alt Hacker NewsThere is no water scarcity in California, only misallocation. The vast majority of our water is heavily subsidized and used for agriculture, and a substantial amount of those crops are grown for export, yet agricultural exports makes up an insignificant part of California's economy.
We could end all California water scarcity talk today, with no impact to food availability for Americans, by curtailing the international export of just two California crops: almonds and alfalfa.
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Almonds are climate-appropriate product and valuable. Alfalfa can cheaply be grown off rainwater in the Midwest and it alone frees up sufficient water.
to put this to numbers... the exports are just about 0.5% of california's GDP. so yeah pretty much a rounding error.
Anecdotally, my friend's grandma was an almond farmer. As they drove past a river in the Central Valley, she exclaimed "Why is there water in that river?! Those could be watering my almond trees!"