https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA
How will this affect agriculture? Will this have an impact on people as in will people and are people losing their lives over this? Is this a temporary thing? Hoover Dam is expected to run out of water soon meaning LA will be out of electricity (not entirely but it will reach the point where there won't be enough to run the turbines needed for generating electricity)
So is this kinda the end for America or are there solutions to this? Water is water and that shit is important not just for our bodies but for producing energy and preventing and stopping fires.
So is this kinda the end for America or are there solutions to this?
The answers are yes and no respectively.
It's just a matter of time at this point. California produces a huge portion of the country's food. The next decade is gonna get really fucked.
kinda scary to think everything science has been telling us is all true and nothing was done to prevent it all and now people gonna die. All empires fall I guess :shrug-outta-hecks:
If actual efforts are taken then we won't be in crisis even with the drought but capitalism. A lot gets produced here but also a lot of it is just left to rot in the trash.
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
We'll probably lose the great redwoods since there'll be a lot of nice kindling to light them up; we already lost like 10% of the mature population of them last year with the last big CA fire :this-is-fine:
Fuck I've always wanted to see the redwoods, I need to make a trip out there before it's too late
You've got like 10-20 years probably, unless California really drops the ball with their fire seasons lol. I mean, even then - there's still giant ones cultivated worldwide. France had like the 2nd biggest in the world for awhile.
But yeah - it's been a dream of mine to see them too. The last time I was in California I begged the people I was with and even attempted to bribe them into stopping for like half a day at one of the numerous places in CA that has at least some sort of 'giant sequoia' - but they refused and instead we spent the afternoon in Beverly Hills :angery:
Then when we were in San Francisco like three days later - I was like "we're so close to the literal cloud forests please can we go??? I'll even pay for the gas and everyone's ticket". No, we spent the day in goddamn Mission Dolores park :angry-place:
I don't think you're really at risk of not being able to see redwoods by the time you die because of this drought.
the accumulated filth of all will foam up about their waists and all the politicians will look up and shout "save us"
..and I'll look down and whisper "no."
Maybe people should live somewhere habitable; like the northeast or northwest.
Northwest is habitable until the Big One at least.
Might take 18 months to get electricity back to everyone after the Juan de Fuca plate moves 500-1000m west.
There will be a catastrophe like a municipal water shortage or something, some people will die, and then there will be enough political will to actually fix it. It's not a giant global problem tied into every part of production like climate change. It's a finite number of assholes that could be paid to cut it out, have their stuff seized by the state, or be murdered by a mob.
At some point even the libs are going to need to take measures like restricting what types of crops can be grown here. We grow a lot of water-intensive agriculture which puts a lot of strain on our water supply, and we've got some reservoirs that, if they're ever allowed to go completely dry, will never refill again.
It'll probably take the form of a "pay farming corporations not to grow certain types of crops" subsidy, and it probably won't come until after some permanent damage has been done either to the environment or the people (or both!), but honestly I feel like it will eventually happen (when the prevailing opinion of the ruling class is that if it doesn't we'll all die).
edit: of course, expect a huge shouting match over restrictions on shit like washing cars and watering lawns, which are both bad but account for a tiny portion of water usage. Libs will probably push these measures first even while knowing that it doesn't come close to addressing the problem, and cons will fundraise off of it by claiming that not being able to water your grass is like living in communist China.
some reservoirs that, if they’re ever allowed to go completely dry, will never refill again.
why not?
I might be misremembering this, but certain underground reservoirs require pressure not to collapse, so if you pump too much out of them they close and can't refill naturally again.
Learn about groundwater supplies and trends globally, this shit is crucial to surviving on earth. It's deeper than just some farmer dickheads, as tempting as it is to reduce it to that. With climate crisis comes water shortages and the management of the stuff we need to live is actually pretty important for whatever society we have in the future
Food prices like Almonds, PIstachios, Walnuts ( I think) and lots produce will see their price increase and shortages from distributors to grocery stores increase. So smaller chains might be given short orders (sent less than they ordered) or sent nothing at all if larger chains put pressure on the distro's to give them priority.
I wouldn't surprise me if larger chains would raise prices both as a requirement of the increased costs to them as well as to take advantage of situations where they got goods to sell while local competitors where given "out of stock" notices.
Lots of political fall out, watch for the Bundy types doing adventurisms in CA as the conflict between cities and rural/agriculture interests hits a point that nobody can just pay (cash or lip service) people to be happy a situation of reduced water use/access. I think the Newsom recall got some steam from right wingers and agri businesses about dealing with future water issues so this will be a continual thing now.
