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i buy all my vegetables at the local farm market so no, they are not feeding me.

I applaud your approach. However, that may not be a fully representative statement.

Even if you never buy an ounce of food from California, its presence in the market shapes what every commodity is worth. Even if you only buy local corn for $1.00/cob, that price is being shaped by the fact that California corn could be bought nearby for $0.69/cob. The cheapness of California produce, whether you buy it or not, helps to set the market pricing for food and agricultural products across the US.

Do you ever eat at fast food restaurants (or any restaurants except high-end locavore eateries)? If so, non-trivial parts of the cheap "beef" and lettuce in your Taco Bell taco, the artichokes in your Applebee's spinach artichoke dip appetizer, or even your sole (or trout) almondine at your favorite high-end seafood place are being subsidized by California's unconscionable water policies.

Even if you buy only local vegetables, your grocery list probably includes lots of things dependent upon California and its artificial agricultural water bonanza... California is the 4th largest state in beef production, 1st in almond products (including almond milk), etc. So anything you buy at a restaurant or elsewhere using California agricultural products is benefitting from the dreadful existing state of affairs. According to the Western Farm Press, California produces in the US "99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots." And across the US, the market price for every single one of these commodities is being set in part by California production, even if you buy the local version.

Right into the ocean.

The amount of water needed to produce Ethanol should then be more than enough reason to ban Ethanol. Once we stop using food (corn) as fuel we can go back to proper agriculture where crops are rotated instead of farms increasing not growing other crops so they can cash in on the corn bonanza. The problems in California have nothing to do with rainfall and everything to do with Government Regulations from the EPA. http://westernfarmpress.com/bl...

In typical fashion though the Government regulates a problem into existence, hires "Researches" to say the new problem caused by Government Regulations is actually caused by something else that the Government is not yet regulating (but would like to regulate) and thus creating a public outcry for the Government to regulate another part of our lives and cause yet more problems. All why you sheeple are thankful the kind and caring Government is saving you from an evil made up boogyman.

The amount of water needed to produce Ethanol should then be more than enough reason to ban Ethanol. Once we stop using food (corn) as fuel we can go back to proper agriculture where crops are rotated instead of farms increasing not growing other crops so they can cash in on the corn bonanza. The problems in California have nothing to do with rainfall and everything to do with Government Regulations from the EPA. http://westernfarmpress.com/bl...

In typical fashion though the Government regulates a problem into existence, hires "Researches" to say the new problem caused by Government Regulations is actually caused by something else that the Government is not yet regulating (but would like to regulate) and thus creating a public outcry for the Government to regulate another part of our lives and cause yet more problems. All why you sheeple are thankful the kind and caring Government is saving you from an evil made up boogyman.

That's part of the issue - Government Regulations http://westernfarmpress.com/bl...

More B.S. California's problem with water shortages is mostly due to Man Made Regulations! Read about how they are restricting water flow to 'protect' some little minnow. http://online.wsj.com/news/art... and http://westernfarmpress.com/bl...

Here we have some successes at UC Davis breeding resistant lettuce..

Bolivian Cocoa farmers also managed. As a result, the DEA accidentally helped improve their yield with free roundup.

Here we have weeds developing the trait. Certainly they didn't even have the minimal help of conventional breeding. They most certainly weren't created by GM techniques. If it can happen by accident, it can be made to happen.

I hope we dont run out of phosphorus faster because of this!!

Google phosphorus shortage, plenty of hits.

One of the big issues is that those giant combines and harvesters on farms use GPS, so the farming industry is upset http://westernfarmpress.com/government/lightsquared-threat-gps-even-filters Lightspeed owns the bandwidth adjacent to GPS, but the GPS devices are still affected by transmission on lightspeed's bandwidth. So it isn't really "lightspeed zmog destroy teh GPS" by doing some dastardly deeds, it is them trying to use the bandwidth they purchased and older GPS devices not able to handle the interference (even tho they are class B and must not create interference and must accept interference). Airplanes are another issue with interference. http://macsblog.com/2011/02/should-i-worry-about-gps-jamming/ really, though, just a clash of the lobbyists in washington on who has to pay extra to make lightspeed able to use their bandwidth

Are you joking, or just an idiot? Fire up Google maps (or earth) and look to the east of Scottsdale, AZ. You'll see an area where the suburban sprawl stops cold and turns into tracts of farmland. That's the Salt River/Pima reservation.

According to this, agriculture accounts for $6.6 billion per year in AZ. And it's probably gone up since that was published.

Plants don't mind the extreme heat as much as people do. What they do mind is extreme cold (December and January are growing months around here), and lack of water (did you ever wonder why there are so many dams on the Colorado River?).

Good soil can be imported, water can be imported, sunlight cannot.

You're correct, that's exactly how the water cycle works. But this gadget skips a couple of steps.

The water that's in the bottle on my desk started out as atmospheric moisture over Northern California. Then it precipitated out as snow or rain, ending up as ground water or in a reservoir. From there it was pumped into the local water system, and where I siphoned it into my bottle. Eventually I'll drink it, piss it into a toilet, whence it will find its way through the sewage system and out to sea. Then it will evaporate into the air and the whole cycle will start over again.

Right now, only a small part of the the rain and snow that falls on Northern California ends up in the various water systems we humans depend on. The rest is used by what's left of the natural ecology. One reason this ecology keeps shrinking is that humans keep sequestering more and more water for their own use. With gadgets like this one, we could potentially sequester every single drop before it has a chance to fall out of the sky.

That notion might seem far-fetched. And indeed, we'll probably never go that far in a relatively moist region like the one I live in. But consider an arid region like Arizona. There's relatively little atmospheric moisture there, but what there is sustains a thriving desert ecology. It also is home to human communities that are always struggling to find water. It's not hard to imagine Arizonans building enough of this gadgets to grab virtually all the precipitation before it has a chance to fall. When that happens, the desert ecologies are, so to speak, toast.

Which is not to say that this technology is totally evil. I can think of many situations where it would be the most ecologically sound way to obtain water. You just have to remember that this is not an ecological free lunch.

No, MTBE has been banned.

The gas manufacturers and the state claimed that due to technological advances they could meet gasoline cleanliness requirements without using MTBE or ethanol. The Federal government has refused to grant a waiver to California, forcing the manufacturers to continue to use additives (midwest ethanol) anyway.

http://www.google.com/search?q=california+ethanol+ waiver
http://westernfarmpress.com/news/farming_epa_told_ reconsider/