A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 15-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Ultimately, somebody has to pay the price of the water.

Yes, so what? Everybody has to pay for water, one way or another.

California's agricultural water usage is enormous.

That would be because California's agricultural production is prodigious.

If agriculture
was cut in half, there would be enough water freed up to double
the population and industry in CA without any change in consumption
patterns.

But there would be less agricultural production. And, there would be more
people and more industry, which has a much more harmful effect on the
environment than agriculture.

That would roughly double the state GDP while dropping
less than 2% of GDP in agricultural production.

I don't know where you get the idea that a 50% reduction in agriculture in
California would result in less than a 50% reduction in agricultural
production in California.


It seems there
are better ways of spreading the cost of water around.

Not really.


Mike

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Regards,
Scott Weiser

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