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The Colorado River is shrinking

sciencemag.org

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Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#191

Post by dv_dt »

dylan604 wrote: post #165
dv_dt wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ski…

Correct, but we can have many logical, systemically positive reasons for changing it, but if we can’t address or overcome the concerns of those holding the power then it’s a largely a moot discussion.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#192

Post by Diederich »

eldaisfish wrote: post #91
Diederich wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Coastal areas will be flooded due to increasing sea levels." I don't mean to nit pick, but clarification in this context is appropriate I think. For example, I live about 500 meters from the Pacific ocean, but my house is in absolutely no danger of flooding, because we're about 100 meters above sea level, and we are at the top of a rise. There's nothing 'above' us, so no rain flooding is possible. Many costal areas…

You are indeed nitpicking and presenting a cherry picked scenario. You are the outlier. The majority of coastal settlements are on flat land or at the mouths of rivers which - surprise - are also flat and prone to flooding. There is a good reason that rocky coasts like those in Scotland or Gaspe in Quebec have such small populations. It is possible to live safely near the ocean, provided your government has the fores…

"... a cherry picked scenario. You are the outlier. The majority of coastal settlements are on flat land or at the mouths of rivers which - surprise - are also flat and prone to flooding."

I agree. The vast majority of people who live near the ocean are at risk. I was thinking in rather privileged terms as someone able to pick and choose where to live.

I chose this location, surrounded on three sides by cold Pacific water, because of the strong temperature moderating effects.

Among those within a few miles of the Pacific in a radius of 50 miles from my location, at least 95% of them will be strongly affected by sea level rise and temporary surges due to strong storms.

"... one of the only places where this is true is the Netherlands."

For the time being. :(

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#193

Post by 01100011 »

thehappypm wrote: post #137
01100011 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be extremely energy intensive to push water from sea level to upland farms, basically you'd be running hydro plants in reverse.

Desalination is also energy intensive. Shipping food from foreign countries is energy intensive. Starving because those countries also experience the effects of global warming and decide to feed their populations first is economically and socially expensive.

Choose your costs. You're going to spend energy one way or another, or you're going to sacrifice your quality of life(or potentially your life).

I don't see this as being a convincing argument against a nationwide hydro grid, just one of many tradeoffs.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#194

Post by 01100011 »

selectodude wrote: post #169
01100011 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

> If other places start coming for water from outside, there's really nowhere else to look.

Can you explain this statement, because it doesn't make much sense to me. Are you saying that if we take some water from the watershed, there is therefore no other place to obtain water?

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#195

Post by polartx »

ngngngng wrote: post #10

Approximately 27% of the water used in Utah comes from the Colorado River and 60% of Utahans benefit from the river. 82% of Utah water goes to farmers. Significant amounts of that water usage is to grow Cotton and Alfalfa. Two water intensive crops that are largely exported out of the country. In my opinion we have absolutely no business growing these crops in a desert, especially just to ship them out of the country…

Incorrect. Per the Colorado River Authority agreement, Utah is allocated up to 24% of the rivers water. Utah is not even consuming it’s allocation. Due to the obviously increasing scarcity, Utah is pushing to increase its usage to meet its already agreed upon allowance. And that is because other states are greedily eyeing what is left in the banks and murmuring, “if Utah isn’t using their entire share, *we* should have it!”. And like Utah local leaders are supposed to, they are fighting for their local constituency interests, because that’s what we elect them to do.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#196

Post by 01100011 »

bluGill wrote: post #188
01100011 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we desalinate water when there is water already desalinated by nature available for us? Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not against desalination, it just seems crazy to leverage it to supply all of our water shortfall. Wouldn't a network of canals and pipelines allow the country to be more secure and handle disasters more effectively?

> Wouldn't a network of canals and pipelines allow the country to be more secure and handle disasters more effectively? No. The Colorado river is big. I mean really big. And we are using it all. Sure the Mississippi has more than enough water, but the elevation of the source of the Mississippi (where you can walk across it) is a lot lower than most of the Colorado river. That means we need massive numbers of pumps to…

So we can run desalination plants, with all of their various pumps and external costs related to their consumables, with magical free energy(solar? nuclear?) but we can't pump water uphill because energy. Did I understand that right?

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#197

Post by 01100011 »

CrazyStat wrote: post #124
01100011 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we desalinate water when there is water already desalinated by nature available for us? Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not against desalination, it just seems crazy to leverage it to supply all of our water shortfall. Wouldn't a network of canals and pipelines allow the country to be more secure and handle disasters more effectively?

You would still need a network of canals and pipelines, because places like Colorado and Utah facing imminent water shortages aren't close to the ocean. Desalinating plus pumping water up to those places would be insanely expensive though. It's not economically feasible for the primary uses of fresh water (farming).

Well yeah, how else would you move the water? USPS? You need a massive network of canals, pipelines, pumps and reservoirs.

I'm really glad our ancestors had the foresight to build the national electrical grid and the national highway system because with an attitude like I'm seeing in this thread I think the folks today would just throw up their hands and say it's too big and too difficult.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#198

Post by maxerickson »

simiones wrote: post #164
maxerickson wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No it won't, heat from the sun (and radiation away from the planet on the dark side) completely dwarfs human energy utilization.

Climate change is happening because of changes to atmospheric composition, solar panels aren't going to have a massive impact on that.

Austerity is the bad, risky idea that isn't a solution to anything.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#199

Post by 01100011 »

thehappypm wrote: post #130
01100011 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we desalinate water when there is water already desalinated by nature available for us? Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not against desalination, it just seems crazy to leverage it to supply all of our water shortfall. Wouldn't a network of canals and pipelines allow the country to be more secure and handle disasters more effectively?

It's arrogant to expect that water irresponsible states should have any claim whatsoever to the water in states that are responsible with their supply.

Why is it a claim? It's an economic exchange? Do you get upset when CA buys electricity from WA?

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#200

Post by 01100011 »

thehappypm wrote: post #134
01100011 wrote: post #43

The choice is pretty clear to me. We need a national water grid. Desalinization is great and a piece of the puzzle, but we need a way to distribute water across the country. It could also be leveraged as an energy storage device if we continue to add more reservoirs at various elevations. It's not going to be cheap or easy, but we'd be stupid not to start on it now. The climate changes, and we need to plan for it. Pl…

Water pipelines are also a national security issue. Imagine an enemy being able to ruin our agricultural sector with a few bombs.

Now say the same thing about roads or the electrical grid and see how silly it sounds.
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