What If California Runs Out Of Water Entirely? The Megadrought

[@frankblangeard8865]

Skip to 2:24 to miss the promotions. And do fact check because much of what is stated in the video is not accurate. An example is the claim that California produces 100% of the world's almonds 7:30.

[@chaydonofallon1352]

It seems he misspoke. California produces 100 percent of the commercial supply of almonds in the US and 80 percent of the world's.

[@chefmichaelt]

And here we are three weeks after you posted this, California are suffering from flooding from mega atmospheric rivers.

[@MrBadjohn69]

Wait 2 months and California will be bone dry again.

[@8475143117]

Southern California needs to get rid of green lawn and ALL gold courses!!!

[@chopsueykungfu]

The gold ran dry many decades ago!!!

[@jonathanjacques7250]

Silly question, Ca will never run out of water. There are dry years and wet years. We dont store the water in wet years, we flush it down to the ocean.

[@jlo1195]

it's a man-made controlled drought....California has 1400 dams that are controlling the flow of water to central valley...which is a dry up lake bed.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

soon the ocean will eat it up.

[@Our__Earth]

It would be interesting to get your perspective after a pretty decent amount of water and snow fell on the Sierras this year in terms of the effect on the mega drought… If it had any impact at all.

[@explorerofmind]

Video Starts 2:30

[@gsftom]

If California gets dry and can’t produce things, other areas / states will step in. California has ridiculous ideas, politics, taxes and govt. I love to visit parts of the state, but things are completely out of control there. Visited SF 2 years ago and had my rental car towed for parking in the wrong spot that had a 2” x 4” sign at mid calf level that said “service parking only”. 30 minutes later, it cost me over $750 to get my rental car back. Friends told me I was lucky that the car wasn’t stolen bc that is extremely common in the area. Tons of ppl are leaving for dozens or reasons that have nothing to do with drought. Govt insanity is rampant in CA. Do a video on how many ppl and all the reasons that ppl are leaving California. Address the politics. Drought is a minuscule prob compared to all the man made issues there.

[@sealy3]

To add to the expense Build a pipeline subsea out three hundred miles on the sea flore beyond the continental shelf. Use it the pump brine back out to sea. have one central dump site to limit any negative outcome.

[@jasonreed7522]

Or, just have some evaporator ponds to finish converting the brine into sea salt, a commodity with comercial value turning a waste product into another revenue stream.

[@johnogrady2418]

We NEED to be catching the rain that falls in these atmospheric rivers. This is relatively pure fresh water and it can be captured, out on the ocean with BIG inflatable pools with a pump at the bottom of it that can send the water to shore. It CAN be done.

[@8475143117]

Let's not forget what the destruction of Tulare Lake has done to Californian weather....

[@danielgray6829]

In the 90’s Alaska’s governor proposed exporting some of Alaska's freshwater to California. He envisioned an undersea pipeline that would carry water from either the Stikine River in Southeast Alaska or the Copper River near Cordova to California.

[@silentHangus]

They pipe oil many many miles no reason they can't do it with water.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

there and PNW have so much water thats a good idea, problem is money would go to govt not the people.

[@michaelgarcia6520]

I work in water treatment and I can tell you pumping the water through a pipeline would never work. The water would be green and full of organics by the time it reached California. The amount of chemicals you would have to put into the water to keep it “fresh” from that distance and for that long, would ruin the water and be harmful to the operator treating it. Not to mention the environment in the case of a water leak.

[@zacktimmons2886]

Thankfully the mountains just got like 800 inches of snow this year

[@russwatson8713]

California produces 100% of the world's almonds? According to a chart by the U.N. posted on a Wikipedia entry, California actually produces just over half the world's almonds. Didn't fact check the whole video but let's hope the rest is more accurate.

[@nolinsearls]

I think they meant 100% of the US almonds

[@russwatson8713]

@@nolinsearls that would make more sense than what he said, for sure.

