The State of California took an unprecedented move today [June 14] by uniformly restricting water supplies across the entire state. Farms will be most affected, although food prices aren't anticipated to rise in any hurry: imports from out of state continue apace. It's notable that this is a problem Silicon Valley hasn't been helping to solve.
Will this move force some much-needed modernization upon the infrastructure supporting the state's 38 million residents? Or will things continue to be corn, corn, corn for the time being?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 14 2015, @11:14PM
So California has to make some tough choices?
* Produce less food
* Optimize irrigation
* Restrict the number of citizens
* Embark on a gigantic tech project to supply more water (desalination at $$ price and prime target for bad people)
* Consider some land unsustainable for human housing
Otoh, there's plenty of sun and seawater so perhaps it can be combined to grab water from the sea?
It seems however not sustainable to increase the population into a region which is a dessert if humans don't constantly keep up. And the climate will make weather unpredictable and the general baseline temperature hotter. Aquifers that are emptied faster than they can replenish and so on. Somethings got to give.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 15 2015, @01:35AM
Speaking of "keeping up", here's a solution which actually rely on putting humans in a desert, the more the better:
provide sea water to them and put them to pedal their exercise bike to desalinate their daily water ratio. Recycle the waste water and use it for irrigation purposes.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Monday June 15 2015, @08:57PM
I wonder how much time on the bike that would take?
But the real problem is not desalination its pumping it back into the valley to feed crops.