Readers React: Water that irrigates lawns and golf courses should grow food instead

To the editor: Boy, our priorities are screwed up when it comes to allocating water. Central Valley farmer Fred Lujan’s water supply for growing our food was cut off, but hundreds of golf courses in California remain lush? What craziness is this? (“California drought imperils a dream,” July 4)

If farmers pass some reasonable test of water efficiency in their operations, what they do with their water is far more valuable to the rest of us than any recreational uses. Shut down all golf courses, shut down all the public swimming pools and penalize people for having a green lawn (but reward them for removing grass). These are the necessary steps in a drought, not turning off water to farmers.

Just give me enough water for drinking, taking showers and flushing toilets. Give the pistachio farmer and thousands of others like him “my” water.

Jim Price, San Diego

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To the editor: This article is an example of how some in the media still don’t get global warming. If political leaders and farmers had heeded what scientists said decades ago, people like Lujan would never have planted their trees.

The Times reports a lot of good climate-change science, but the extent of the problem doesn’t get across. The U.N., World Bank and National Academy of Sciences tell us that a world four or five degrees warmer will spell disaster, meaning the Hoover Dam won’t be fed, electricity won’t be generated and drought will drive people out of the Southwest.

Today we have Henry Paulson, George P. Shultz and ExxonMobil suggesting the same thing: pricing carbon pollution to address the issue. Carbon pricing is the news, not a farmer’s sad story.

Mark Tabbert, Newport Beach