:yea:
If only there were a way to account for California's (lack of) resources and centrally plan a shift away from Alfalfa, almonds, and golf courses so that the entire won't turn into Mad Max.
the romans unironically could have built a system of rainwater collection and aqueducts from the PNW to southern california and solved this problem. but the Greatest Country On Earth^TM can't even try
IIRC, Rome used the legions to built roads and aqueducts.
when you build massive cities and farms in a place with no water and then it runs out of water :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown: :walter-breakdown:
The central valley of CA used to be a vast wetland, it wasn't always like that
You can find big 'ol signs in California's central valley that say "Is growing food wasting water?" next to almond orchards using flood irrigation.
Edit: I have been informed that in fact alfalfa and pasture for cattle is in fact the biggest use of this water. Of course it is. Beef was a mistake.
:michael-laugh: that's just a disingenuous argument. You can grow any other less water-intensive food.
Getting a big laser and burning "IF THAT FOOD IS ALMONDS, YES" into every sign
California being an agricultural powerhouse state on par with some of the east coast ones is fucking mental to me.
And somehow, despite this headline showing up every year and getting worse every year, California housing prices have continued to skyrocket.
My dad lives in the foothills and assumes he'll eventually have beach front property.
did u know that each almond farmer you guillotine saves forty billion gallons of water?
https://www.theonion.com/i-will-drink-every-last-drop-of-water-on-earth-1819584998
im not gonna pretend i dont like almonds but i think its pretty clear what needs to be done
Go after alfalfa and other cattle feed growers which use a lot more California water than almonds?
I don't even give a shit about almonds because oat and soy milk both taste better, and other nuts and seeds are superior to eat, but I still have an instinctual cringe hearing about them because half the time they're invoked just to say "you smug vegans (who apparently by definition consume almond milk) are just as bad as meat and dairy eaters"
same vibe as hearing about how evil vegans are for soy in the Amazon when most of that shit is grown for livestock feed
ya almond milk lame & you're absolutely right abt the consumption being used for bad takes. im a soy boy until the end
peoples takes about actually veganism is bad for the environment are so incredibly unexamined that i can't believe theyre in good faith
Isn't almond milk still less water intensive compared to milking cows?
Whenever I look into this a little it looks like that's correct - for instance, you can check out the charts here: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
It is worth noting that you can grow almonds in a lot fewer climates than you can raise dairy cows. California is uniquely suited to growing almonds in North America, but also one of the more water stressed places there, so almond farming is pretty problematic.
On the other hand, if you're raising dairy cows anywhere near the Great Lakes or other places with huge freshwater reserves, the issue really isn't their water use because it's just so abundant there; in those cases the environmental impact of dairy farming is much more in the greenhouse gas emissions which are enormous compared to all plant milks.
Not many people know this but many of those farms are owned by Saudi Arabia. After Saudi Arabia started pumping out aquifers that were millions of years old to produce wheat in their country. They then became one of the largest producers and their wells went dry. So now in Arizona you got these farms owned by the Saudis that export to markets they are obligated to serve. Cuz you know, capitalism so they had to move to :amerikkka:. A lot of this usually goes to China it’s why you hear Chinese alfalfa on :reddit-logo: . We often talk about oil but water is way more crucial to the whole system. Also many of these cities can only exist out west because they are heavily subsidized by the east coast on water. Yay the incoming water wars.
I really REALLY wish the "I believe the science" party would actually listen to the science. Science (and human survival) demands the abolition of capitalism, other radical change.
I really REALLY wish the “I believe the science” party would actually listen to the science.
They're just controlled opposition. Corporate profits and the survival of capitalism will always be more important to the Dems than anything else.
Corporate profits and the survival of capitalism will always be more important to the Dems than anything else
Super depressing but the true nonetheless. DNC is nothing but spinless cowards.
DNC is nothing but spinless cowards
Not true. They aren't "cowards who don't stand up for what they believe in." The DNC are just mask on lairs that are just as bad as the Republicans.
Even the IPCC is straight up saying this now. If we don't radically rebuild our economic system, this problem is not going to be solved in time to make a difference (and may not be solvable at all). The fact that a UN-affiliated, relatively conservative scientific body that, just a few decades ago, was unwilling to make any policy recommendations at all for fear of being seen as biased is now explicitly saying that our survival depends on dismantling global capitalism represents a screaming red alert klaxon going off, and yet there's been basically no discussion of this at all in the mainstream media. The science is unequivocal: capitalism is literally killing us all.
Oroville Dam provides a non-negligible chunk of California's power and they might have to turn it off :negative:
B-b-b-but I was told that technology improves over time and global warming would be fixed by new miracle technology we can't conceive of?
According to this Alfalfa and pasture use 5x as much water as Almonds and pistachios.
75% of alfalfa is used to feed dairy cows in California. So its cows
It has always been cows, the almonds thing is complete bullshit.
Stop drinking milk and go vegan
:im-vegan:
drink :soy-chill: instead also :im-vegan:
From the video
"Water isn't free. We need to start thinking of it as a commodity that is more valuable than any other natural resource we have."
Conservationism expressed in the most capitalist-brain way possible.
Yes. That's the exact fucking opposite of the way we need to think of it. It needs to be thought of as a basic human right for survival and not a commodity to be misallocated by a "free market" that values profit over human life, life in general, let alone environmental sustainability. Preaching to the choir, I know, but this is how even otherwise well-meaning people poisoned by capitalist realism are going to be the death of us all.
fuck we are going to be charged "variable market rates" for our water hookups in a few years, all across the U.S., aren't we?
Excited to hear why the local football stadium still doesn't need to pay its tab while several hundred thousand residents have their water cut off.
It's partially correct, but not in the way the chuds mean it. Laws and government policy w/r/t water rights in CA have been bought and paid for by the bourgeoisie. There's enough water in California for the people and for crops that use water efficiently. But the big farmers in the central valley have lobbied enough and gotten enough laws written that allow them to use (waste) as much water as they want.
state sponsored bum fights that immediately become privatized in true neoliberal fashion: features heavy soft drink and beer product placement, keeps getting moved around to different streaming platforms
