Resource Competition

I saw an interesting video from YanasaTV. He was discussing about blue pigs and their causes in California. I think this is a symptom of even bigger problem than he described, so I thought to expand a bit.

The starting point was boar meat that had turned blue in some parts of California, because of liberal use of rat poison, which dyes the meat.

According to the video, farmers have been fighting against a figurative tidal wave of rodents, whose populations had exploded in four counties due to farm and orchard closures leaving them tens of thousands of acres of prime breeding areas in almond country.

The orchards and farms are closing because of California’s water policies, justified by drought blamed on climate change, specifically the conservation laws passed 2014 were a death blow to many farms. I remember the wave of orchard cuttings when many farmers got rid of their almond trees and then the markets in the urban areas got bundles of (expensive) almond firewood. After all, you might at least sell the cut trees for the last bit of income. Recent growing season, documented orchard removals took more Kern County almond acreage than those of Stanislaus County. Again, not surprising. When I drove to LA in 2022, Kern County was drought burned chiaroscuro, like Dali painting, only dusty orchards being green, Stanislaus County being greener, though still dry. If I correctly recall, that year Kern County had gotten 100% of its water allocation cut, Stanislaus County 50%.

The official explanation of the laws was the environment and need to save water. However, an important underlying cause influencing the passing of water laws was consolidation of water rights under the big players. (get reference)

Any case, according to Yanasa TV, last year California lost 8000 farms, to multifactorial causes, but lack of water is a big one. Oddly enough, Texas lost even more farms, 18000, also often due to lack of water. In Texas, the irrigation competes against AI server farms. And is losing.

That caught my attention. The news have been buzzing for a couple of years about how the Silicon Valley firms have been moving to Texas because of their nicer regulatory environment. The discussion online had given me the impression that this was due to the taxes and insane regulatory policies of California. I had not thought about the water regulation, but in hindsight, it should be obvious. The firms are moving to what is greener pastures (more resources) for them, never mind the parched pastures of the ranchers. Which are blamed on climate change.

The final point I got from this YanasaTV video was the question, how do we feed the billions of people if we reallocate agricultural resources to feed AI? The regulations hindering the agriculture are passed under the pretense of ‘conserving the resources’, but to me it seems that most if not all conservation regulations are nowadays just to preserve the ‘protected’ resources for the powerful, whereas the little people like me get to enjoy the Green New Leap as increased energy and food prices. And as shortages of critical resources.

The California water rationing for urban dwellers and destruction of small farms is not about conserving resources, since water is very much available for the Big Almond, golf courses, and such. It is about extirpating the competition for scarce resources the big players want for themselves. If the side effect is the ballooning fruit, vegetable and meat prices for the small people, someone is making money of that, too. At some point the breakeven point when increasing prices will not bring more profits because the consumers cannot afford to buy will be reached but the availability of food (and energy or other resources) relative to the need will determine whether that happens before or after a mass uprising.

Speaking of AI and energy, I wrote the other day about rolling blackout warnings in Maryland and New Jersey. I think the AI industry will have to begin to address its effects on the energy grid soon, maybe already next winter. Once people will begin to experience survival threatening acute shortages, backlash is guaranteed. The incoming collapse of the power grid, by the way, is the main reason why I chose coastal California as my bugin place. If the grid fails, I will not freeze to death.

But my realization about all of the above: there is no such thing as a conservation law. There are only resource reallocation from the poor to the wealthy laws.

Note added in proof:

Nova Scotia in Canada banned people from going into woods, either Crown lands or privately owned lands belonging to someone else. Traditionally people had enjoyed access to Crown lands, but now they had been told that this privilege had been taken away to prevent forest fires. 25000$ fine for people trespassing their country’s forests. Would you feel like hemmed in?

Then I read that the Nova Scotia woods (over 3500 acres of them) are getting sprayed with defoliant that is being used to kill unwanted (less economically useful) tree species. Imagine large swathes of dying and drying trees in the middle of a drought. Controlled burns to free land for more profitable tree species were speculated. The cost to the ecosystem is hideous, so is the loss of immaterial (and material) value to the people.

Not that immaterial value even matters to the powerful. My uncle back in Finland told that they are planning a data center next to a big hydropower plant in the town he lives in, and the land being developed has stone age sites on it. I don’t know how valuable these sites are archeologically, but I suspect they have not been properly studied, either.