Consequences Of Severe Drought And Climate Change Ripple Across California - NBC News

[Rhiannon12866]

Water officials believe the past three years could end up as the driest in California’s history. State reservoir levels are alarmingly low, and measurements of the Sierra Nevada snowpack are “grim,” the state’s natural resources secretary tells Lester Holt. The drought is impacting the water supply for residents and farms, which supply critical crops for the nation.

[The Jungle 1]

1. It will fail. The area is border line desert.

They are not coming close to recharging the ground water they pump out.
The amount of water it takes to grow nuts is a stunning waste. They do not have that volume of water. Close shop and move!

[hunter]

4. The water used to grow meat and dairy products is an even more stunning waste.

Especially if you are a cow about to be turned into cheap hamburger.

But yeah, allowing anyone who has the money to permanently damage groundwater basins is a stupid unsustainable way to run things.

The least sustainable farms in California need to be abandoned and restored to something resembling a natural state.

There's nothing sacred about farming. It's not uncommon for people in other industries to be displaced by changing conditions, and the lowest paid farm workers live in a constant state of uncertainty. There's no reason to insulate the owners of the farms from that.

It's a sad reality that agriculture has become one of the most environmentally destructive things humans do, second only to burning fossil fuels. We ought to do our best to minimize it.

I don't think cheap hamburger and dairy products are a human right. I look forward to the day when the most popular hamburger at McDonalds isn't made of meat and most people don't pour cow's milk on their breakfast cereal.

[jfz9580m]

5. K&R

Amen to that..

[The Jungle 1]

7. I live in Pa.

I have a 100 foot well and the water is within ten feet of the surface year around. I can turn the pump off and the water still flows into my house. We get plenty of rain presently. That could change with climate change. Unknown to many people farming is the largest industry in Pa. In Pa. you need 1 acres to support 1 cow / steer . In California you need 10 - 12 acres to support 1 cow / steer.
So we agree that farming needs to be done where the water and growing season allows. Pumping ground water to feed nut trees and cows is not a good use of water. That is not sustainable and the water will be used up. Lettuce is 96% water.
Farming is environmentally destructive and always has been. Just plowing a field destroys the environment of many animals, plants and insects.
We are past the point of hunter gatherer so we must farm. The question is how much impact we deem allowable. Or how much impact will allow us to continue into the future. I don't know the answer to that so I will depend on science. Problem is our republican neighbors do not believe science.

[hunter]

8. Our society has always imagined Native Americans as hunter-gatherers but that's not true at all.

They practiced many forms of permaculture that had tremendous impacts on the natural environment, especially in their use of fire and other land management techniques to maximize the proliferation of useful plants and animals, all without plows, insecticides, herbicides, etc.

That's the culture and environment Europeans destroyed, not some "untamed wilderness."

True hunter-gatherer cultures are rare and have been for at least 60,000 years. Raw racism blinded European invaders preventing them from recognizing sophisticated and sustainable agricultural practices. This occurred throughout the world.

This sort of permaculture can't support the current human population of 8 billion people dependent on the science of the "green revolution" and fossil fuels for most of our food but it could guide our restoration of land that is currently farmed in unsustainable ways.

The true measure of nuts vs. cows is protein. What resources are required to produce a pound of nut protein vs. a pound of cow protein? What sort of "milk" that I pour on my breakfast cereal has the smallest environmental footprint? How many nut trees can California support in a sustainable way?

The reality of nuts like pistachios and almonds is that they were propagated for thousands of years by humans in environments very similar to California. There's nothing inherently wrong about growing these nuts but it has to be done in a sustainable way. Current practices are not sustainable.

The situation is even worse for California's dairy industry. This industry is watching the proliferation of vegan "milk" products and they are worried.

My wife and I are indirectly supported by the lettuce industry. This industry is likewise dependent on irrigation. Lettuce wouldn't be available in the grocery store all year round if it couldn't be grown on irrigated land in arid and semi-arid environments. Lettuce grown in fossil fueled hothouses for most of the year in places with abundant water would be a very expensive and resource-intensive delicacy.

[The Jungle 1]

9. So I will say without being insulting.

This is a confusing and diffucilt issue.
I will study the science to determine my loyalty.

[abqtommy]

2. Besides the water problem, Southern California south of Santa Barbara has many

wildfires going on right now.

https://data.scsun-news.com/fires/

Zoom out on the map then drag it to show California.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Thanks for the map!

[jfz9580m]

6. K&R

[Mountain Mule]

10. Where I live Colorado farmers are giving up on water intensive crops like alfalfa

and switching over to wheat which is a much less water intensive crop than hay and alfalfa used to feed cows with. The farmers out here are doing this for for two reasons: One, Colorado's drought situation is as bad as California's and every year there is less and less irrigation water available and two, local farmers figure that wheat is going to sell for a very good price thanks to the havoc at play in the Ukraine right now. At least we can now thank Putin for something at long last - he may have inadvertently caused farmers in the western US to be more realistic about the crops they decide to plant.