...As of August 14, 82 percent of the state of California was in extreme drought. As California entered its fourth year of record-breaking drought, it was met with extremely parched landscapes. CBS News reports reveal that, “According to an aerial survey conducted by the U.S. Forest Service in April, about 12 million trees have died in California forestlands in the past year because of extreme drought.” Dead trees along with plant life in severe condition are seen throughout the Los Padres National Forest. These dead trees add another element to the hazards of the drought by threatening the dry landscape with the possibility of intense wildfires. On January 17, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the state of California. This...
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...Traffic In California Commuting in California traffic is one of the most stressful things Californians will ever do. California is at the beginning of a huge crisis. The vehicles on the road keep increasing with the growing population, but the roads stay the same. Take Los Angeles for example: the estimated population is 3.7 million with the average household having 1.8 vehicles. This makes the estimated vehicles in LA roughly 6.5 million with millions more commuting to the city for work, school, and other activities. With these facts combined it makes for one of the most stressful scenarios Californians will ever encounter. A person in California will quickly learn the meaning of time management. A commuter will have many different variables that will affect their commutes on a daily basis. Accidents, construction, and weather are just a few examples of these variables. Accidents can affect a drivers’ commute from minutes to hours depending on the severity. Construction may not have the same affect as accidents, however; it could lead to taking different exits, freeways, and roads, greatly increasing the length of a drivers’ trip by distance and time. Even though Los Angeles regularly experiences rainfall, drivers are still extremely cautious and slow down their speeds anywhere from 10-30 mph causing congestion and gridlock. Having all these obstacles to consider, a California driver has to learn the importance of time management and apply it to their commutes. In conclusion...
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...All California residents are familiar with the statewide drought that began in 2012. Effects of it can be seen in day-to-day life in decreased rainfall, billboards and laws encouraging conservation, front lawns being replaced with drought resistant landscapes and little reason to take a ski trip during the winter months due to lack of snowfall. Water recharge has decreased due to the decline in precipitation in the past two and a half years, leaving California with a huge need to properly manage its water. According to Nature, consequences of the long-term drought are increased seasonal wild fires and destruction to ecosystems throughout California. Southern California felt the negative effects of dry vegetation during the series of fires...
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...Drought Having an Affecting In discussion on the California Drought, one controversial issues has been that if the people in California should be worried about relocating somewhere else. One the one hand, the drought not only affecting the people, the animal’s habitats but also the crops. On the other hand, some hope that the government will intervene and try to do something to prevent disasters from happing and having to worry about people moving to another state. The government should intervene and do something about the consumption of water people use and not only are the people being victims but other sources who depend on water also to survive. Living on the Garcia Ranch Edgar is surrounded by Mother Nature is a wonderful lifestyle....
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...California’s Water Problem Introduction: Water Sources in California In her book entitled Managing Water: Avoiding Crisis in California, the ecologist and historian Dorothy Green describes the complicated and intricate California water system (University of California Press, October 9, 2007). Green’s description and analysis becomes more important to the people of California with every week that passes/ This is because California is now in the fourth year of drought in which no rain, snow, or hail has fallen (“California Drought”, CA.gov. Online at: http://ca.gov/drought/). In her work on the topic, Dorothy Green describes very carefully the system by which the rain, snow, and hail that fall in northern California move downwards in a flow of water that serves the entire state thanks to the power of gravity. The river systems of California include Colorado River and the Sacramento River. These great river systems move the water southwards, (to Los Angeles) and westwards (to San Francisco), respectively. In addition to these well known rivers to the system of rivers in California includes more than thirty rivers including the Klamath, the American, the Tolumne, the Merced, the Yuba, the Kern, the Russian, the Tule, and right here in Los Angeles the Los Angeles River which runs right through the industrial section of downtown Los Angeles in a cement channel : In addition to the river systems of California, Green describes a network of dam release channels, canals...
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...A Disappointed California, Which Tells Lie Everyone has his own dream. What is a dream for you? Does it come true for you? I believe that every person’s dream is to get better lives such as better cars, opportunities, and education in the life. People move one place to another place to get better lives as their dreams. Most of people think that America is the best place in the world, especially California. Some peoples’ hopes become true but many hopes do not come true. Some are upper class people who have their own business in their own country and their lives totally change to employee when they come to California. They have no chance not to come to California. So they have to leave their business and come to California. California provides the dream of having a better life. In contract, California is a lie and disappointed place for people whom immigrate to California because many things make people’s history disappear, people about segregation and have short lives by Americans and people have poor lives in California. History is vey important for every nationality. Everyone should know about his/her background and country history. But now most of children have lack of their own history. It is really disappointed for grandparents and parents. Many Vietnamese people immigrate and build a new life in the United States during the Vietnam War. The reason people from Vietnam run to the United States was if they continued living in Vietnam, they had less chance to survive in their...
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...California needs to regulate the use of groundwater and make a law, groundwater can be very dangerous and has many downsides. Farmers should try to save and use other sources of water and overall stop the use of groundwater. If we keep using ground water at this paste then we will eventually run out and the ground will continue to decrease. Making a law will allow the ground to renew itself. California needs to limit the amount of groundwater by making a law to force farmers to try to save the water and use desalinization and stormwater harvesting. California does not know how much groundwater is left. We need to know how much is left because eventually we will run out. If we run out then farmers most likely will not have a backup plan ,...
