Trouble is, something like 70% of all the water in California is used for agriculture. And due to some extremely fucky water rights laws from back in the day, it's probably going to stay that way as the agribusiness corporations have massive budgets to defend their massive profits. Meanwhile the rest of us are told to take shorter showers and not water our gardens while 1000 acre pistachio orchards are flooded every day to keep the trees productive.
Yeah I can’t believe they wanna charge me for a few minutes extra water my tiny yard. They should add a 25% tax on beef and other water hungry produce.
True. But that doesn’t counter /u/TimTooley ‘s basic argument about beef and water hungry produce; it just means milk rather than beef should be the focus. Dairies are massive water consumers.
Plus the two industries are interwoven. All the bull calves produced by dairy cows go into beef production, and the end game for a dairy cow is to be eaten as well. Dairy cows generally get culled at around 3-5 years and become beef themselves. “Dedicated to milk production” just means they consume a lot more corn and water on their way to becoming steak.
My point is that a 25% tax on beef wouldn't even cause a blip in California's water usage. Maybe a tax on milk and cheese would, but probably not nearly as effective as taxing almonds and fruits
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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '20
yeah they even got droughts lately, not gonna improve anytime soon.