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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

They could probably dramatically reduce the amount of water used by agriculture while still having plenty of agriculture.

Decades ago, I saw an article about making little basins to capture rain water in the right amount to sustain a tree in the desert to grow fruiting trees in places like the Middle East using natural rainfall in order to increase productivity of arid lands without stressing the environment. I don't believe this is standard practice anywhere in the world, much less a "developed" country like the US, but there's no reason it couldn't be a common practice someplace like California.

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Yep, the incentives need to change -- water contracts need revisiting.

And those basins and other flow control techniques should be embraced ubiquitously in the west; we could green a lot up if we collaborated properly.

Pooled water is tightly restricted in California by law. The combination of the climate and the land continuity with Mexico and Central America makes them particularly vulnerable to mosquito-borne illness and those concerns have been built into the water-management system for many decades.

So that's one reason they can't do that.

> They could probably dramatically reduce the amount of water used by agriculture...

Politically, "they" could not and that is the problem. Think about this. Who is "they?" Who could have the political power and will to do something like that without the support of the agriculture industry?

Why do you think "they" refers to anyone other than farmers?

Fair question.

If you're talking about actual laborers, most of them aren't even citizens and this is not a priority for them.

If you're talking about the corporate boards who run the agriculture industry, this increases cost without increasing profit so this is not a priority for them.

I just can't think of how the agriculture industry could possibly get behind this.

As far as I know, they live on planet Earth along with the rest of us schmucks and if they burn the entire world to the ground for profit, fleeing to a compound in New Zealand won't actually save them -- unless "New Zealand" is really code for some off planet haven, which I very seriously doubt.

See: priority

Something being a problem for someone doesn't mean it's a priority.

Poor people will never prioritize global warming. They will always have more urgent priorities. This is one reason why environmentalism under capitalism is absolutely doomed.

Poor people will never prioritize global warming.

That's extremely funny. I'm dirt poor and gave up my car well over a decade ago, in part because I couldn't afford it anymore and in part because I'm an environmental studies major who takes environmental issues seriously.

I'm not rich enough to afford to smoke cocaine to fuel my delusions and then buy a compound in New Zealand and a personal jet for getting there if my greed helps rapidly burn the world down while I imagine there's someplace safe to go after all the billionaires have destroyed the world in search of their own selfish gratification.

So I make a LOT of pro environmental choices. I got no place to go and no money with which to go there.

> That's extremely funny.

It's also funny because it assumes the global poor are too stupid to realize that global warming means they'll become victims of war, refugees, or starve (choose one or more).

first world arrogance - global definition of extreme poverty is $1.90/day, around $700 per year, scratching the dirt for food and water rather than going to college and not having a car

https://www.worldbank.org/en/understanding-poverty

I was homeless for nearly six years and I still go hungry at times.

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