Column: California farmers are low on water. Why not help them go solar?

It sounds like a climate solution everyone should be able to support: Let’s make it easier and cheaper for farmers with dwindling water supplies to convert their lands from crop production to solar energy generation, if that’s what those farmers want. Here’s how it would have worked: In eight San Joaquin Valley counties with groundwater basins that state officials consider to be in “critical overdraft,” landowners could have asked local politicians to cancel their Williamson Act contracts for a fee of just 6.25%, half the normal rate, if they wanted to use their properties for solar farms, wind turbines or batteries — or transmission lines that hook up to renewable energy projects. He also mentioned the importance of “orderly” development — a point raised on the California Department of Conservation’s website, which says the Williamson Act has helped promote “orderly patterns” of development. But as the Guardian’s Damian Carrington writes, many scientists “said the climate fight must continue, however high global temperature rose, because every fraction of a degree avoided would reduce human suffering.” Two straight wet winters have put California in a good position water-wise — but the long-term outlook is still precarious, with climate change driving whiplash between stronger storms and ever-more-extreme droughts. But now, “new research and international art conservation guidelines suggest that a wider range of climate controls can be safe for artwork and would significantly cut energy use.” In other encouraging news, this supposedly smiling black bear photo — captured by photographer Johanna Turner, and reported on by my colleague Terry Castleman — could make a great ONE MORE THING Russell and Carl Fredricksen star in the animated feature “Up.” As I’ve mentioned recently, I’m a huge Disney fan.