By ChatGPT prompted by Jay Lund

I was playing with ChatGPT and had some fun and insightful replies.  (I’d interpret these insights, but I am no Professor of Literature, and it would probably get me into trouble.  Please add your interpretations below in the replies.)

1) Prompt: Write a buzzword sentence on California water management.

ChatGPT replied:

“Our integrated, stakeholder-driven water management strategy leverages adaptive frameworks and scalable, nature-based solutions to optimize multi-benefit outcomes, ensuring climate resilience and equitable resource allocation across the hydrological nexus.”

2) Prompt: Write a 200-word essay on California water management in the style of Hunter S. Thompson.

ChatGPT replied:

The Thirsty Beast: California Water Management

California’s water management is a savage ballet of chaos, greed, and half-baked dreams clawing their way through the cracked earth of a thirsty land. Here, in the golden state of eternal sunshine, water isn’t just life—it’s currency, power, and the stuff of blood feuds. The whole system teeters on a knife’s edge, a sprawling Rube Goldberg machine of aqueducts, reservoirs, and political theater designed to keep Los Angeles lawn sprinklers sputtering at 3 a.m. while Central Valley farmers pray for mercy.

They stole the Owens Valley, drained it dry, and called it progress. They tunneled under the mountains, funneled rivers through concrete veins, and built dams so big they’d make the Romans blush. But no amount of engineering can conjure water from nothing, and the Colorado River—our last, desperate pipeline—is a ghost of its former self. The snowpack shrinks. The fires grow. The beast is hungry, and Sacramento’s bureaucrats toss scraps of policy into its maw, hoping for miracles.

Meanwhile, the big players—the almond barons, the suburban sprawl kings—drink deep while the rest of us barter for drops. The question isn’t when the system will collapse; it’s who will be left holding the garden hose when the taps run dry.

This is California. This is water. This is madness.

3) Prompt: Write a 200-word essay on California water management in the style of Doctor Seuss.

ChatGPT replied:

Oh, the water we need, how it gushes and flows,
From the tops of the mountains to the crops that it grows!
It trickles and tickles, it splashes and speeds,
It fills up our rivers, it waters our seeds.

But oh, what a tangle! What a messy affair!
There’s not quite enough, and it’s never quite fair.
The farmers want more, for their almonds and hay,
The cities say, “Wait! We need water today!”

The rivers, poor rivers, are running too thin,
And the fish, poor fish, say, “We can’t even swim!”
The dams go up high, and the pumps dig down deep,
And the Delta? Oh, Delta! It tries not to weep.

Still, people are clever, oh yes, they’re quite smart.
They’re building solutions with science and heart.
Reuse it! Recycle it! Catch every drop!
Let’s save all the water and never let it stop!

But the sky has the secret, it holds all the rain,
And when it will fall, well, no one can explain.
So we plan and we argue, we fight and we fret,
But one thing’s for sure—we’re not done yet!

4) Prompt: Make a California Water Plan map in the style of Salvador Dali.

ChatGPT replied:

About the Author

Jay Lund is a Professor Emeritus at the University of California – Davis.  With artificial intelligence, he can be replaced, and perhaps some of you too.