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Re: taking a shot at the whales - CrazedZooChimp - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 12:33 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

Alternately it would just cause farmers in the central valley to grow fewer water intensive crops that aren't suited for this climate and move water intensive industrial processes to places that have more water...

Re: taking a shot at the whales - CrazedZooChimp - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 01:03 PM)Yvonne link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12002.msg116348#msg116348 date=1428517976]
[quote author=CrazedZooChimp link=topic=12002.msg116336#msg116336 date=1428512419]
I want Gary!  Has Stanford ever had a #1 overall player?

John Elway?

BC
[/quote]

Stanford has had four No. 1 overall players.
http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/topic,12003.0.html
[/quote]

I meant recruits ranked #1, not players drafted #1.  Not ready to assume Rashan Gary will be drafted that highly  :P

Re: taking a shot at the whales - socalstanfan1 - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 04:51 PM)CrazedZooChimp link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

Alternately it would just cause farmers in the central valley to grow fewer water intensive crops that aren't suited for this climate and move water intensive industrial processes to places that have more water...
[/quote]

The entire "California Dream" is based on the un-natural distribution of water, the damming of various rivers (Colorado, Owens, Feather, Hetch-Hetchy) and the use of aqueducts to support not just farming but massive amounts of population, far beyond numbers that would be sustainable by natural amounts of local rainfall.  Draughts are also a regular part of California's weather pattern, as all of us who are California-born know.  (Though I'm quite willing to accept that global warming may be contributing to making the latest draught worse.)  What used to be primarily a North/South struggle over water is now as much a Agriculture/Urban center struggle. But really, water shortage is just something Californians have to deal with (or live in denial about, depending upon how much moisture a particular rainy season brings).

Eventually, this drought will end.  If it doesn't, really one of the last things I will be worrying about is whether an 18-year old football player is somehow put-off by browning lawns around Stanford.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - BostonCard - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 05:01 PM)CrazedZooChimp link Wrote:[quote author=Yvonne link=topic=12002.msg116356#msg116356 date=1428523426]
[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12002.msg116348#msg116348 date=1428517976]
[quote author=CrazedZooChimp link=topic=12002.msg116336#msg116336 date=1428512419]
I want Gary!  Has Stanford ever had a #1 overall player?

John Elway?

BC
[/quote]

Stanford has had four No. 1 overall players.
http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/topic,12003.0.html
[/quote]

I meant recruits ranked #1, not players drafted #1.  Not ready to assume Rashan Gary will be drafted that highly  :P
[/quote]

I knew what you meant.  Now recruiting wasn't as well-developed at the time, but surely John Elway was (or would have been) the #1 recruit in the country the year he came out of high school, no?

BC

Re: taking a shot at the whales - BostonCard - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 08:21 PM)socalstanfan1 link Wrote:The entire "California Dream" is based on the un-natural distribution of water, the damming of various rivers (Colorado, Owens, Feather, Hetch-Hetchy) and the use of aqueducts to support not just farming but massive amounts of population, far beyond numbers that would be sustainable by natural amounts of local rainfall.  Draughts are also a regular part of California's weather pattern, as all of us who are California-born know.  (Though I'm quite willing to accept that global warming may be contributing to making the latest draught worse.)  What used to be primarily a North/South struggle over water is now as much a Agriculture/Urban center struggle. But really, water shortage is just something Californians have to deal with (or live in denial about, depending upon how much moisture a particular rainy season brings).

Eventually, this drought will end.  If it doesn't, really one of the last things I will be worrying about is whether an 18-year old football player is somehow put-off by browning lawns around Stanford.

Well, the entire Boston dream is based on the unnatural distribution of heat, right?  And someday this winter will end.

BC



Re: taking a shot at the whales - socalstanfan1 - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 09:31 PM)ferrari link Wrote:The whole over-population argument is hypocritical at it's core.  The solution is for none of the proponents of population regulation to have never been born, along with their great great great grand parents.  No abortion proponent was ever aborted. These are irrefutable facts, no?  Humans make the environment to suite themselves.  So do other species.  Earth deals with it in geologic time and has for billions of years.  Once there may have been organisms who populated this planet for whom oxygen was poisonous.  Long term, that didn't work out.  Humans, mammals, have been on this planet for a very short time.  It seems to me foolishness to think we are causing doomsday.  Or to think we can stop it.  Our only hope, as a species, is to find a way to escape this planet and start over.  You, my friend, and I, will not see that but it might happen.  Or not.  In the meanwhile, do the best you can, live and help others, love and accept love, and enjoy.  The last dinosaurs might have cursed their forebears for screwing things up but the results were the same regardless.  Someday this planet will burn and disintegrate and there is not a thing we humans can do to prevent it.  To think otherwise is merely hubris.

