California Drought thread

SanguineEmpiricist

I think we need a discussion thread for the californian drought going on. I would like to compile information in the main post and would like help compiling it. If we really are proud to be effective altruists then this is an area we should really figure out.

http://ca.gov/drought/
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
http://www.californiadrought.org/

http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf
http://www.californiadrought.org/the-state-of-the-california-drought-still-very-bad/
Read this: http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_drought_impacts_full_report3.pdf

Any one have any good ideas on how we can help?

http://ca.gov/drought/
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
http://www.californiadrought.org/

http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf
http://www.californiadrought.org/the-state-of-the-california-drought-still-very-bad/
Read this: http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_drought_impacts_full_report3.pdf

Any one have any good ideas on how we can help?

I mean minimally we could just talk about it to get the word out. I think people are being pretty unreasonable here.

trying to educate those who should already know about solutions or options is going to be a ridiculously futile challenge, and that doesn't seem to be where you are looking to solve the problem anyway.

Then we can just pivot and have it be a thread to inform those who do not know.

Being unreasonable how? Unless you actually live there and are currently being affected by it, it is -not an important problem-. It is not a life or death situation. There is enough water for everybody to drink, flush toilets, and shower.

What there isn't, is enough water to do all that and grow subsidized water inefficient crops that shouldn't have been planted in the same place. That has been a known issue for at least a decade, and California elected not to fix that issue when it would have been easier. Now it will be harder and more painful, but it's not catastrophic by any means. If anything, this is pretty much the minimum required level of pain to get anything done in California anyway.

-2Elo11y

fastest 2 ways to get the word out; Make a website describing drought and some good solutions to help out. brand it as a NFP, i.e. shower heads, not running a tap while brushing your teeth, aethetic lawns that are not grass, water saving technology for farming systems. maximise for "saving water is saving money is saving the environment" win-win-win messages. 1. print 10,000 flyers and hand them out to people. (at 100/day thats gonna take a while) 2. pay for online ads targetting the geographic area which point to water saving website. bonus: 1. offer a glass of "saved" water to politicians. "This water was not wasted on ugly grass so that now we can drink it. This water was saved because we handed out shower timers, isn't it great that water is freely available and we treat our resources with respect" 2. call local politicians; encourage them to put out water saving propaganda. create a mockup and offer to them for free. existing resource: http://www.savewater.com.au/how-to-save-water/in-the-home TL;DR; Push a public message about it; be loud about it.