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Doug Parker: The Status Of The Drought In The U.S. West
Submitted by Adam Taggart via Peak Prosperity,
2014 saw the extension of a historic drought across the US West. Croplands withered or were fully abandoned. Water rationing was enforced. Well tables dropped. The price of many vegetables and meats have skyrocketed.
But the past month has seen a welcome set of rain systems arrive along the Pacific coast. As a result, some regions like northern California are currently at 140% of rainfall vs the typical year. To drive home why this is such an important topic for everyone to follow, the table below shows how critical California's agricultural output is to feeding the rest of America:

(Source)
So is an end to the drought in sight?
The short answer is 'no'. And were not close to it (yet). Much will depend on the rainfall levels over the next three months, and how much of that accumulates as snow pack.
To explore this important issue in depth, we welcome Doug Parker, the Director of the California Institute for Water Resources, as well as the Strategic Initiative Leader for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Water Quality Quantity and Securities Strategic Initiative.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Doug Parker (27m:58s)
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No climate change to see here. Please keep moving.
Please name a period of time over the last 5000 years when the climate has not changed?
The ice age ended because of the carbon emissions from dinosaur flatulence.
What? Are sure that was not Obama in a past life. He is the Mesiah you know.
The internet was supposed to solve this problem. /<humor>
---non-sequeter-----
dot connector alert al gore>internet>life is good>carbon tax for a better future, ha fucking ha...
"Please name a period of time over the last 5000 years when the climate has not changed?"
The minute Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" up until now.
Bad timing on that for him. But at least he'll still be known for inventing the internet.
The Mayan empire collapsed because a 100 year drought, evidently they didn't sacrifice enough virgins.....
100 year drought brought on by deforestation which changed their climate. :)
So they cut their trees down and it caused the rains to stop? And you call us luddites.
They got wiped out because of efficiency. A stone age culture packed one million people into their capital through technology and efficiency, and when the inevitable 100 year drougt hit, they didn't have the robustness they needed for their civilization to survive.
I'm wasting my time with you, because you don't have a scientific mind. The Salinas Valley in California, aka The Salad Bowl, had water problems running back to the 1920s. Their solution was to drill and pipe in water. The population of the whole state in 1930 was 5.7 million. After almost 100 years of drilling, stealing water from other places, building condos and growing lettuc in the frigging desert, the state sports a population of over 38 million.
Did you think this business model could go on forever? Did you think there'd NEVER be a big drought? Stop blaming climate change and take a look in the mirror, the villain here is basic human nature. This is a human problem, not Mother Nature's.
It's okay to be stupid or ignorant, but to combine both with arrogance is unacceptable.
Yes they deforested the nearby lands quite efficiently. It is amazing the mental leaps you'll make to try to convince your self that their actions had nothing to do with their demise. I'm not sure you're the best candidate for judging the scientific quality of minds.
Trees do bring rain. Deforestation does descrease average rainfall. I love seeing the facts you ignore to maintain your increasingly tenuous grip on your beliefs.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-the-mayan-civilizat...
maybe it was 100 years of defloration leading to lack of virgins ....
As a network engineer I despise that statement. It is false and totally untrue. All he did was speak about it.
Never confuse a "cult of stasis" member with facts. They practice a bizzare form of fundementalism that does not allow rational thought. They live in constant fear of freedom and free people.
Life on Earth has continuously and will continuously change the climate.
Humans are life and it is no coincidence that human behavior is now the main driver of climate changes.
Facts are facts.
"...it is no coincidence that human behavior is now the main driver of climate changes.
Facts are facts."
Restating your own ridiculous argument is not very persuasive. You argue like my wife (Pumpkin is that you?).
All we can do is rely upon logic. The ball has been in the Global Warming advocate's court for some time now and they keep changing their facts, and coming up wrong, again, and again, and again. That happens when you start your science with an assumption based on faith.
