R.I.P. California (1850-2016): What We’ll Lose And Learn From The World’s First Major Water Collapse
Geege Schuman stashed this in California
Stashed in: Awesome, California, America!, NASA, Weather, uh oh, Climate Change!, Nuts!, Drought
Wait, is it a given that California will turn into a dust bowl?
Last week when NASA announced that California is on its death bed and has only 12 months of water left, the news hit like a punch to the gut. “Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir,” writes Jay Famiglietti of NASA.
Famiglietti adds: “Statewide, we’ve been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.”
Tensions are high in the state, and small conflicts are breaking out as people are beginning to steal water from others. Caroline Stanley of Refinery 29 writes: “As Tom McKay points out, the water crisis will likely have the biggest impact on the state’s agricultural community — which currently accounts for a whopping 80% of its water usage. (According to Carolee Krieger, president and executive director of the California Water Impact Network, the almond crop alone uses enough water to supply 75 percent of the state’s population.) But, recently, your average citizens are feeling it, too. People in the Bay Area are actually stealing water from their neighbors.”
So what will happen when California turns into a dust bowl? Will the beauty and rich fabric of California’s cultural history evaporate as well? SF Weekly put together a list of the top 51 reasons why California is America’s greatest state, and you can read them HERE.
How on earth does Palm Springs use so much more water than mega-cities like Los Angeles? What am I missing?
Not to make light of it, but perhaps this finally gives children the perfect reason NOT to eat their broccoli. If I were a cartoonist, I would be sketching a little 3-frame strip about it right now. Heck, maybe I will try. My time as a political cartoonist has finally come...
Maybe!
I've heard that the primary water hogs are actually beef and nuts.
12:17 PM Apr 01 2015