CA climate has been much drier in the past, even before global warming. We seem to have this discussion every few years when there's a drought, but quickly forget. It seems like we do the same thing with wildfires and earthquakes.
During the dry years, the people forgot about the rich years, and when the wet years returned, they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way. (East of Eden)
It has nothing to do with the people. The majority of the water is used for agriculture, which supplies the nation and even the world with water-hungry food.
It's both. Yes a lot of fruits, veggies and nuts are grown in California but the nation's staple crops (corn, wheat, and soy) and livestock are grown in many other states.
That is to say, we should be building desalination plants in California. Israel figured out a way to do this economically already. It's high time for CA to follow suit.
We already are [1]. Obviously we need more, though. I'd much rather have a sizable desalination plant for LA County than most of the boondoggle projects that get funded by propositions.
Exactly. I don't want to feel like I'm acting amorally when I want to water my garden. If I go over my allotment of naturally provided water, then I should start paying desalination rates, but I should not feel bad because I'm not "saving enough" compared to my neighbors.
I don't want to put words in the GP's mouth... but I believe GPs point is more akin to "one snowflake = one snowflake" (to use your analogy).
In other words: California does not value water equally between use cases -- to the point where certain crops are exploiting that imbalance. E.g. almonds might be a special case since, while water intensive, there may be fewer alternative geographies. Cattle, however, are plenty-viable elsewhere & shouldn't receive such an imbalanced incentive to consume water.
One natural starting point: One liter of water is priced uniformly regardless of use...
How do you plan to power desal plants? LADWP is still importing coal fueled electricity from Utah. Not to mention all of the petroleum and natural gas plants scattered around California.
Before we have desalination, we need more renewable energy.
> The majority of the water is used for agriculture, which supplies the nation and even the world with water-hungry food.
It kind of sounds like it has everything to do with people, unless people aren't eating that agriculture or eating whatever that agriculture eventually feeds.