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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3553 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Governor Jerry Brown orders California's first mandatory water restrictions: 'It's a different world'

But it doesn't matter how much water you have if your climate can't adequately support the crop.

Louisiana may have water galore, but almonds ain't gonna do well with the humidity. Do farmers then build NASA greenhouses and pass on the associated build-and-maintain costs with increased food prices? Accept the climate they got and the accompanied lower yield (or higher risk of no yield, idk, I'm not a farmer), and again pass on the cost to food prices? These farmers are still capitalists and if it were cheaper and just as consistent or productive to farm elsewhere it probably would've been done already.

But I think it's probably good that the decision makers and engineers start looking at the water sourcing issues with more urgency anyway. They'll continue to grow more critical as the population grows, anyway. Relocating them would be a band-aid rather than the case study we have right now anyway, IMO.





coffeesp00ns  ·  3553 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think that trying to source in water from Alaska is a band-aid, and a bad one at that. Fresh water is an incredibly finite resource on this planet, and piping it in from a continental distance away seems insane to me.

user-inactivated  ·  3553 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I agree, and I don't think it'll ever happen.

Realistically, we'll just ration until the drought "ends" and carry on with disregard.

katakowsj  ·  3553 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yep. I'm happy being in Michigan right now as I read this.

Yeah, it's the worst drought since 1950, but sixty-five years in a geologic time frame is not even a blink of an eye. Likely the rain and snow will shift from other nearby regions as the weather patterns revert to the mean.