During what time of year? Right now, sure, the area about San
Francisco is brown. I live in San Jose, and every weekend I drive
*somewhere* in the state of California to go hiking and take pictures.
I've been here since April, and during that time I've seen the transition
from gorgeous green, full of life, to brown and desolate. The brown is
mostly grass dying. If you look all over the central valley, where it's
even hotter, you see brown grass and green trees. Another thing, SFBA is
only the bottom portion of the upper third of the state. While it's
"Northern California", it's not exceptionally north.
San Diego, one of the four largest cities in the nation, itself is not
a desert, mainly from over a hundred years of irrigation in the surrounding
areas, affecting the ecosystem and slighting alterring the rainfall for
that area, pulling it out of desert status (which is defined by rainfall
per year). There is desert north of it, but I suspect since you saw SF as
brown, you were looking at a photography taken in the late summer.
It's worth noting my area got its first storm (and rain) of the season
last night. By December things will be green again. There are levies in
the SFBA to prevent the land from flooding. Hardly a desert, by ANY
definition.
On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 02:07:36PM -0500, Jim Wildman wrote:
> Hmmm. I _was_ shooting from the hip. From the air, both San Diego
> and San Fran are surrounded by brown. The only green is where the
> water hose reaches. Maybe not technically a desert, so I will sit
> corrected.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Wildman jim@rossberry.com
>
> On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Isaiah Weiner wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:20:55PM -0500, Jim Wildman wrote:
> > > I do not want wanton pollution, but you have to be more sensible than
> > > "No" to every utility, industry, etc. Particularly if you chose to live
> > > in a desert (which alot of CA is).
> >
> > Alright, now you're spouting information that simply isn't true.
> >
> > California is 158,869 sq mi of land. Only about 20,000 sq mi of that
> > is desert (about 13%), which is not a large percentage, and the population
> > density in those areas is very low.
> >
> >
--
- Isaiah
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