[@NickHaus683]

Wow 3 minutes into the video and you still haven’t got to the point. Nice community guidelines

[@sixchuterhatesgoogle3824]

The top five cattle producing states: Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado The top five pork producing states: Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Illinois, Indiana The top five chicken producing states: Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi The top five egg producing states: Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas The top five dairy states: California, Wisconsin, Idaho, Texas, New York The top five wheat states: Kansas, North Dakota, Montana, Texas, Oklahoma The top five corn states: Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana The top five soybean states: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana Notice California is only in one of those eight lists.

[@AprilSBarnes]

Everyone loves to harp on about Californian almonds and their terrible water consumption, but something that consumes orders of magnitude more water than an almond is a cow lol, both in terms of its drinking water and all the water needed to grow its feed. There's basically no advantage to raising cattle in California compared to anywhere else in the country, and even when accounting for land used by ranching that isn't suitable for growing any crops(there's not a lot of it anyway lol). Just getting rid of cattle farms in California would massively alleviate its water issues, even if they continued to grow almonds.

[@SteppesoftheLevant]

Haarp can send water to california

[@jealousofmypuddin]

Thank you for covering the cons of desal, and why it’s not longterm solution. We should look to Orange County’s water recycling efforts to see where we’re headed. In addition to conservation, investments are needed to upgrade water infrastructure in the agricultural sector, and in water catchment systems around the state.

[@MrBadjohn69]

How about just telling Prince Harry and his neighbors not to water their lawns?

[@halfbakeddropout1930]

Almost all water usage is commercial. So, telling people to use less water is not the solution. We need to demand businesses be more responsible with how they use it and how they affect the environment in general.

[@MrBadjohn69]

@@halfbakeddropout1930 SO what you are saying is that the USA should stop growing crops to feed the world. Are you okay with that?

[@halfbakeddropout1930]

For one, nothing needs to be grown in California. Other states and countries that aren't in a megadrought could and should be growing more to compensate. Though, that wasn't what I was implying. Farmers waste absurd amounts of water irrigating their fields. They need to be more responsible with how they water their crops. Also, other commercial uses waste ludicrous amounts of water too. If you want farmers to continue flooding fields unnecessarily, then crack down on one of the other leading sources of the problem and they can continue to do so

[@MegaBraunie]

BREAKING NEWS! There is NO drought now in California! LMAO Climate is cyclical.

[@georgemoore7196]

At 8.28 in, I love your speculation about climate refugees moving to the north towards Portland and Seattle because of the perception that there is water available in that area. That's a great idea, except that the Portland / Seattle area is also the location of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. You've made a video about this subject too. Thanks for the great geography videos.

[@lopoa126]

Technology being developed to use various minerals in brine would be pretty useful...

[@wtk6069]

I don't think it's been a drought. I think they just went through an unusually wet period, and now it's returned to normal.

[@dinsel9691]

Oh yeah? And what else do you think Mr Nostradumbass?

[@noseefood1943]

Have u heard storms in ca lately?

[@Our__Earth]

Thanks for this… When I was teaching GIS in the UAE I went by one of their desalination plants… Yes it has helped make those megacities possible over there but also has reduced the biodiversity to say the least in the Persian Gulf.

[@TexMexTraveler]

What about making the agriculture in California use drip irrigation so that it wastes less water since over 50% of California's water use goes towards agriculture. Large water spraying irrigation is wasteful with over 70% of that water either evaporating in the drier air or landing on soil that is not close enough to each plant or crop seed to provide it water.?

[@tylerkriesel8590]

The us doesn’t “NEED” California for agriculture. It NEEDS to start moving its agricultural production back east where it started. The world will survive without almonds, avocado, and dried up grapes.

[@chaydonofallon1352]

I believe you are uniformed of the scale and diversity of agriculture products coming out of California each year.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

the sad thing is most of our produce is going to other markets, our water is being pumped out by nestle with out paying for it and our govt is pimped by foriegn lobbyists.

[@kwgm8578]

Have you ever shopped fruits and vegetables at a California Safeway in winter? You'll find more variety of these foods in better condition than you get 9 months out of the year in the mid West.

