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Comment by ClumsyPilot | Hacker News Reader

You do realise that it's Westerners causing climate change, not starving villagers in Sub-saharan africa?

Some of the first refugees will be from California. The reservoids that are not at record-low took 20 years to fill, they are never coming back.

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California has enough clean energy to desal for human consumption [1] [2]. Ag is another story, but no one needs to flee California due to water needs [3] (human consumption is ~10-20% of total use). Also, the regulation story of water for Ag in California is improving, albeit slowly [4].

[1] https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/US-CAL-CISO?wind=false&s... (Scroll to "Origin of electricity in the last 24 hours" in left nav; during daylight hours, 75%-90% of total generation are low carbon sources; and I expect that to hit 100% in the next 2-3 years based on CAISO's generator interconnect queue)

[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (refer to California solar [yellow] and batteries [gray] coming online this year)

[3] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

[4] https://www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1037369959/new-protections-fo...

But human consumption includes Agriculture, if a country is dependant on the food it grows and there is no water, you will have a famine. If they are just cash crops that you trade for food, you will also have a famine.

All the argicultural land in california is about to become a lot less valuable. It's destruction of wealth and nature on a collosal scale. The idea that allowing climate change to continue is good for buinesss is idiotic, and could result in violence unseen since 1940's

Climate change is not good, but neither is stripping aquifers for cash crop export. California has not managed its Ag wealth very well (water, soil, similar farming inputs); low water use crops that provide high nutritional value are superior to "luxury" water intensive crops exporting California's water to other markets for the benefit of those farmers.

Same way you wouldn't want to support economic policy farming corn in the Arizona desert. Put solar panels there instead (or other crops that are low water intensity). Higher level, there is a lot of inefficiency in US Ag policy causing suboptimal outcomes. Systems get addicted to subsides or resources where costs are not properly allocated.

Human consumption includes some agriculture. You'd be surprised to learn what counts as agriculture for purposes of water in places like California. One example: Golf courses. Others; horse race tracks, horse farms, cemeteries. All kinds of places that produce ZERO crops for human consumption.

80% of California's water goes to agriculture. In a water crisis - which is pretty likely - the first step is to stop growing avocados and almonds. This should free up more than enough water to keep the urban areas going, as long as residents conserve water and don't waste it watering lawns and such.

Water isn't really fungible in that way. You could cut down every orchard in the state and that isn't going to change the water situation of places like Santa Barbara. There really is a huge amount of infrastructure and energy involved in delivering water to cities and most of it is wholly unrelated to ag water systems.

The Delta specifically is largely fungible:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Water_in...

Santa Barbara probably would be fine, along with the Bay Area and some of the LA suburbs. Divert less irrigation water from the Sacramento/San Joaquin system, pump more into the California Aqueduct, central coast has water. Alternatively, pump more into Bethany Reservoir, divert to the South Bay Aqueduct, and Silicon Valley has water.

Santa Barbara also has a desalination plant, for what it’s worth.

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