s population and are primarily Asian that’s gotta have an affect on the overall average.
Feel free to post proof if you’ve got it – but be sure to correlate it to income first or else I shall be forced to mock you again. (and if you don’t have proof, feel free to explain why a non-racist would be making such claims in absence thereof.)
Depopulation of California cannot be done as a rational problem. What’s the necessary cut to the 38.8 million residents? Call it 7 million. Get 7 million people to leave. How? Where are these people gonna go? What are they going to do for work? Who will buy their homes?
The only possible solution would be to set up California as a “silver” state. Bribe the young to leave and the elderly to move there. Reduce the reproducing portion of the population to the minimum. Shut down the schools as the child-population drops. Shrink the universities by a set percentage each year.
The same sort of thing should be undertaken now for the coastal cities as well. In 40 years, when the flooding is a regular happening, the people in central Massachusetts are going to be mighty pleased that their parents bought the land while it was still cheap.