1. Climate Change is the Earth's norm, that's not even open for debate.
2. What isn't settled is if the Earth is warming.
3. Or if it is warming, is it, on balance, a bad thing?
4. What isn't settled is if man is a factor, let alone the primary cause.
5. What isn't available is a reliable model of how fast it will progress.
6. Finally, what isn't even likely, in fact, it's laughable, is the assertion that it is irreversible, and that's the real issue, because if it's reversible, then who gives a care? We've got a dozen other more threatening issues to deal with before this even becomes a shadow of a problem.
Why WOULD global warming be irreversible? Because of a THEORY proposed decades ago by the very people who have been WRONG for decades? Where's the science and logic in that? If a supervolcano or extinction level meteor doesn't produce a runaway greenhouse gas effect, events which pump MASSIVE amounts of carbon into the atmostphere, amounts which dwarf all the carbon EVER produced by man, then why would the earth not adjust to the paltry amounts we produce now?
The bottom line is the greenhouse gas theory is a religion to the global warming crowd, and a cash cow to their leaders. THEY have to back up their irreversible greenhouse gas theory with something other than scare tactics and name calling or global warming is no more threatening than any other kind of pollution. At this point, they haven't even made the case that this ubiquitous, naturally occurring gas IS a pollutant.
Good list...
Thanks!
12,000 years ago, there was a glacier over where my house is located. When it began melting, the glacier carved out some pretty mountains all without fossil fuels.
Rather than argue about their THEORY that the seas will rise by a few inches a century and cause coastal flooding, why not shift the debate to the scientific facts about glaciation?
What's the Global Warming crowd's answer to glaciers hundreds of feet tall scouring virtually every city in the world off the face of the planet? THAT event HAS happened before and will happen again.
But now we have snow blowers...
Selfgov: No climate change to see here. Please keep moving.
Climate changes. Been changing for millions and millions of years. Even on other planets. Imagine that.
A very long time from now, when the sun swells and engulfs the earth, the climate will be "molten" for a very very long time.
ah....good point, but the earth was once a molten ball of red 'stuff'....so, the best I can tell, the long term trend is toward cooling. So, will we freeze or melt first...hmmm
- FOOD WAR: Seed Libraries Struggle With State Laws Limiting Exchanges...
- USA POPULATION HITS 320,090,000...
- Mysterious explosions shake Idaho county...
- Two incidents in week unnerve residents...
----
- POPE: UN MUST FIGHT 'GLOBAL WARMING'...
- EBOLA GLASGOW...
- Male in Trench Coat Stabs 5 at Popular DC Restaurant...
- Border Patrol: Migrants becoming more aggressive...
- SPY IN YOUR DESK: Office workers face more monitoring...
- License Plate Reader Technology Looks At Faces...
- PAPER: Merkel staffer's laptop infected by US/UK spy malware...
- Two women charged with terrorism for driving in Saudi Arabia...
- US searches for secrets to power of Islamic State...
- General turns to experts outside Pentagon....
- Buddhist militancy sparks concern...
- Rise of new generation...
- Rise of Spanish populists overturns two-party system...
----
- PROF: 'Lost generation' can't fix anything...
- Living in disposable world...
- Expect everything to 'just work'...
----
- AMNESTY: Farmers brace for labor shortage...
- MORNING AFTER: Christmas returns hit new high...
- Online retailers not equipped to cope...
- Purchases Boomerang Back to Retailers...
- Gold Held In NY Fed Vault Drops To Lowest In 21st Century...
- Government to start collecting health law fines;
- penalties set to rise in 2015
- But US Health Insurance does nothing for Long term Care or Bankruptcy
Please keep up with the latest marketing scheme. It is Global Warming®, since rebranded Climate Change®, since rebranded CO2 Pollution®, since rebranded Climate Justice®, since rebranded Climate Disruption®. You're about seven years out of date from the official government line.