[@ivanvanogre-nd1sw]

@@chaydonofallon1352 They don't call CA the Breadbasket To The Nation for nothing!

[@sydneylee1936]

california is not only an incredibly large agricultural exporter to other states in america, but also across the world. california is the worlds 6th largest economy period. unfortunately the east is far too industrialized and settled to return to the agricultural hub it used to be. there simply is not room. also california cultivates an incredibly vast variety of foods. we do need california for agriculture. it’s impossible to imagine our current nation without it

[@Our__Earth]

In my view as a Geographer there’s either going to have to be a massive investment in infrastructure as you point out with desalinization… And also a major diversion from the cascades down to California which surely would be opposed by many people in Washington and Oregon, either that or there’s going to be massive migration out of California to other places in the USA.

[@SS-yj2le]

This is like asking what if the Amazon ran out of water. That isn’t possible as California isn’t that dry and the northwestern is one of the wettest places in the entire country and wetter than anywhere east of the Cascades. The main issues are water management and the prolonged summer droughts causing the summer dry spells to be longer than usual and even extend into our winters. This is due to the warmer climate keeping the high pressure cell in and north of California longer than it is suppose to be. This is also why Washington and even southern Alaska have had unusually drier summers. I would be more worried about states along the western edge of the mississippi running out of water as the Mississippi isn’t in the best of shape. As in, even needing to do operations to dig in ports for ships to sail inland and dealing with salt water going farther inland.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

cali was caught dumping massive amounts of water, thats actually one of the early times i can remember seeing a story scrubbed from internet in real time. nestle and monsanto are benefiting from engineered scarcity. lobbyists and crooked politicans are letting these swine steal from our aquifiers and sell it back to us.

[@Carlb328]

The Sacramento river has tons of water, or it did when I saw it about 25 years ago. There were environmental court rulings against diverting it but I think it has enough flow for both the environment and people.

[@nicksincredibleopinion]

Nothing mentioned that California's water storage system has been updated in decades! More than 90% of California rainfall goes into the ocean.

[@neil2831]

Oh you know um uh conservation.

[@ivanvanogre-nd1sw]

And it's a sinful waste of clean, fresh water that we truly need. We've just had a great Winter waterwise but those great Winters won't last. We need to be able to capture the atmospheric rivers that fall on the ocean, with giant inflatable pools. It can be done.

[@singaboiz]

Fog harvest in the Bay Area will be a cool and practical way to get freshwater.

[@jeffgumawid7554]

Noob question. What if the brine was mixed with treated wastewater before dumping it back to the ocean? Will it change anything about its effects to the ocean?

[@Desert-edDave]

@@blazinup5871 ~40m people in California vs ~9m in Israel, vastly different regions on the planet. Not the best analogue.

[@ednorton47]

They will have to rely on bottled water, such as Perrier.

[@sgrant9814]

Much like retreat from the shoreline is the ONLY sure defense against sea level rise, using less water is they ONLY defense against perpetual drought....you cannot fight mother nature....she will ALWAYS win!

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

desalinization in israel is funded on the backs of the us tax payer, lets end their blank check and green our deserts into a new bread basket.

[@Saztrah]

California will need desalination, and for that we need to go all-in on nuclear. There's no other option, and the public needs to grow up and realize that nuclear power is safe, totally green, virtually unlimited in fuel supply (on the scale of thousands of years) and the spent fuel waste (of which laughably little has even been created in the last 100 years, you'd be surprised) is actually extremely easy and safe to dispose of if buried far underground. Talk to a physicist or engineer: nuclear combined with desalination IS THE perfect solution, but people ignore it.

[@ivanvanogre-nd1sw]

Yes, I am also pro-nuclear but there is also geothermal. There is a bright future there and geothermal is cleaner too.

[@mysteryachiever]

Water recycling like in Irvine. Treat the water and put it back into the water system or pump it to the agricultural land instead of letting it run into the sea.

