[elangoc]

If we invoke the ancient European idea of the "public trust doctrine" to bolster the justness of the argument that Vinod Khosla should create a path on his private land for the public use -- then why can't California invoke that same reasoning to overturn the antequated water ownership laws that give private, transferrable ownership of ground resources (including water) for large landowners who control a large portion of the state's water sources?

The attitude about California's ground water is, "Hey, they own the water based on the laws on the books, what can you do?" Much of the public would rather they not use all that water on almonds and alfalfa and whatnot, just to export elsewhere. Why can't the rest of the country grow that stuff? How can someone exclusively own the groundwater like that??

Whatever law that applies to Vinod Khosla should apply to those large water-wasting water-owners.

(And it follows that however dastardly Vinod Khosla may seem, the large water-owners in California are irrevocably screwing over California's future generations' water resources, and are thus in my book, much more worthy of scorn and "public trust doctrine" action.)

[jdmichal]

> Why can't the rest of the country grow that stuff?

Yea... That's not how plants work. Plants have zones that they grow in, and some are even more restrictive. Where I live, even if I grew cherry and apple trees, I would never get fruit off of them because it's too hot here.

I like the way you're thinking though. As an avid gardener, I just had to dig against this one a little.

[elangoc]

Yeah, just wanted to drop in and affirm that I already knew that not everything can grow everywhere.

(Ex: apples can grow in Appalachia, but they're famous in Washington state; potatoes may not grow well in Florida, and oranges wouldn't grow well at all in Idaho...) But almonds must grow in at least one other place where there is more water than in California's Central Valley.

So I think we're on the same wavelength.

And I remember hearing 10 years ago that water will be the new resource that people fight over, if oil was the resource that people fought over for the last half-century. And that agriculture trade would be a form of trading water. That's sort of already happening. Call me naive, but we should cut down on California's production of some crops, and use good Midwest farmland more efficiently by growing more non-meat agriculture instead of meat.

[jdmichal]

Sure; I tried to couch the response and it seems like that was effective. It's probably just redirected anger at not being able to have beautiful cherry and Hass avocado trees where I live. :-\

[redblacktree]

I think we could live with fewer almonds, speaking as someone in the midwest. It's a waste of water in a place where it's increasingly scarce. We'll just eat something else.

[jdmichal]

The problem isn't directly with the amount of almonds. They're a fungible commodity; market pricing will take care of that. The root problem is that the main input to almond production, water, is being drastically subsidized below what market price would be, meaning that almond growers aren't getting the correct market feedback to properly scale production. If the growers were charged a market rate for water, and almond demand didn't change despite the price increase, then there's no reason for them to produce less.