Who ever mentioned "population control"? Or abortion? To point out an obvious historical reality is hardly hypocritical. I haven't seen anyone here propose undoing the changes that have been made to the California water system.  But to grouse about the ill effects of the drought when California has suffered droughts for as long as we have weather records is naive. (Maybe we would agree on that point). And to think that the effects of the drought are not felt more intensely because of the use people make of the environment is foolish. Have humans always made use of the environment? Sure. But that statement in itself is a specious argument: not all means of shaping the environment have an equally powerful impact.  Should one use that fact as an excuse to simply not look at the past in order to understand the impact of those human decisions, and particular ways in which humans have shaped the environment? (Though you basically seem to be saying that human decisions really haven't had any impact on the environment.) That's just a plea for historical ignorance.

I think the tone of the earlier remarks (at least mine) was not hypocritical. They were more in the line of: this is the reality that we've created. Deal with it.



Re: taking a shot at the whales - CrazedZooChimp - 04-08-2015

(04-08-2015, 09:08 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:[quote author=CrazedZooChimp link=topic=12002.msg116366#msg116366 date=1428537672]
[quote author=Yvonne link=topic=12002.msg116356#msg116356 date=1428523426]
[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12002.msg116348#msg116348 date=1428517976]
[quote author=CrazedZooChimp link=topic=12002.msg116336#msg116336 date=1428512419]
I want Gary!  Has Stanford ever had a #1 overall player?

John Elway?

BC
[/quote]

Stanford has had four No. 1 overall players.
http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/topic,12003.0.html
[/quote]

I meant recruits ranked #1, not players drafted #1.  Not ready to assume Rashan Gary will be drafted that highly  :P
[/quote]

I knew what you meant.  Now recruiting wasn't as well-developed at the time, but surely John Elway was (or would have been) the #1 recruit in the country the year he came out of high school, no?

BC
[/quote]

Right, I was replying to Yvonne's link to a thread about #1 draft picks.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - winflop - 04-09-2015

(04-08-2015, 12:33 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

OTOH, actually investing in water collection and storage infrastructure to match the growing population and agriculture business would alleviate much of the issue.  Also, stupid environmental policies and allowing beverage companies to siphon off drinking water to bottle it reduce the available supply.  IMnsHO, there's no excuse for not having at least a dozen desalination plants running off abundant and relatively clean natural gas up and down the coastline.  There's also no excuse for not being able to collect more water from the melting snowpack.  California has done a terrible job - across both Democrat and Republican administrations - over the last 50+ years, and now we are paying the price for it.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - CornFed - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 04:18 AM)winflop link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

OTOH, actually investing in water collection and storage infrastructure to match the growing population and agriculture business would alleviate much of the issue.  Also, stupid environmental policies and allowing beverage companies to siphon off drinking water to bottle it reduce the available supply.  IMnsHO, there's no excuse for not having at least a dozen desalination plants running off abundant and relatively clean natural gas up and down the coastline.  There's also no excuse for not being able to collect more water from the melting snowpack.  California has done a terrible job - across both Democrat and Republican administrations - over the last 50+ years, and now we are paying the price for it.
[/quote]

I agree with these comments.  I have a hard time simply accepting what appears to be a false choice b/t total destruction of the environment or depriving people of the water they need to pursue their lives.  The entire Central Valley miracle was created by people with vision who saw the potential of agricultural bounty that could arise if water were made available.  There is simply no place like it elsewhere in the world.  There is a diversity of crops that thrive here unlike anything man has witnessed with the possible exception of Eden.

That said, I believe that a system promoting market pricing for water will logically lead to a re-allocation of that resource.  The current artificially set prices (and uses) of water create much more opportunity for graft and corruption (think Chinatown, on steroids).  Of course, partly as a result of that opportunity and also out of concern about diminishing their own power, politicians would never favor changes that would force them to take their collective foot off our throat.

An article (might have been a cover story) in the Economist a long time ago referred to California's periodic struggles with water as an administrative drought.  I can't believe that it has not been possible to greatly expand our system of water storage.  We simply have allowed ourselves to overcompensate for our environmental concerns to the point that we are paralyzed.  Market pricing would eventually make creative solutions to the environmental concerns more lucrative.  But I'm sure politicians would interfere.  They would embrace crony capitalists and rent-seekers to subsidize their pursuit of those solutions and the market would be skewed again in some other way.

Man has been able to provide for the growth of the population over centuries through the creativity and will inherent in humans.  It is only because we have suspended our will in this area and ceded to the disaster that situations like this drought arise periodically.  Unfortunately, I don't see it changing any time soon.  Certainly not in my lifetime.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - CowboyIndian - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 04:18 AM)winflop link Wrote:....desalination plants running off abundant and relatively clean natural gas

I think you're ignoring how we actually produce that abundant natural gas.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - washingtonismoney - 04-09-2015

That's a big argument, but from a global warming perspective I think fracking is better than oil. (Of course there are other environmental concerns.) And some of it can be solved with better regulation/technology.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - Rally - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 09:04 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:That's a big argument, but from a global warming perspective I think fracking is better than oil. (Of course there are other environmental concerns.) And some of it can be solved with better regulation/technology.

Fracking is better than oil?

