We watched Bill Maher last Friday night. While he really irritates me at times with the fact he really doesn't know all that much about many of the political things he brings up (as in not possessing that much depth), he often has intriguing guests.
One of his guests was Jay Famiglietti an atmospheric scientist who works for NASA. He came to talk about climate change and California's drought. Another guest was actor Zachary Quinto. He played Spock in a recent Star Trek Movie and may be even better known as Syler on the TV show Heros. The character he plays in that is a real bad-ass who can take the superpowers that others have from them. He then goes about doing terrible things and is the antagonist to all the other superheros.
Why I brought up Zachary is due to his response to Bill Maher asking why with just 1-year of water left in California reservoirs isn't it taken as the single most important issue for the state now. Zachary said what I've been saying all along. It isn't real to people yet because they turn on their faucets and water still comes out. He's absolutely correct. The vast majority of Californians still act like it's not really happening.
Well, as you might imagine Jay Famiglietti, who had a book he was flogging as did Barney Frank, spoke the truth about climate change. It turns out he really believes it's happening based on science (wow!). He did bring up the fact more than 80% of our water goes into farming which produces about 50% of all the fruits, nuts, and vegetables consumed in the US while growing more than 90 percent of the almonds, tomatoes, strawberries and broccoli eaten in America. We also export vast amounts of almonds and walnuts to China and other overseas countires.
Jay rightly brought up the fact farmers have "gamed water" by planting almond and walnut trees in areas of the state that used to grow annual crops. The reason is to get first water rights while growing crops that make a lot of money. This isn't being done by small farms (which nearly don't exist anymore). It's done by corporate farms primarily who have swallowed up so many smaller farms. Some of these folks then in turn work for their corporate overlords.
And the problem gets tricky. Here's a quote I took from an article in the Daily Beast today:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
“I’ve been smiling all the way to the bank,” said pistachio farmer John Dean at a conference hosted this month by Paramount Farms, the mega-operation owned by Stewart Resnick, a Beverly Hills billionaire known for his sprawling agricultural holdings, controversial water dealings, and millions of dollars in campaign contributions to high-powered California politicians including Governor Jerry Brown, former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.
This is what creates silly "answers" to our drought. Jerry Brown asked for people to reduce water consumption by 20%. But he's only talking about home owners using less, not farms. So, restaurants here are not supposed to give you water unless you ask. Hotels won't wash your sheets and towels if you are staying more than one day unless you ask (this has been standard for years now). Big whoop! If you could get all the cities to reduce water consumption by 20% you'd end up with a 20% savings of 20% of all water used in California = 0.04 savings (or 4%).
This is a pathetic goal and doesn't address the real problem in water consumption.
By the way, it takes 1 gallon of water to grow 1 almond. It takes 5 gallons of water to grow 1 walnut. It takes 0.4 gallons of water to grow one grape (wine industry). It takes 28 gallons of water to make an average 12 fluid ounce bottle of beer and 34 gallons of water for 5 fluid ounces of wine (that's considered a "glass" of wine).
Well at least even Bill Maher is talking about this really dire situation. Perhaps it might help. Who knows? One thing the drought has done for us this year is given us the best display of purple iris.
What do you want to kibitz about tonight?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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