Oh, the Obama recovery is BOOMING(!!!) as well. And your health care costs will go down by about $2500/year thanks to Obamacare. Yes, and you get to keep your doctor if you want to. The government has told us all of this as well.
All those name changes are confusing. Just call it pollution.
You really believe that people exhaling - breathing - is a pollution problem? Wow. So we should exterminate people to fix "pollution."
people are polution; u figure it out from there...
Working towards zero carbon emissions.
Don't hold your breath.
You forgot "Global Weirding". Now it can mean whatever they want it to mean, depending on the particular phenomenon they're talking about.
http://globalweirding.is/here
Don't forget solar and space influences for the mix.
Good series, good points. All three parts were also posted on ZH.
http://twoicefloes.com/your-turn/content-by-morpheus/the-skyception-series/
No worry it's just HAARP. They can turn it off anytime they want to.
There is a difference between a person saying the climate is changing and saying the climate is changing simply because of humans and that humans can magically stop something that is natural and has no doubt happened many thousands of times in the earth's history.
Obviously the climate changes naturally in periods which is sadly lost on the fear mongers and agenda pushers. To these people, the planet pretty much was the exact same climate wise for BILLIONS of years until what, 50-100 years ago. Suddenly then things changed and looky looky, HUMANS CAUSED IT.
Oh and no prolonged droughts have EVER happened in the earth's billions of years as well since human records go back to when the species first sadly came into existence and before humans the other species took records as well so there is all that data now to compare to. This is the first one ever sheeple so grab your popcorn!
I can't say I'm surprised by this given all the stupid shit people believe. See: thinking North Korea (then RUSSIA) hacked Sony over a stupid movie.
Lot's of thick heads here it seems. Thought it was a good one.
The sleu of down votes -> awesome.
I'm fairly certain the earth is telling us there are too many people concentrated in one area sucking off the resources. Maybe we should build moar desert cities.
Just moar desert density. Bullish on high rises in the desert.
No, no, no, the earth might tip over.
The worlds populaton can fit in the state of Texas with suburban housing density, roughly 1/4 - 1/3 of an acre a piece.
Amazing factoid, so I ran the numbers:
Texas has 168 million acres, so a 1/4 acre each would satisfy 672 million people. The Earth has roughly 7 billion people, which is another way to express 7000 milllion. Sorry, you are going to have to scare up another 6328 million homesteads, or 1.583 million acres. Throw California into the mix and you've made your point.
Bullish !
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/radiation-from-fukushima-turning-up-in-north...
We will have to monitor Cancer rates going forward...Of course our Fearless Leaders will blame Russia or North Korea for a Higher cancer rate.
No worries its all contained.
Bill of Rights
http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/nutrition/sugar.htm
Careful on that link.
Actually the process is called glycogenolysis, the reverse of glycogenesis. I am sure the author gets all the other stuff right though. (that was sarcastic)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogenolysis
pods
Actually, glucose from protein (amino acids) is called gluconeogenesis.
I was only correcting the quoted material. But glucose can be obtained both ways. First by glycogenolysis and then gluconeogenesis.
I just saw "genesis" in the article and it furrowed my brow. If the cancer cells were making your body break down something it would not be glycogenesis.
They probably did mean gluconeogenesis when speaking in terms of wasting disease.
So, thanks for showing me I am not quite as smart as I think I am. :)
touce.
pods
Yeah. Pretty poor/incorrect information in that article.
Radiation propaganda for today:
"At its peak, levels of radioactivity from cesium-137 will still fall far below levels that the US and Canadian governments deem unsafe for drinking water, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
The issue isn't the levels in our drinking water, the issue is how much collects in our bodies from all sources. Utterly comtemptable propaganda!
How much of that water is diverted from crops to fracking?
Zero. Do you have another question?
Not from crops to fracking, but from fracking to crops.
Please try to keep up.
What? It's true! It's on the first page of a Google search. Hell, it was right here on zerohedge about a month ago!