Re: taking a shot at the whales - CrazedZooChimp - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 04:18 AM)winflop link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

OTOH, actually investing in water collection and storage infrastructure to match the growing population and agriculture business would alleviate much of the issue.  Also, stupid environmental policies and allowing beverage companies to siphon off drinking water to bottle it reduce the available supply.  IMnsHO, there's no excuse for not having at least a dozen desalination plants running off abundant and relatively clean natural gas up and down the coastline.  There's also no excuse for not being able to collect more water from the melting snowpack.  California has done a terrible job - across both Democrat and Republican administrations - over the last 50+ years, and now we are paying the price for it.
[/quote]

Desalination plants are very costly to run.  They don't exist because the water they provide is more expensive than water from other sources.  Now if there were better market pricing that might not be the case, but it is now.  It's certainly more expensive than pumping ground water.  And don't be so big on the "clean" natural gas.  It's better than coal (or god forbid burning oil for power, but that's pretty unheard of these days), but it's not clean.  If it were, California's ghg emissions from power generation wouldn't have increased 35% in 2012 after San Onofre shut down (and drought related drops in hydro power).

As it is, even the new desal plant opening in San Diego is going to probably have to shut down if this drought ever ends because it won't make economic sense to keep running it.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - stupac2 - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 09:29 AM)ferrari link Wrote:Fracking is better than oil?

It's unclear. It basically depends on how much methane is released by the wells, since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas it could potentially offset the CO2/energy gains of natural gas vs oil/coal (I think in this context WIM meant coal, since afaik power plants don't really use oil derivatives, but I may be wrong).

Anywho, I'm generally optimistic about humanity's ability to muddle through, it's hard to know what our world will look like in 100 years, guessing is mostly pointless. I do find the comments about CA being unlivable because of water to be odd when the vast majority of our water is used by agriculture. People can live here just fine with the water we have if it we weren't farming...

Re: taking a shot at the whales - CrazedZooChimp - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 10:22 AM)stupac2 link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=12002.msg116407#msg116407 date=1428596961]Fracking is better than oil?

It's unclear. It basically depends on how much methane is released by the wells, since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas it could potentially offset the CO2/energy gains of natural gas vs oil/coal (I think in this context WIM meant coal, since afaik power plants don't really use oil derivatives, but I may be wrong).

Anywho, I'm generally optimistic about humanity's ability to muddle through, it's hard to know what our world will look like in 100 years, guessing is mostly pointless. I do find the comments about CA being unlivable because of water to be odd when the vast majority of our water is used by agriculture. People can live here just fine with the water we have if it we weren't farming...
[/quote]

It's sort of moot, since oil and gas are used for totally different things.  Oil is used for things like transport fuel  and petrochemical products like plastics.  Natural gas is used for stationary power requirements like electricity generation and heating where it can be piped. 

I also am optimistic humanity won't die out anytime soon.  We're surprisingly adaptable.  If the price of almonds or grass fed beef has to double, we'll probably be OK.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - washingtonismoney - 04-09-2015

I mean, I have little doubt that there will still be, like, humanity if the Earth heats more than 2 degrees Celsius or even well beyond that. I just don't think it'll be terribly pleasant.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - gocard14 - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 09:04 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:That's a big argument, but from a global warming perspective I think fracking is better than oil. (Of course there are other environmental concerns.) And some of it can be solved with better regulation/technology.

Fracking, oil, coal . . . All are some form of extracting carbon from the ground and releasing it into the air.  The difference in global warming effects are of mild degree, not kind. 

Re: taking a shot at the whales - Rally - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 10:50 AM)gocard14 link Wrote:[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116405#msg116405 date=1428595467]
That's a big argument, but from a global warming perspective I think fracking is better than oil. (Of course there are other environmental concerns.) And some of it can be solved with better regulation/technology.

Fracking, oil, coal . . . All are some form of extracting carbon from the ground and releasing it into the air.  The difference in global warming effects are of mild degree, not kind.
[/quote]

Silly me, I thought Fracking was a method used to extract a product, not the product itself.i am unlikely to ever heat my home or run my car on fracking.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - CornFed - 04-09-2015

(04-09-2015, 01:25 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=gocard14 link=topic=12002.msg116417#msg116417 date=1428601816]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116405#msg116405 date=1428595467]
That's a big argument, but from a global warming perspective I think fracking is better than oil. (Of course there are other environmental concerns.) And some of it can be solved with better regulation/technology.

Fracking, oil, coal . . . All are some form of extracting carbon from the ground and releasing it into the air.  The difference in global warming effects are of mild degree, not kind.
[/quote]

Silly me, I thought Fracking was a method used to extract a product, not the product itself.i am unlikely to ever heat my home or run my car on fracking.
[/quote]

fracking is a technique and can be used to access either deposits of oil or gas.

Re: taking a shot at the whales - Leftcoast - 04-09-2015

Classic case of Cardboard thread drift here.    :)

Landing Recruiting Whales -> Brown grass at Stanford -> California's drought -> Ills of Fracking

No place like it!  (I guess there's a continuous water theme going on here ... I mean it DID start off with whales.)