This godlike arrogance thinking we can just rearrange the earth on a whim for our needs is the fucking problem. This is why humanity is a cancer.
It's not like it's a small operation. There are canneries almost a mile long. There are small mountains of peach pits that form when they're processed (these are used for other purposes by the way!).
What about mature orchards?
I'm not sure why people hate California so much. It's got a lot of problems, like most places... But it's pretty amazing how much shit goes on there.
But the agriculture in California in the face of climate change is completely unsustainable. It is up there with the coal mining and fracking in Pennsylvania.
We need to properly manage the crisis and reduce the amount of human suffering involved because uprooting people in painful.
The alternative seems like we could wind up having literal water wars at some point. This proposal caps the diversion at 5% but that seems the same as building more freeways to me, which just causes more traffic. Give California more water and the agricultural industry will expand and you'll kick the can down the road again.
On the other hand, the engineering to elevate that much water will be interesting.
It's that newspapers have been running passive-aggressive opeds of the same tone, thinking it's worthwhile. You can guess what kind of opeds are getting run in which regions.
That said, I do think water “wars” will be a thing in the not so distant future. Gonna get nasty IRL. Not meant to incite, just a prediction
People just set their homes wherever they felt convenient assuming their taxes would get them the water they need. Sounds like you’re just bringing in prejudiced politics into a discussion about getting water to everyone in your country. Also, inconsistent? Pretty sure the biggest water guzzlers everywhere, the farmers vote republican.
Tell me how CA hasn’t been greedy in their pursuit of water
Unless desalination becomes more efficient, CA is thirsty.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/304869/california-real-g...
(it looks, based on their graphs, like agricultural usage is sticker, in the sense that it doesn't go down nearly as much in dry years).
https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
Since agricultural use takes up a ton of water and produces a fairly small % of the overall GDP, I'd expect them to shift usage toward whatever the high-productivity sectors want before they allow an exodus.
I think you might harbor some odd ideas about the existing relationships between Midwestern states, or perhaps you’re taking a football rivalry too seriously.
But infrastructure to move water around your country especially when a large chunk is a desert makes perfect sense. I originally imagined this would mean somehow exploiting the Great Lakes but the argument suggested here seems quite practical.
Not saying wasteful agriculture on export crops shouldn’t be banned (it should) and perhaps people should stop having so many golf courses, but free flowing water is a true mark of advanced Civilization and it’s not unfair for a country to build the infra to guarantee it.