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The Center for American Progress reports
On [April 8], L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti released an ambitious plan that puts environmental, economic, and equality issues front and center in helping determine the trajectory of the city, which plans to add another half-million residents by 2035.
[...]A few of the plan's highlights include: becoming "the first big city in the nation to achieve zero waste" by 2025, fully divesting from coal-powered electricity by 2025, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, having zero smog days by 2025, and making it so that 50 percent of all trips taken by city residents are by bike, foot, or public transportation by 2035. The plan also makes commitments to reduce energy use in all buildings by 30 percent by 2035.
[...]The plan calls for a reduction of the urban heat island effect differential--the difference between the temperature of the city and the surrounding area--by 1.7°F by 2025 and 3°F by 2035.
[...]20 percent of L.A. is covered in rooftops and 40 percent in pavement of some form. Changing the reflective capacity of these areas and adding more greenspace will play a big role in reducing the heat island effect. [Executive director of the L.A.-based Climate Resolve and a former commissioner at the L.A. Department of Water and Power, Jonathan Parfrey] and other city officials have already been pushing for these changes. In December 2013, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a building code update requiring all new and refurbished homes to have cool roofs--which use sunlight-reflecting materials--making L.A. the first major city to require such a measure.
[...]The city's new sustainability plans calls for 10,000 of these cool roofs to be in place by 2017.
The full plan spans 108 pages, covering everything from reducing potable water use by 10 percent in city parks to ensuring that 50 percent of the city's light-duty vehicle purchases are electric vehicles by 2025. With the drought in full swing and no reason to believe that prayers for rain will bring lasting results, the city is hoping to reduce overall municipal water use by 25 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @03:07PM
If they get their normal amount of rain they wouldn't have a "water shortage". Let's not forget that California's agriculture feeds a lot more people than just California's population. If they cutback farming where the hell will all food to replace it come from?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @03:42PM
I just looked at the US map. Looks like there's a lot of land that isn't Los Angeles. Kind of seems like we could go farm there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @04:24PM
GP wasn't talking about Los Angeles. California, on the other hand, has a giant agricultural industry. The entire state has been suffering from a significant drought [ca.gov] for years.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @09:48PM
Most agriculture done in California takes place in the Central Valley. [mappery.com]
Folks will quickly notice that no part of that touches the ocean, which most of the giant cities are near.
As for the GP, it's amazing how many people think nothing has changed since the 1920s--specifically, the cost of land.
Any "farming" done in the incorporated areas of L.A. County is of the boutique variety.
This guy grows food, Jules Dervaes, Urban Homesteader [wikipedia.org]
but he doesn't get to purchase water by the acre-foot.
He pays residential rates like other city dwellers.
To find industrial farming in SoCal, again, you have to get away from the ocean and go to a place where real estate prices aren't so outrageous aka the Inland Empire. [wixstatic.com]
.
...and with cities making up only 20 percent of water use in Cali, even if that consumption is cut in half[1], it will barely make a dent in the problem.
Once again, Governor Jerry Brown is pandering to Big Business.
The FIRST thing on his list should have been something that would make a GIANT difference: drip irrigation. [google.com]
[1] Significant reductions in cities will not be achieved until smart systems are mandated that check soil moisture and only water grass according to that reading.
Those 40 year old timers whose smallest increment is a half hour are just stupid.
Mostly, they water the sidewalk.
Even better: mandated xeriscaping. [google.com]
N.B. There was a story some years back on the other site about a guy in north Orange County who ripped out his lawn and got busted by his city.
He's looking really wise these days.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:05AM
In the big city, when land is idle for most of the week and isn't making anybody any money for days in a row, that land gets bought up by someone with big plans.
Add in that the current activities in that area make a bunch of noise and that housing developments have sprouted up around it, the city fathers will want it repurposed.
The last racetrack in L.A. County is about to suffer that fate.
Irwindale.Speedway+outlet.mall [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:38AM
That's been a problem across the country. Any real estate that used to be "out on the country" is, if not already there, getting closer to the suburbs every day. Local farmland has been particularly hard hit. New Jersey's nickname is the "Garden State", not because everyone has a garden but because they used to grow a vast amount of produce. Very fertile soil, adequate rainfall and a growing season long enough for any temperate climate crops. Now? Most farms, particularly since the 80's, have been sold off and developed as condos and strip malls, a far inferior use of great land than producing food. The same process has been repeated across the country, with more agriculture concentrated in fewer and fewer locations. Instead of every supermarket offering fresh, flavorful, locally grown produce (and beef and poultry and eggs and dairy and...), almost any place you shop offers the same food from the same places. The quality certainly has not increased.
While California has always had the sunshine, they have made significant trade-offs in acquiring the water necessary to sustain a large population and big agriculture. There is a constant battle over water from the Colorado River and from the Owens River, both of which now rarely, if ever, reach their natural final destination with most going for agriculture and in the case of the Owens, going to Los Angeles. Even as early as the first decades of the 20th century they were damming rivers and flooding national treasures (look up Hetch Hetchy) to provide water for their population centers. I worry at what this prolonged drought in California is going to do to food prices.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Reziac on Sunday April 12 2015, @05:49PM
There's not a lot of land in the rest of the U.S. that's anywhere near as suitable for fruits (including wine grapes) and vegetables, which are a significant chunk of CA's ag. Fruits and vegetables are a helluva lot more profitable than grain, so it's not like farmers are avoiding growing 'em elsewhere -- rather that the climate just isn't suitable. You won't find kiwis, avocados, or oranges growing in North Dakota no matter how hospitable that climate may be for wheat.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @05:37PM
Its a labor cost thing. Tijuana is on the other bank of a river. On the other hand its a much longer voyage to get to Minnesota. That doesn't mean there's no illegals in the midwest, not at all, just not as many as the desert southwest.
We'll still eat asparagus, its just it'll be somewhat more expensive from Alabama rather than CA.
Its an open question if migrant farm workers will be treated worse because absolute conditions are worse and even further from home, or they'll be treated better due to shortage of them. We might even see white people harvest food, unlikely as it sounds!