Http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Waste-Water-from-Oil-Fracking-I...? It's true!
Its amazing how record cold in US gets front page news but record highs in high latitude ... crickets!
"2014 is first-ever calendar year without sub-zero temperatures in Alaskan city, National Weather Service finds"
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/science/science-a-environmental/57965...
Eeyores Enigma
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/18/new-study-two-thousand-years-of-northern-european-summer-temperatures-show-a-downward-trend/
That's why you have to think for yourself. Overall global temps are down, not up. Yes, it was far warmer in the Artic until the last two decades but it was far colder in the Antartic (crickets from the MSM on that). For the last 18 years, there's been no appreciable warming, and yet you point to east buttf#ck Alaska as evidence of anything? Temperatures in one Alaskan city are anecdotal. The big picture has been getting much colder, with record low temps in large areas all over the world, and record snow coverage/ice coverage. How's it going with those poor starving polar bears? I hear their numbers are at record levels too. Once you catch them lying to you, you have to consider the source and check out everything they say. That is, unless you are a lemming.
there is a drought in the desert southwest? shocking.
They'll declare the drought over when they see Noah sailing by.
So why is it when I drove thru Laguna Niguel to see all the multimillion dollar houses everyone is outside warshing their Mercedeses and Lexuses?
Are the Dems out there just cutting off water to the farmers ? I know the prices of some items, like avocado, has skyrocketed.
The Right of Prima Nocturn (Prima Nocta). Basically is the Right of Lords which is derived from the King. The Lord in turn maintains the Manor, manages the agricultural production and maintains his Titles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
"warshing their Mercedeses and Lexuses?"
It's the economy. Normally they just buy new ones....
"Warshing"? Do people axe you what dat means?
"Warshing"
I've actually heard that from the more rural Iowans in place of "wash," fwiw.
"I'm going to take the warsh to the tub later."
Could also be a typo, you know. =)
In Oklahoma, especially when listening to older native Okies, it would be quite normal to hear one say "I'm going to sit in that cheer and watch the chairleaders". LOL ;-)
I'm a native, rural Oklahoman. When I was stationed in Budapest, I went to post office in the Var one day. As I was making my through the tourist hordes, when I heard an old man say, "I don't know where in the hael she wondered off to." It stopped me dead in my tracks. I slowly turned around and saw two old men in boots, ironed blue jeans with sharp creases, short sleeved buttoned up shirts, tucked in. I casually asked them what part of Oklahoma they were from...Guymon.
Where I live in Central Oklahoma, we are culturally and linguisticaly an extension of Appalachia. The further west you go, you run into more and more Germans, and the dialect changes a bit. Linguisticaly, western Oklahoma is Midlands, and they certainly aren't quite as hillbilly as "my people". But, they do have Bierochs, even if they don't have any trees. There is a lot of overlap in dialects, but an Oklahoma dialect is distinct (though almost indistinguishable from Arkansas).
I live in Midwest City. My (soon to be EX) wife's parents are both native Okies. They both speak funny to my ear. Oh well, won't have to put up with it any longer. ;-)
Pronounced that way in many places in Washington State also.
I think this drought has something to do with the weather. I could be wrong, but that's my bet.
I heard someone in So. Cali say maybe they need to figure out a way to keep rain water from going out in the ocean. Duh. I can't believe anyone wants to live where there are no Oaks and Maples and your own well.
So is an end to the drought in sight? The short answer is 'no'. And were not close to it (yet)
Of course not,,, Never let a crises go to waste.... and be sure to watch my video!
And OMG the GW worshipers will be crawling out of the woodwork...
Might be a good idea to stop spraying us in California with geo-engineering, weather-modifying persistent contrails. Just a thought.
Moar fear please!
This guy Doug Parker's job and livlihood as Director of the California Institute for California Resources depends on droughts and water shortages so sure, he's going to paint a very dark, bleak picture of the water situation because his ass want's a weekly paycheck from now until forever but hey, there have always been droughts and there always will be. The mother of all droughts which resulted in the midwest dustbowl in the 1930s eventually came to an end and so will California's, with or without Doug Parker.
