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The Colorado River is shrinking

sciencemag.org

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Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#161

Post by simiones »

t0mbstone wrote: post #109
simiones wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water - and jump to a high-tech, unknown impact, expensive, complex, expensive solution. What could go wrong?

Stopping water consumption is an inadequate solution to our three biggest water supply problems: 1. Desalination 2. Purification 3. Distribution There would be no shortage of fresh water on earth if we simply put resources into solving these three problems.

All of those things are likely to increase our global warming issues, as they are highly energy consuming in several ways.

If we want any semblance of current society to keep chugging along 50-100 years from now, we need to reduce our production of almost everything, energy most of all. There is simply no other solution to stop catastrophic global warming.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#162

Post by OldHand2018 »

VLM wrote: post #34
downrightmike wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works, but it requires tons of precious metals to get to work and we could never recover the amount of water or even the metals themselves to make it efficient. Do-able, just going to cost money like no tomorrow. Literally the definition of throwing money at the problem. When you have a uber rich oil state with plenty of cash to burn, it'll work until they run out of cash or desire.

The UAE does not have a Mississippi river. One side of the country is a desert unsuitable for growing crops, naturally stubborn Americans grow crops there anyway at staggering economic and environmental cost. Meanwhile on the other side of the Mississippi, where I live, we get around three to four feet of rain per year for free, and corn grows pretty well most years without artificial irrigation. It makes a lot more…

> We'll destroy the entire planet before we make people move from Vegas to Chicago. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding)

If you took everyone in Vegas and put them in Chicago, you'd be pretty close to the Chicago population in 1960. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding)

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#163

Post by Kye »

nostromo wrote: post #129
JohnWhigham wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting all the modern amenities of life while living in the desert is just pure arrogance. I seriously don't know why governments subsidize it.

People absolutely should live in the desert. It's better than what we usually do: destroy natural bio-diverse habitats along rivers and coasts and replace them with housing and strip malls.

Deserts are natural bio-diverse habitats.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#164

Post by simiones »

maxerickson wrote: post #80
toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no solutions. Those who can will use what they can, those who can't will be left high and dry. This is expected when supply rapidly declines when demand remains constant or increases over time. The watershed will change faster than human behavior and policy will adapt. There was already not enough water for the rights distributed in the 1922 Colorado River Compact [1]: > The delegates figured allocations on…

Desalination is already cheap enough to farm with (for some crops anyway) and energy will continue to get cheaper.

Dumping energy into desalination (and water transport) to continue farming in the desert will only increase our massive global warming problems. Again a bad, risky solution.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#165

Post by dylan604 »

dv_dt wrote: post #149
dylan604 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the number of people directly involved in production of alfalfa in the desert that would no longer have work if the alfalfa production in the desert stopped. Do these jobs absolutely 100% depend on alfalfa, or would they "pivot" to other crops? Is the "farming" sector in Utah that artificial that there is no other crop?

Change to “another crop” is like a farmer telling a software company built on Java to switch to a C++ stack because it’s just another language. There is crop specific knowledge that makes it not just planting something else. It’s also not just the knowledge and technology capital involved, like many startups here, it’s connection to markets that matter to produce income. Ag wise it’s not clear what other, lower water…

While that may be true, how many people is it? The water from the river that is wasted in Utah means it is not available for more viable uses downstream. What impact will that have? I'm guessing the number of people positively impacted from stopping this use of water will be greater than the number of farmers impacted. If the main reason that this is not being discussed is because the person in charge has literal skin in the game, then it makes it even worse (potentially criminal?).

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#166

Post by TrispusAttucks »

asdff wrote: post #151
avgDev wrote: post #6

I know this may be silly but one reason why I stay in the "Great lakes states" and own property here is because of global warming and my lack of hope that tech/governments/capitalism will solve it before we reach a point of no return during which we will experience massive property and life loss in the US. Only then significant change will occur IMO. There are places in the south now that need water to be delivered b…

I know people who work for local governments in the midwest and the big elephant in the room there is quite a lot of the roads, sewers, bridges, and other essential infrastructure that was built in the 60s and 70s is approaching the end of its useful life, and these governments don't have the tax income to maintain or improve any of it. Recent heavy rains this summer have inundated local sewer systems, the national w…

Storm drains are a much smaller problem than a regional water shortage catastrophe. If that is the biggest issue a municipal grapples with they are in a good position.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#167

Post by JshWright »

nradov wrote: post #153
JshWright wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we subsidize the cost of them making money?

Most of those crops aren't directly subsidized. The problem is water rights which are legally tied to real estate. So there's no way to force farmers to pay market rates for water.

The externalized costs are absolutely being subsidized.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#168

Post by cmrdporcupine »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #157
avgDev wrote: post #6

I know this may be silly but one reason why I stay in the "Great lakes states" and own property here is because of global warming and my lack of hope that tech/governments/capitalism will solve it before we reach a point of no return during which we will experience massive property and life loss in the US. Only then significant change will occur IMO. There are places in the south now that need water to be delivered b…

It's dangerous because at some point some idiot brained Western politician will demand a huge water pipeline from the great lakes to Arizona so they can sustain their massive city in a middle of a desert that should not be there in the first place. Then a few decades later, the US will have its very own Aral Sea. That particular cynicism aside, what will probably happen is that sufficient global warming will make the…

I think the Aral sea was particularly vulnerable because almost all of its water was supplied from only a couple rivers. I don't think the Great Lakes would be so easily choked off, especially on the northern end of them where they blend into the Canadian Shield which is unusable for agriculture (it's mainly just granite) and so irrigation projects taking the water from there would be less likely.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#169

Post by selectodude »

01100011 wrote: post #65
selectodude wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The Great Lakes are not leaving the Great Lakes area. Ever.

What does this even mean? What does a national water grid have to do with the Great Lakes? Is there some sort of regional paranoia that the rest of the country is coming for "your water"? If you look at a map you'll notice that there is quite a lot of water available beyond the great lakes. Is there a reason freshwater can't be pulled from the mouths of great rivers like the St. Lawrence, the Columbia, and the Missis…

>Is there some sort of regional paranoia that the rest of the country is coming for "your water"?

Yes, very much so. So much, in fact, that there's a multinational treaty that says water in the Great Lakes cannot leave the Great Lakes watershed. It contains 90 percent of North America's freshwater. If other places start coming for water from outside, there's really nowhere else to look.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#170

Post by cmrdporcupine »

dakna wrote: post #120
kortilla wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are places in the south now that need water to be delivered by trucks due to shortages. At some point it is going to be pointless to live there and housing market in those areas will collapse. Why do you think that? They are clearly fine with the most expensive option already. > Coastal areas will be flooded due to increasing sea levels. No, some coastal areas will have problems with this where the inland has…

> being a water shortage that makes the west unlivable Unlivable? Probably not. But more expensive? Absolutely. And once the agricultural economy needs to shut down due to free water not being free anymore, I'll expect ghost cities all over the West, starting with small communities not able to provide enough jobs and not attractive enough to turn into retirement places for people with money. So far the projections on…

Agree with all your points, but also: the moment I had children the horizon of years that concerned me expanded significantly. I am a bit over half-way through my life but I have two young children and where we settle and build our lives affects their prospects as well.

We have 6 acres of arable land a 10 minute drive from Lake Ontario and a well into the Niagara Escarpment into an underground river that I can pull dozens of gallons a minute of water from. As I write this my son is splashing in the pool and spraying the dog with a hose ;-)

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