Calirofrnia has about 1 years worth of water left

[rah]

Which requires more water, an almond or a person? A bit tongue and cheek but we're talking almost 40 million people in California. I think it's more than a tiny percentage.
Do you have any stats? I am truly curious.

The last thing i saw was around 77% for agriculture.

[Dinner]

Brown ordered new water restrictions into effect today, that exclusively target private citizens and cities. Can't let crony capitalism be restricted in anyway, I guess. We need those almonds.

The problem is delivery costs of water to farmers on several of those water projects had their price set in stone by act of congress. Often the price was set 100 years ago and hasn't changed since.

[Fake Boris]

Expecting the entire Western world to change its consumption habits in a shorter timescale than climate change is likely to cause mass problems is not reasonable. I'm open to an explanation however of exactly how you expect this to be possible.

It would be extremely easy to do.

[kentonio]

It would be extremely easy to do.

Please explain how to easily convince the entire western world to significantly change their consumption habits. There may possibly be a Nobel prize in it for you if you can.

[Aeson]

We could legalize drug production, and then sit back and watch as all those almond groves get chopped down to plant poppies and cannabis ASAP.

[FlameFlash]

Poppies! Poppies!

*cackles*

*clears throat*

Um... what?

[Deff]

Which requires more water, an almond or a person? A bit tongue and cheek but we're talking almost 40 million people in California. I think it's more than a tiny percentage.
Do you have any stats? I am truly curious.

The last thing i saw was around 77% for agriculture.

This may be useful:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-californias-water-going

[Ming]

This may be useful:

http://www.motherjones.com/environme...as-water-going

Interesting... Thanks!

[Dinner]

The big problem with Gov. Brown's manditory water conservation program is it only covers 20% of total water consumption. 80% is used by agriculture with 2/3rds of that 80% used by just 10% of the farms, mostly giant corporate estates. Worse, they have no incentive to save because water rights are use it or lose it plus the state and fed deliver water to them at almost no cost so they have no incentive to save water at all.

We really need to copy what Australia did during their recent big drought and completely rewrite water rights laws which were all originally written in the 19th century. Australia was able to greatly reduce consumption, boost agricultural earnings, provide water to cities, and provide minimum flow levels for wild life despite a big drought. It can be down but we will need politicians to take on big ag which they are all frightened to do.

[FlameFlash]

But messing with the food supply is scary man!

[PLATO]

Desalination plants are coming....expect plenty of water at twice the price! All the cheap water will be busy making almonds.

[The Mad Monk]

Mmmm....almonds.

[Dinner]

You know, it is not just almonds. California also produces around 2/3rds of the nation's vegitable, fruit, and nuts. It also is a major producer of rice, cotton, and wheat.

The real question is should we be producing thirsty crops which demand a lot of water to begin with? Do we really need rice, cotton, and nut crops when other crops could be grown with 1/4 the water? Should the desert in Imperial Valley be using massive amounts of water to grow alfalfa which is exported to China at a relatively low price?

[Dinner]

As the Mother Jones article above makes clear the numbers are big. 99% of almonds, 99% walnuts, 98% of pistachios, 95% of broccoli, 92% of strawberries, 91% of grapes, 90% of tomatos, 74% of lettuce. In fact name the green thing in your salad and some where between 2/3rds and 3/4th comes from California. Name the fruit and the state is probably the lead producer. That doesn't even get into apples, pears, cherries, nectarines, peaches, and God know what else.

Other states do well on one or two subsidized crops, wheat, corn, cotton, but California mostly produces crops which aren't subsidized because those crops have little competition else where. It still produces lots of rice, corn, wheat, cotton, etc... but, in general, speciality crops command higher prices and most of those can't be grown just any where so farmers gravitate to them despite the fact that the national farm bill doesn't subsidize them.

Compare that to Iowa or Kansas where everything is just two crops.

[Hauldren Collider]

Those sorts of crops don't grow as well in Iowa or Kansas. However, the subsidy probably has something to do with it as well.

It should be noted that if farms had to pay a bit more for water it would only reduce the amount that is grown in california, not eliminate it.