As one who has had family held California ag land for more than 70 years I don't need to endure a video interview of the CA Gov't shill Doug Parker to know what he said.
Drought not over (& never will be if people continue to ask State employees)
Must regulate (tax) existing wells
Must control (tax) all ground & surface water
Caused by anthropogenic 'Climate Change" (or whatever the current histeria brand has been re-named)
how did I do?
may have missed something about taxing cow farts..
All of that is true. But mind your language.
There would be no drought in the West if NAWAPA was created. But we like to bailout derivatives instead of doing something tangible with centuries of follow on benefits.
We choose to suffer through a drought. CHOOSE. It's a choice. We made it. Don't like it. Enlighten the morons.
It's like starving yourself when you have food in the fridge. You may be starving, but it's a choice.
Glass-Steagall
Yeah, you've had drastic changes in the past - AND whole planet level extinctions with vast species die offs. You really think mankind is exempt?
It's the RATE of change and cause that's the issue - Deny all you want but it's real and the consequences are more EXTREME weather with an overall warming. The use of fossil fuels clearly HAS increased CO2 levels and that HAS led to changes. The overall trend is to higher temps and the results of that are dire.
Even if you doubt that mankind has had an influence on climate when the outcome IS BAD - VERY BAD, wouldn't you try to avert the problem if you could?
It sure seems that the gov is playing games trying to deal with this - and is perhaps making things worse in doing do. One has to wonder about chemtrails and such. Thought they were a myth but evidence is mounting - though that may be tied to things like HAAARP and attempts to manipulate weather - never ending well..... you really shouldn't mess with Mother Nature.
The reality is that we have a HUGE problem with surface water and snowcaps in the western mountains and are depleting deep acquifers in the US - under the Great Plains and west - and have been for the last 50 years. They are NOT refilling at any thing near a sustainable rate. And while the Western US has seen severe drought in the past it HAS led to mass migrations and deprivation with conflict and killingn of various native tribe - even signs of cannibalism because things got so bad - at time with far smaller populations. But the current pattern is part of an overall drying and warming trend NOT likely to reverse. You may have some limited abatng of conditions but the overall ternd is VERY bad. Lake Mead has been going lower and lower over the course of MY life and I was astounded at the loss of glaciers in Glacier NP in less than 10 years. There are HUGE side effects to all this - pine beetle die offs in forests and larger and larger forest fires because of drier conditions. Never mind the loss of farmland and grazing land.
We now have MILLIONS of people living in places like Las Vegas and Phoenix needing water AND ENERGY. Want to try being in those places WITHOUT air conditioning? California's Central Valley s one of the major sources for food in the US - and they don't have the water to do it now. You're seeing massive water wars in the west already betweeen people and agriculture - ignoring the issues that arise from massive irrigation (increasing salinity in soil) and the plain old fact that we hve millions of people living in places that cannot support them without brinign in massive amounts of water and energy.
Carbon taxing is one more way for banks and the NON-PRODUCTIVE financial sector to make money but something needs to be done. It's a stupid concept feeding the idea tht ayou can BUY anything - supporting compnies with deep pockets while not inherently changing anything. We are on a planet with LIMITED resources and CANNOT continue consuming without limit and growing without limit. If you think you can be one of those having whatever you want while 90% pof the world goes without (seems like too many in the US think so) you are delusional. Know someone in Greenland 2 summer ago - the researchers ther ewere freaking out at the ice melting and oermafrost outgassing. RECORD levels of methane coming out of melting permafrost and THAT is far worse than CO2. Keep getting warmer and Siberia melts and outgasses and overall warming accelerates.
All the change deniers play in to the hands of big business and big oil and coal which are making billions instead of moving to cleaner energy sources.
