http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/16/california-water-drought-nasa-warning

Quote: "As California experiences the fourth year of one of the most severe droughts in its history, a senior Nasa scientist has warned that the state has about one year of water left."

Save water. And stop buying Nestle bottled water.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/07/15/little-oversight-as-nestle-taps-morongo-reservation-for-bottled-water/12667307/

Here are tips for saving water: http://wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/

California provides 1/3rd of the world's food supply...please don't let us suffer without water like this.

Source: http://www.beachcalifornia.com/california-food-facts.html

I've stopped giving a damn for Cali's drought when I saw the aerial photo of all their flawlessly green lawns...
Only /ONE YEAR/ of water left, huh? Maybe NOW you'll all turn the sprinklers off.

How can this state go out of their way to promote green products and saving energy the most, and STILL not care enough about your drought?
And I'm not saying anything to you personally OP; you're spreading awareness. Obviously, you're not one of the people I'm talking about who's part of the problem.

I think it's more because of people being unaware of this sort of thing. And also, if you gained your aerial photographs from Google Maps, those are a few years old. Then again, there ARE some people that genuinely do not care. I think that if we spread this sort of information around, schools/organizations would be more focused on saving water. A lot of people don't realize how bad a situation is until it begins to affect them, and frankly, it's kind of hard for me to believe myself, but, friends I have in other towns literally have no water left, and are using bottled water to bathe/wash dishes/wash clothes/etc., and they live less than an hour away from me. Thank you for replying to this. It makes me feel like someone is actually paying attention.

>>3 No, problem. I currently love with other people though, so it'll be difficult to tell them to stop wasting water without coming off as controlling. But the thing is, she's wasteful like, turning in the kitchen faucet and forgetting about it while taking a shower, wasteful. She leaves all the lights on, even when she's out of the house for several hours, wasteful. She'll have the shower running for fifteen minutes without getting in it, wasteful. Mainly because the rent includes utilities, and they're not separate...

No, I didn't get the photos from Google Maps, but from a news article. Not sure where they got theirs, but this has been going on for four years now? It's difficult to believe that you wouldn't know for four years that your state was having a drought. -.- When I lived in Georgia, it was all we talked about. And practically celebrated whenever there was rain.

>>4 live*

I believe that showing facts and letting the people come to a conclusion themselves is the best tactic into convincing them that it's a real crisis instead of you being controlling.

Also, yes, it may be hard to believe that people wouldn't know how bad the drought is despite it going on for four years, but, believe me, it's surprisingly easy to forget something like that when it's not affecting you directly. Call it, "naivety" or "obliviousness". It may not necessarily be that people are turning a blind eye, but also consider that there may be some companies trying to keep this sort of thing under wraps, as well as the government trying to keep a monopoly on where taxes are spent. Have you seen the amount the U.S. spends on its military or its prisons? It's all an industry to keep the money flowing. The U.S. spends more on prisons than schools.

Our military is far larger than it needs to be in a supposed "time of peace". The U.S. also likes to be the police of the world, when hundreds of people protest against it. It's been the same argument for 40 years. They're just not listening, and try to distract people from the ugly things. That's why we need to spread the truth, and get people to realize that there are more important matters to worry about.

That, or I may just be a youthful optimist...

As a reference to what I was talking about with the amount spent on prisons versus schools.

>>7 I've heard of this before, but I thought that it just makes sense. Inmates are a danger to each other, and heads will roll if any of them ever escape or cause damage to other inmates, guards, or property.

Students on the other hand, have a choice in whether to attend the institute or not, skip classes, eat lunch on or off campus, they either take the bus or provide their own means of transportation. Students aren't really watched like a hawk (unless they're middle school and below) like prisoners are. When it comes to backpacks and stationaries it's the students that need to arrive at school with these things. At correctional institutes it's them that are supplying them for the inmates. Most schools don't have as high quality security cameras or a security system in place like prisons and jails do. Nor do public schools have have as expensive equipment as prisons and jails do (metal detectors, radio, batons, guns, etc.).
And I may be wrong, but excluding professors, teachers in general are not paid very much. I would think that working in a dangerous environment everyday would mean that guards are also paid more than teachers. Not to mention how these prisoners are LIVING there. That's definitely going to take more money out of food, electricity, water, air conditioning, clothing, etc. and then I wonder if this chart is accounting for how much money is spent on enforcing the Death Penalty.

So yeah, I can understand how schools have less of a budget than prisons.

I do believe that they should take a cut off the top of the budget and transfer it to the most poor of schools though. A friend worked at a downtown Atlanta public school where most of the kids were either in an abusive home, a home filled with addicts, a very poor home, or not in a home at all (living under a bridge). Of course these kids could not afford school supplies. Without school supplies, how will they finish their homework or take notes? Without the money for a pencil, how will they so much as write their name?
So what happens? The teachers have to take money out of THEIR paycheck to make sure the children have backpacks, pencils and erasers.

In regards to the OP, drought is an interesting topic for me because I am from California, but going to school in a different state. So while I'm used to being in extreme "conserve water" mode back home, now that I am hundreds of miles away, rarely do I think about it or actively try to conserve water like back home.
I agree that many individuals seem to ignore the drought, and its not that they are necessarily wasteful, but they aren't actively trying to prevent it.
At the same time, I wonder if there's really anything that those of us not in affected areas can actually do.

@darthkq You raise a good point. I don't really know what other people in other states can do. I've heard of people suggesting that California make a pipeline to Oregon/Washington, since they have an absurd amount of rain and don't necessarily need all of it since they don't have the space for farming. Again, that's kind of something that falls upon the government and states and whatnot.

Bump

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