The Big Idea: California Is So Over – Joel Kotkin

California’s drought and how it’s handled show just what kind of place the Golden State is becoming: feudal, super-affluent and with an impoverished interior. California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with …

World Set For Record Droughts By 2050, Say Scientists – Alex Pashley

The planet could suffer unprecedented droughts before the middle of the century, researchers warned on April 15, 2015, urging prompt action in adapting reservoirs to receding water resources. The western US may surpass historic levels of dryness as early as 2017 and the Mediterranean by 2027 if polluters emit at current rates, according to report by the International Institute for …

How Many People Will Have To Migrate Out Of California When All The Water Disappears?

The drought in California is getting a lot worse.  As you read this, snowpack levels in the Sierra Nevada mountains are the lowest that have ever been recorded.  That means that there won’t be much water for California farmers and California cities once again this year.  To make up the difference in recent years, water has been pumped out of the …

California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth

For more than a century, California has been the state where people flocked for a better life — 164,000 square miles of mountains, farmland and coastline, shimmering with ambition and dreams, money and beauty. It was the cutting-edge symbol of possibility: Hollywood, Silicon Valley, aerospace, agriculture and vineyards. But now a punishing drought — and the unprecedented measures the state …

California’s Dire Drought Leads to Record Low Snowpack Levels at 6%, Triggers Mandatory Conservation Measures

California’s dire drought conditions have finally triggered more meaningful action at the state level. Today, Gov. Brown issued an executive order which calls on state and local water agencies “to implement a series of measures to save water, including increased enforcement to prevent wasteful water use, streamline the state’s drought response, and invest in new technologies,” according to California Coastkeeper Alliance. The governor issued the statement today as readings …

Era of ‘Nice Little Green Grass’ Is Over as Calif. Imposes Strict Water Rules

Standing on dry grass in an area that would typically be covered by at least several feet of accumulated snow in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains on Wednesday, California Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday announced his approval of emergency measures, including mandatory water restrictions, designed to help the nation’s largest state cope with a drought that has been …

The California drought: Water-rationing plan leaves corporate interests untouched

The unprecedented drought gripping California has deepened for the fourth consecutive year, having already set new records for the lowest annual precipitation levels on record. 2014 brought the highest calendar-year temperature for the state, while this February was the hottest on record and this January the driest. A recent study conducted by Daniel Griffin and Kevin J. Anchukaitis found that …

To Solve California’s Water Crisis, We Must Change the Nation’s Food System

The bold headline of a recent Los Angeles Times editorialby the hydrologist Jay Famiglietti starkly warned: “California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now?” The write-up quickly made the social media rounds, prompting both panic and the usual blame game: It’s because of the meat eatersor the vegan almond-milkdrinkers or the bottled-waterguzzlers or the Southern California lawn soakers. California’s water losshas been …

A Melting Arctic and Weird Weather: The Plot Thickens

Everyone loves to talk about the weather, and this winter Mother Nature has served up a feast to chew on. Few parts of the US have been spared her wrath. Severe drought and abnormally warm conditions continue in the west, with the first-ever rain-free January in San Francisco; bitter cold hangs tough over the upper Midwest and Northeast; and New England is …

California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans

Once upon a time, much of the state of California was a barren desert.  And now, thanks to the worst drought in modern American history, much of the state is turning back into one.  Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century that the state of California had seen in 1000 years.  But now weather patterns are …