[@DudleyToolwright]

I enjoy your content, but did you realize that this video was nearly 20% commercial?

[@corevette]

thank god for the fast forward button to skip the obtrusive commercial!!

[@HEC350]

Upstate NY has a ridiculous amount of old farm land that has plenty of water and good soil. A trade of Cali farmers for our surplus of Illegal Aliens being settled would be a win-win for both states and the environment.

[@Desert-edDave]

They're called potential 'voters', not illegal aliens.😆

[@darrellsmith4204]

People will leave and I'll switch to eating cashews.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

socal massive population ought to be put on a train to places where they can benefit the land, send em to nevada, wyoming, the dakotas, alaska. give every bum a shovel and irrigation instructions and if they sit around looking for drugs then their bones can nurture the soil.

[@slapdoctor707]

What kind of chance do you think that a larger earthquake will hit northern California like the one that happened earlier this week. It has happened two years in a row

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

the end of days is coming, every one knows it.

[@MrBadjohn69]

The earthquake was caused by the illegal weed grows and used syringes on the streets.

[@ticeman1000]

Video starts at 1:46 if you want to ignore nord vpn ad.

[@joshuakent7887]

This didn't age too well 😂😂😂 jk but tbf we are getting record levels of rain atm

[@Desert-edDave]

Embrace the ad-revenue desiring clickbait. ;)

[@ivanvanogre-nd1sw]

First of all, that's great news for us; we really needed this rain and I'd given up hope a long time ago that this would ever happen. Secondly, I've learned that even the best predictions cannot account for Life's variables. Mother Nature can still surprise us.

[@hurryandleave9680]

Palm Springs, which is in the desert, has more water than most of the rest of the state. Can anyone guess why?

[@mysteryachiever]

@@hurryandleave9680 Do tell

[@nightfall4207]

Well the fact that they’ve had multiple sky Rivers drop on them in the past few month they will be okay

[@driveman6490]

"What if California runs out of water?" The US has 49 states and a huge graveyard in the desert.

[@silentHangus]

This video didn't age well.

[@retrobluemusic]

cant they just modify the weather to create rain clouds??

[@jimmiecox2496]

We will have to move to Texas or Oklahoma if we run out of water.

[@Lifecomesfromwithin]

During the maunder minimum California was filled with lakes and rivers and it was like the Pacific Northwest and we have been turning back to that. We are starting to fall into a mini ice age called the Eddie minimum now.

[@factsoverfeelings1776]

Too many people have drank the global warming koolaid and will never believe that. Those of us who look at the statistics know otherwise. Temperatures in the United States have been trending downwards for quite some time now.

[@williamedwardhackman4695]

California is running out of fresh water but it has plenty of saltwater from the Pacific Ocean.

[@jeepneydriver7]

Maybe brine would useful for an electric car motor?

[@driftwoods2229]

I grew up in CA and moved to AK in 2011. I'm glad I did because the town I live in gets 172 inches of rain a year, once the lower 48 immigration happens to Alaska, my property value is going to sky rocket.

[@Desert-edDave]

🙄

[@mbathroom1]

Last time I was this early California had water

[@SS-yj2le]

First time then.

[@history_leisure]

I have heard 1gl oil = 1gl desalinated water, which isn't that good either

[@donalbershardt9290]

Nope $2 to $5 per 1000 Gallons.

[@history_leisure]

@@donalbershardt9290 I said nothing about money, I was talking about the energy it takes to desalinate water

[@jasonreed7522]

@@history_leisure their is another option, its a desert, just use concentrated solar for the power. (Mirrors and sunlight heat molten salt to boil water in a steam turbine) And you don't need batteries because you can just turn off the desalination plant at night since water is an easily stockpiled resource. I also think its possible to merge the technologies into 1 facility but for simplicity conventional desalination plus conventional concentrated solar seems like a winner to me for a coastal desert. (The brine remains an issue but plenty of places already evaporate basic seawater to make "sea salt" aka salt for sale to other markets, why not use the brine for this purpose?)