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...Wired Money: The Rise of Information Capitalism in California California, Silicon Valley, the home of technical innovations, websites, and social media with companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. Our present day birth place of every technological advancement industries in the country, and probably the world. For every possible future computer scientist, informational technologist, computer engineers, and many other skilled technicians, it’s their ideal location to thrive, to build their life, and career at. In other words, it’s the Holy Grail of technological industrial location in Northern California. Whenever we mention or hear about Northern California, most of the time we would think of Silicon Valley and its technological industries....
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...As you aware, California has recently slowly been alleviated from severe to extreme drought conditions. An influx of winter storms have caused widespread flooding throughout the state and even damage to the Oroville dam due to an overflow of water. With these current weather conditions, talks about lessening and reducing water regulations have began. Currently, each Californian uses about 181 gallons of water a day, not to mention, California uses more water than any other state. I support the public regulations of water use. However, the valley farmers and irrigation should be allowed lenient water restrictions since they account for almost all of North America's agricultural produce. Additionally, funding for water collection and conservation should be a top priority for California....
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...There are numerous of environmental problems, in this country, but the major problem going on in California is the need of water. Water is the main resource to many things so there can be life. If water doesn’t flow in California, many residents are going to be migrating to a different state. The three ways I believe it should be handled is by, conserving it in resident’s houses, closing water parks, and the responsibilities of the teachers to educate their students. Closing several places where water is normally used is a good start saving water. In order for this issue to be solved, everyone has to contribute, so therefore water doesn’t get wasted. Residents from California should take in consideration that water is very important and useful,...
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...Recently, California is facing one of the most severe droughts on record. Many governors, large companies managers, and citizens start spending and investing a lot of money on draining groundwaters every year when there is a drought. This does not solve the problem of drought, but causing groundwater being withdrawn faster than it can replenish. Water conservation and water management are keys to address these issues. By enforcing laws and regulations, there will be a great improvement in water conservation and will help sustaining water resources. Severe drought has brought several disaster to all residents in California by drying out soils, reducing stream flows, decreasing tree growth and biomass, and reducing crop yields. Mohamed El-Ashry of the World Resources Institute estimates that 65% to 75% of the water throughout the world is wasted through evaporation, leaks and others. Therefore, water tracking is needed to reduce these leaks and would at least save 15% of these water from being wasted. According to water resource expert Sandra Postel, “By heavily subsidizing water, governments give out the false message that it is abundant and can afford to be wasted – even as rivers are drying up, aquifers and are being depleted, fisheries are...
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...California’s Environmental Context A traditional definition for the term environment is usually in regards to land, however in this course, Environmental History of California, environment has been defined in regards to population and settlement style. The following paper will make the argument that the four dominant groups of the early west (Indians, Spanish, Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans) livelihood was defined by the context of their environment. For instances, if you look at the Apache in context compared to the Patwin, Nomlaki, and Wintu in context their livelihood was quite different. According to Richard White, Apaches on the Great Plains lived in near starvation and had to raid other groups because their environment was unforgiving...
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...Major Water Scarcity in California And it’s Effect on the American South West This essay explains the lack of precipitation in South West America and its effects on California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. It also explores the numerous alternatives that could be used in order to solve this water crisis. The cause of the drought in California is the lack of snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, which caused the river to evaporate. As temperatures are rising, it causes water to evaporate and dry out soil that we need to plant crops. Authorities are reducing the flow from Colorado’s two reservoirs, Lake Powell, which supplies the upper Colorado Basin, and Lake Mead, which supplies Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Evidence suggests “For the...
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...Physical Factors Southern California is largely flat, with no really impressive mountain ranges, and obviously well... it's further south. The moist air masses usually pass north of us, just because of how air currents in this part of the world flow. Warm air holds onto its moisture very well. Thus... we're very dry down here. Northern California has a number of rows of pretty good mountains, the moist air flows directly into the area, and as it hits he mountains, it rises and cools, dropping most of its water as both rain and snow. This is the western part of the "rain shadow effect." So in the north, water is not only dropped by being north and cold, but it's collected and funnelled by the mountains. The Central Valley / San Joachim Valley is in between the extremes, which is what makes it the "Bread Basket of the United States," and almost the entire world. More than half of the entire US food supply (agriculture, dairy, and livestock) comes out of our Central Valley. Where do they get it from? Southern California, home to half of the state's population, depends on the State Water Project, the Colorado River Aqueduct and the Los Angeles Aqueduct supply for about half of its supply. California's vast agricultural industry is also dependent on water projects, both large and small. The California State Water Project is the largest multipurpose, state-built water project in the United States. The SWP transports water from the Feather River watershed to agriculture...
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...The society we live in today is depleting our water resources in a way that it is hard to restore the damage. Out of all the states in the U.S., California is in an extreme drought right now and it could get worse than it already is. There are a lot of inconsiderate people out there that waste gallons of water on unnecessary things that are contributing to the drought. Therefore, it is time that people are informed on how to take appropriate action towards not wasting valuable water. Water is an important substance for the everyday necessities for both human beings and animals. It is used for drinking, washing, and irrigating plants. In one single word, water is used for everything. There isn’t a single thing we do that does not require us to have contact with water. In this paper I demonstrate that water conservation is important because we are in a severe drought, and show that taking shorter showers, watering the lawn every other week, and fixing leakages can reduce water usage....
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