A Climate History of Droughts and Floods in California;Lynn Ingram, Professor UC Berkeley (18 min.)

[jakeXT]

California’s Wasteful Water Habits Run Up Against a Dry Future – and Past

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For those wanting more on the science, there’s no better starting place than a recent talk by B. Lynn Ingram, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of “The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us about Tomorrow.”

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/californias-wasteful-water-habits-run-up-against-a-dry-future-and-past/?_r=0

[JDPriestly]

1. Train tracks, oil pipelines, superhighways and communication satellites are all inventions

that help us overcome the natural impediments of distance and limited time. I mean, Charles Lummis walked from Ohio to Los Angeles back in I think the 1880s. We could still be doing that.

But we don't because we developed technology that helped millions of people travel by rail, car, bus and plane to California where we live and enjoy the sun and the mountains and the water.

So why don't we use technology to bring water as well as people to California. I firmly believe that if we could build railroads across and through mountains, we can develop solar energy facilities that will desalinate water and figure out what to do with the salt that is left from the water. We are already recycling water. We don't need green lawns. We do need food, and if we also develop our public transportation so that it is more convenient and cheaper to use, we can become a model for environmentally friendly living.

Tree rings and other modern technology as well as human history are wonderful ways to gauge what happened in the past and determine what obstacles we are up against. But as one who loves living in Southern California and paying low energy bills and enjoying the outdoors all winter, I think it would be worthwhile to spend the money to develop the technology to find ways to obtain the water to make human life in this area possible.

Making Southern California livable in spite of our natural drought will benefit many people all over the world. It's something we should, as a nation, do. After all, it costs a lot to shovel snow every single year in places like Maine or recuperate after hurricanes in the Southeast and after tornadoes in the Midwest. Those are annual events that cause devastation and that, thus far, cannot be prevented. Our drought can be managed if we put the time, effort and money into doing it. That's what I believe. It's a choice we have to make.

[jakeXT]

2. I just finished reading an article from 1990

County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn proposed a big solution Thursday to Los Angeles' big water problem--digging aqueducts that would carry water to California from the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest and the Snake River in Idaho.

The waterways not only would lick the drought, Hahn said, but also would provide jobs to thousands of aerospace workers laid off because of defense cuts.

"We've had proposals to tow icebergs, too," commented Maury Roos, chief hydrologist for the state Department of Water Resources. "This is a little more serious than that."

Roos said Hahn's proposal--which the supervisor has floated during previous water crises--is technically feasible, but is "frightfully expensive" and faces seemingly insurmountable environmental and political obstacles.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-05-04/local/me-181_1_columbia-river-water

[JDPriestly]

3. I don't think people in the Northwest would like Hahn's solution.

But the oceans are rising. Why not use some of that water to quench the thirst of people living in arid areas of the world including Los Angeles. We could develop a technology (or better develop the technology we have) that would help so many people.

[jakeXT]

4. We'll see how the big one turns out

Fifteen desalination projects are proposed along the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco Bay. Desalination technology is becoming more efficient. And the state is mired in its third year of drought. Critics and backers alike are wondering whether this project in a town better known as the home of Legoland and skateboard icon Tony Hawk is ushering in a new era.

Will California -- like Israel, Saudi Arabia and other arid coastal regions of the world -- finally turn to the ocean to quench its thirst? Or will the project finally prove that drinking Pacific seawater is too pricey, too environmentally harmful and too impractical for the Golden State?

"Everybody is watching Carlsbad to see what's going to happen," said Peter MacLaggan, vice president of Poseidon Water, the Boston firm building the plant.

"I think it will be a growing trend along the coast," he said. "The ocean is the one source of water that's truly drought-proof. And it will always be there."

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near