[thisNeeds2BeSad]

The irony being that israel has "solved" water problems in agriculture largely, by reusing waste water and drip irrigation and simply have the users pay for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...

This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby.

Should such topics be removed similar to us-healthcare to give important topics with actual solution discussions more room?

[RayVR]

While your criticism of the US _feels_ on point, I don't think it's really valid. Are you an agriculture expert or some sort of scientist with specialty knowledge?

Some super quick research:

* Israel has fewer than 10 million people. California has just under 40 million (4x)

* Israel Agriculture exports $2B. California $20B (10x) * California has extensive regulations around water, including the use of recycled water [1]

* Here is an article from the USDA, specifically about California's irrigation [2], state provided grants to switch to more efficient irrigation is one topic, among many, that they cover.

[1] http://agwaterstewards.org/practices/use_of_municipal_recycl...

[2] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/05/26/california-farmer...

[mkl]

Another comparison to consider: California is 20 times bigger than Israel.

[jhgb]

So that should make it easier, right? Generally having lower population density helps these things (for example because more precipitation falls on larger areas, with the clouds not caring how many people actually live in those areas).

[cersei]

"This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby."

Love this summation of the US

[kordlessagain]

We would prefer you don't summarize US until we are fully awake. :)

[briga]

The situation is a bit more complex than you're making it out to be. Leaving aside the somewhat unique politics of Israel, it is a much smaller and more unified country than the US--the problems in the US are simply orders of magnitude bigger, even if you were to only consider California. If the solutions were in any way "easy" the drought problem would have been solved already. It isn't, and the percentage of the US with drought conditions isn't getting any smaller.

[spaetzleesser]

I don't like the excuses that things are harder to solve in the US because it's so big, diverse or whatever. If anything I think it should be easier in the US because it can solve a lot of problems without having to think about what the impact on neighboring countries is. As far as water goes, the US has pretty much all types of climate zones under its control so it could divert water or move agriculture to more favorable locations. A small country like Israel doesn't have access to water rich areas but the US has.

The only reason why the US can't solve problems is because it's dysfunctional and people prefer to fight each other and not accept facts they don't like.

[mrguyorama]

The reason the US can't solve problems is because half the country thinks government is inherently evil, so any problem that requires government to solve in an efficient or beneficial way is dead on arrival.

[newsclues]

If it was a scale instead of policy issue, there would be places in the US with effective policy, but because of scale not everywhere…

[spicyusername]

There are places in the U.S. with effective policy.

[newsclues]

I don’t think scale is preventing the effective policy from being implemented, but the political process that selects the wrong policy.

[refurb]

”This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby.”

I think you’re mistaking media hysteria for actual truth. I’m not surprised since social media feeds off articles like this.

California is semi-arid with a massive water source, it’s not Israel, which is actual desert and relies on hostile neighbors for most of its fresh water.

In CA we have so much water farmers can just flood fields. We have so much water we save some so the smelt can still spawn (which this report specifically mentions - save water so we can release a bunch for the fish). We have so much water that in many years we dump the extra into the ocean because our reservoirs are full. We have so much water it’s dirt cheap.

When supplies run a bit low, we cut back by doing extra big loads of laundry, turn the tap off when we brush our teeth and the world is right. A few lawns turn brown, SFers pat themselves on the back for their environmental righteousness while farmers continue to use 8x the amount of water for agriculture that all the combined households do.

Nobody is dying and nothing changes because it doesn’t have to change, at least not drastically. We’re drowning in water and when supplies drop a little we act like we’re all going to die of thirst. Worst case scenario the government tells a few almond farmers they can't have their water. The price of almonds goes up 5% and we don't have to feel guilty about washing our cars.

[FollowingTheDao]

Hey, as everyone knows here, I’ll be the first one to rag on United States and California, but Israel has 1/4 of the population of California, has pretty much one religion and national unity, and they get 4 billion in aid from the United States at least. So I don’t think Israel is a fair comparison.

Plus, California has the mega rich who own a lot of the California coast. Which one of them is going to want a Desal plant next to their property?

So when you talk about the “United States” I’m assuming you mean the people who actually control the country; the wealthy.

[Retric]

Israel is “74.2% Jewish, 17.8% Muslim, 2.0% Christian, and 1.6% Druze. The remaining 4.4% included faiths such as Samaritanism and Baháʼí as well as "religiously unclassified", the category for all who do not belong to one of the recognized communities.” So, it arguably has more religious diversity than the US.

The US is largely Christian with no other religion making up more than 2% of the population.

[stevenjgarner]

It depends how you view religion. "The Pew Religious Landscape survey reported that as of 2014, 22.8% of the American population is religiously unaffiliated, atheists made up 3.1% and agnostics made up 4% of the US population." [1] Probably the largest unrepresented population in US government, running as an atheist is still considered political suicide.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

[rayiner]

America is so religious that a majority of agnostics and 20% of atheists believe in a higher power: https://www.pewforum.org/?attachment_id=29652

But you’re correct that there’s different definitions of “religion” at play. As a foreigner, my observation has been that even secular Americans have internalized much of the belief system of Christianity.

[FollowingTheDao]

And the Protestant and Catholics were at war with each other countless times (For 30 years in one case!) so it's not fair to say they are not one religion.

[Retric]

The same is true of every old religion. Americans generally lump all Muslims into one category, but there are serious divisions, associated wars and ethnic violence.

Even those major groups have fractal divisions. https://xkcd.com/1095/

[jonwachob91]

Isreal may have only 1/4 the population of California (~10M vs 40M), but they have only 1/20th the land (~20k sq/km vs 400k sq/km). That $4B is aid from the US is a drop in the bucket to their ~$500B GDP, and mind you, states get aid packages from the federal government every year too. I don't have any figures about what California received in recent years, but I'm sure it is far more than $4B.

The challenge of the rich owning the land where a desal plant would go is an issue that can be solved in the current legal framework, but they'd rather scream about the problem than solve it. Desal is also not the only solution, there are political solutions too. Lower income folks could even solve the problem too, with their vote. It's not just a problem the wealthy are preventing from being solved. It's a problem the entire population of california is preventing from being solved.

[hotpotamus]

I see a few responses saying how you can't compare Israel to California because they are smaller, but I would think a larger economy with better economies of scale would be better able to solve problems, not less.

[skrtskrt]

To be fair I think a little blame can lie with the large slice of the American population (which are extremely well represented on HN) who are not mega wealthy but happily sing the songs and lick the boots of the hyper wealthy because they’re convinced there’s something in it for them.

[mistrial9]

paying for drip water aggregation might be easier with billions of USD in annual subsidies.. meanwhile, at the other end of the economic grinder, existing legacy business in California and USA gets new requirements with commodity pricing on the market to pay for those

[BurningFrog]

It's an even more typical California thing...