Maybe YOU don't care about the future... I'm over 60... not much of a problem for me in 20 years but if you have kids or grandchildren you damn well SHOULD be concerned. I don't know too many 20 somethings who think 'it's fine.. just a 'natural cycle' - THEY are the ones having to live with the consequences of our failures. I LOVE the fools in Alaska saying 'Don't worry be happy' as their roads are buckling and power poles falling over because the permafrost is melting.
The US has had a culture of taking from the land whatever we want and screw the consequences....well there ARE consequences in how you treat the planet.
"It sure seems that the gov is playing games trying to deal with this - and is perhaps making things worse in doing do. One has to wonder about chemtrails and such. Thought they were a myth but evidence is mounting - though that may be tied to things like HAAARP and attempts to manipulate weather - never ending well..... you really shouldn't mess with Mother Nature."
I see chemtrails early morning almost daily over my city. They must be spraying at 04:00-05:00 when it is still dark. Occasionally, I see planes still spraying (running late?) at 07:00-07:30. Btw, the governent and MSM's have been successful to tie the term 'chemtrails' to 'conspiracy theories'. Now, the preferred more benign term for this phenomenon is geoengineering.
pesky facts..
In keeping with ideological purity, I vote for continuing the drought until Kalifornia is removed from the list of leading corporate agriculture oligarchical states.
agreed
California has enough water
IF Cali does not have to be a base for Big Ag business to supply the rest of the US.
They made big bucks over-utilizing the farmland of California and the water in the West.
That helped promote and allow other regions to urbanize excellent local farmland.
Other regions need to change their policies and instead support local farmers.
I agree.
America will not see rising food prices, due to lack, as a result.
Yellen can always just print up some food and water.
.
what about TX? TX grows a shit ton of crops and animals, not to mention the oil. although i certainly haven't researched it enough, and although i am fully aware of how agriculturally productive california is, i am not so sure it truly is such a critical part of the food supply when compared against all the other crop producing states. but then that might just be my TX bias telling me silly things too.
Kill off everyone in Cali that is not a farmer. Plenty of water then.
Problem solving is easy once you know how.
Drought will not be such a problem compared to growing crops on top of an ice sheet in the near future.
wake me when the bellagio water feature is one of those sprinklers that goes back and forth with a couple LED lights set around its base.
"You live in a fucking desert!" - Sam Kinison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwA
The "drought" in the west is nearly all hype to pump feckless public works water projects, the Western states have been pulsing millions of acre-feet of water into the Southern Desert, as well as removing storage dams in the no CA and dumping water into the ocean.
The drought is a total fraud to push water bond projects, a debt hype scheme
CA voters will vote for anything with the word "water" in it.
shhh...my plan to depopulate the west is working
I do appreciate the efforts of farmers struggling to keep a seedling growing in blow-sand. But it is the Corn Belt that feeds us all.
Water....how fucking quaint....
Let them eat iPads!
time to dig into the ZH arhives, when ZHedgetards met science and reality head-on like a freight train.
please read through the threads with special attention to Aurora Ex Machina's comments:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-27/worried-about-global-warming-th...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-06/how-al-gores-net-worth-caught-m...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-26/guest-post-melting-ice-and-free...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-09/new-york-fed-sees-five-more-yea...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-29/guest-post-wishes-fantasies-del...
Choices. Always people making very stupid choices, then bitching about the results of their choices, and demanding that someone -anyone else- pay for them... ...& they never want to stop choosing...
Golf courses? Water fountains? Swimming pools? Lawn after suburban lawn of 100% inedible grass? Car washes?
-ALL in deserts? ...Until ALL such outrageously wasteful bullshit is gone I ignore every word about 'drought'...
Lettuce? Lettuce has exactly ZERO nutritional value. NONE. Total waste of every drop of water -and petroleum- used to grow it. Until people stop wasting water growning ZERO nutrition 'foods' I ignore every word about 'drought'.
Suffering from compaction, much?