California's Vanishing Lakes and the Hunger of the Mines (2015)

What an interesting read. I had no idea that the Central Valley had been so full of water, nor that it had been drained so early. After reading the article I found this &quot;conceptual&quot; map which illustrates approximately what it may have looked like circa 1851: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geocurrents.info&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2012&#x2F;06&#x2F;California-1851-Imagined-Map.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geocurrents.info&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2012&#x2F;06&#x2F;Californ...</a><p>The cynic in me thinks this is what our future generations are doomed to - reading articles of what the world was like before massive global climate change and thinking, &quot;wow, I wonder what that world was like, I can&#x27;t imagine it,&quot; and simultaneously, &quot;what were those people thinking, how could they care so little for the environment?&quot;

Excellent read. Helped me understand better what&#x27;s changed. I knew that water ways around the Bay Area had been massively transformed. But I had no mental picture for Tulare Lake and such.<p>One personal frustration that I have is the inevitable knee-jerk &quot;cite needed&quot; skeptical response whenever someone casually mentions one of these impactful historical facts. Ya, I get that we&#x27;re all ignorant of our history. But ffs it&#x27;s exhausting to always be challenged. Whereas actual disinformation is greedily consumed.<p>Increasingly, per Bartolini&#x27;s Law, IRL I just keep my observations to myself. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Brandolini%27s_law" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Brandolini%27s_law</a><p>Thanks for the link. Sorry for the whining.