Quote:
Originally Posted by dude45
The point is the public is a tiny part of the problem when it comes to the depleting water supply. It's akin to mice arguing over water usage while a elephant strolls up and drinks the majority of the water. Imo the public having water is more important than making companies like blue diamond richer. Who do you think should be more responsible for conserving water? The group that uses 80% or the group that uses a lot less.
oh i get your point entirely
but fact is that place is a desert, the lake is drying up to the point of mob bodies being uncovered
and last i checked the economy and avoiding famine are slightly more important than having a green lawn
so comparing who uses what is a bit of a moot issue when without one of them the economy and society collapse and without the other we can still have pretty cool yards and lawns that fit in with the desert ecosystem
yes, we could adapt and grow beans instead - but i'd rather have almonds, lettuce, meat, and a whole slew of you know, options to eat, along with better school districts and this for a lawn
southwest water issues are very close to my heart - it was an area of concentration of mine of in college - i'm very much on the "we need to stop growing so many damn almonds and grow less profitable & more sustainable goods" bandcamp
but the "cost" of every household watering their lawn a little less often or switching away from lawns is much lower than asking agriculture to suddenly drop everything and transition
an almond tree takes 5-12 years before they even start producing almonds and then are usually good for about 25 years of production - so it's a massive up front investment which again is why you can't really tell them "dig up your almond trees and plant beans" - it would ravage the economy
also, companies like blue diamond do not own the land nor grow the almonds themselves, they have contracts with farmers and buy up their production
and california produces 80% of the world's almonds - we've basically cornered the market - so anyone who drops out will only put much price pressure on them - which will cause someone else who is on the fence about producing them to invest in growing almond trees themselves on land that previously grew more sustainable products
if we shut down all existing almond growers in the us right now, we'd probably have 2x as many new producers in 5 years time do to the sharp price increase that would result drawing fresh blood into the game
but more importantly, your comment is just stupid for other less nuanced reasons - you can easily swap out water/lawn/farms for other stuff and you'll see how dumb it is