[@frankdelucey2137]

Maby they would be absorbed into the ocean before the earthquake takes it.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

socal will be done, norcal will be fine.

[@MrGerokee]

hang on, its coming

[@hurryandleave9680]

Looks like you timed this one a little bit off.

[@donbrown1284]

I wonder if you have amended your opinion after the massive flooding of California statewide in 2023.

[@jlg3315]

in the last 200 years the human population has increased by 800%.

[@factsoverfeelings1776]

It won't.... /video

[@douglasdonaldson2510]

So......there is nothing in this video that isn't in a hundred others. meh

[@AllergicToFantasy]

I pay $25 a month for KZbin premium so that I do not have to watch commercials. I enjoy learning about geography very much, but I'm not going to continue to subscribe if you start every video with a commercial. Save it for the end.

[@luffypirate]

Cali is So Smart Let All the Fresh Water from rain snow Wash all in the Ocean iz better Not hear Any Crying this Year About WATER

[@818boy]

Reason being for the drought is free market GREED!!! Everything is always cost cost cost!!! Instead of doing what is right for the greater good!!! Cost shouldn't be an issue because of the enormous amount of taxes being paid by the citizens, its just that they spend it to make a tiny majority richer, and invest heavily on taking life (military industrial complex)!!! Our country should have never gotten to this point, but goes to show what $$ does to humanity when few wield its power!!!🤔🙏🌎✌

[@RyanS32]

California should look to Israel for their work with desalination.

[@66block84]

California should build 4 to 8 aircraft carrier size ships, nuclear powered, fill them with desalination plants & fill their resevoirs.

[@66block84]

As for the brine, pump it into ships that will continually haul it out to sea to be dumped in the deepest zones.

[@moonshinei]

The water out in California’s Pacific Coast is unfit for human consumption. Why? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

nestle lobbyists would just kill who ever was involved, forced scarcity is good for the water and corporate farming industry. mom and pop cant have water rights, but dupont, dow chemical and monsanto can.

[@factsoverfeelings1776]

@@moonshinei Filtration is a thing.... Also, I was in the Navy for 20 yrs all west coast and never saw your socalled pacific garbage patch. You watch too much CNN.

[@ivanvanogre-nd1sw]

Aircraft carrier desalination plants. I'm 'onboard' with this idea!

[@Superator69]

No one wants to return to the Midwest

[@jamesdavidsmith4033]

The USA needs Canada.

[@Desert-edDave]

😂

[@hurryandleave9680]

Except for the people and the government.

[@zone47]

There is no mega drought, well maybe a drought but the problem is the expondential number of people using water and that's only going to get worse.

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

there is a nestle engineered drought, our water is being stolen and sold back to us. then there is fracking at the head waters of all major us rivers. we are sick and dying by design of lobbyists.

[@nicetomeetme5150]

Love this channel. Update.. cali has rain. They are good.

[@greglane3978]

Then they got what they deserved based on their stupid choices.

[@mbathroom1]

Your comments 😂😂

[@SS-yj2le]

Choices? We have plenty of water here and in the south where it is more dry, they actually do a lot better than most at water conservation.

[@dleddy14]

Drought's over, and the hottest recorded temperature in California was in 1922. It's not getting hotter.

[@eliasthienpont6330]

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁LION c LIKE No. 717

[@explorerofmind]

So… everyone just needs to stop eating and drinking water… riiight

[@SidewaysBurnouts]

well nestle needs to pay for the trillions of gallons they stole over the last several decades. the swiss bankers can find out about gang violence in prison while their assets are liquidated to the public for wrongful practices.

[@SteveAubrey1762]

We need to hurry and build a wall around California.

[@NickHaus683]

3 minutes into the video and you still haven’t gotten to the point. Go check your guidelines

[@MrBadjohn69]

Californians will not flee to the Pacific Northwest, they love sun and hate rain. As for brine waste, you simply mix it with seawater before discharging it into the sea.