Does any think they realize how we could solve the impending water disaster out here without relying on Nature? http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts
Why isn't jerry brown talking about this. do you see how they are draining the water table? Is it not the govts job to protect resources? Why is this OK with apparently most environmentalists. And we are exporting most of these nuts. The capitalists in me says... let them pay the true cost of the water... if they have a viable business then... great. But the true cost is not just the cost of pumping it out of the ground. Its worth far more than that. This is similar to the idea we can't properly price nuclear power because as fukshima shows we are not storing the waste properly. in the we closed plants along rivers because they were destroying valuable water resources. Its time to protect our water supplies including acquifers or millions of us Californians will be moving to your state and looking for handouts because we are displaced and many millions of us don't pay income taxes out here anyway. taxes are for fools who work for a living.
When i see that graph it makes me want to Buy something in that industry. If those numbers are accurate there is no way that those almond producers in california are going to be allowed to keep going, the government is going to shut them down, for their water usage, even though it was the government dumping half your water supply into the ocean that is the real culprit behind california's lack of water. The price of almonds is going up big time.
The price of almonds is already sky high; just from casual observation, I can attest that the price of a can of almonds 5, 10 years ago was negligible compared to now. I'd say that we are already close to the price at which point, consumers just say "fuck it" and buy something else... then again, maybe they become the new "status symbol" if they double again in price.
Ah... but there are those out here who say the nut producers give millions to to Jerry Brown and Dianne Feinstein... and the dems running the legislature out here. http://stanfordpolitics.com/2015/04/let-prices-do-the-work-bruce-cain-on-the-california-drought/ Presuming that is true... will the needs of the people (the many) outweigh the greed of democrat the politicians in California? The article above is counting on Pacs running by urbans to win out. But... to me when you dealing with politicians... you never know... if Obama and Kerry can find a reason to give nukes to Iran?
From the article: "The thing is, nuts use a whole lot of water: it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut." Ok, I get the statement above but since there's clearly not a gallon of water in a single almond, or five gallons inside a walnut, then that means that most of that excess irrigation water is going straight back into the ground where it belongs. So where is the problem with that scenario exactly?
Most is lost to evaporation and transpiration. The latter is the "sweating" of the trees through it's leaves and is what acts as the pump for the tree's plumbing.
Interesting. Since the whole thing is a closed loop system, the problem must be that the transpirated/evaporated water is going back into the atmosphere but it's coming down as rain somewhere completely different geographically?