241–250 of 258 posts
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Yeaaaaaah, if cities could stop doing that endless unsustainable sprawl thing that would be great
Yeaaaaah, if our whole society could stop doing that endless unsustainable growth thing that would be great.
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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.
> solar panels aren't going to have a massive impact on that Solar panel production, like all industrial activity, is pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, not to mention other pollutants - from mining, factories, transport. Besides, we need to replace all fossil fuel energy generation as quickly as possible with renewable energy generation. Adding any extra energy consumption makes this vital goal more remote. Perha…
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Virtually all agricultural irrigation evaporates. It doesn't even run off into local streams (which you can verify by, heh, the lack of local streams in the Utah desert), much less seep into the ground. Underground aquifers fill over decades and centuries, and in this environment, almost always laterally, not from seepage from rainfall. I think the demand for proof needs to go the other way, honestly. Presumptively t…
> Virtually all agricultural irrigation evaporates. It doesn't even run off into local streams (which you can verify by, heh, the lack of local streams in the Utah desert), much less seep into the ground. The evaporation figures I can find range from 30% to 50%, which is hardly virtually all. I've never been to the Utah desert, but in the California desert I've dumped out water and watched it disappear into the groun…
And "disappearing into the ground" is absolutely not water entering an aquifer! All you get is wet dirt. Which then... dries out. Again, this isn't how aquifers work.
There's no free lunch here. Growing plants in a desert under the open sky requires a staggering amount of water. It just does. If you want to push efficiency measures look at greenhouses.
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Why do you need to pump the equivalent of the CO river uphill? Do high elevation states need that much water? Could you not pump the water to CA instead(a net energy wash, minus transportation losses(friction, turbulence?))? Why would you need to pump out the equivalent of the CO river from the Great Lakes Basin? Why would you need to pump out the equivalent of the CO river from the Mississippi river mouth? I'm tryin…
The Colorado river is where the water comes from now and what we want to replace. You can of course not pick a single source, but for napkin math it is easier. Also west of the Mississippi there is no left of water to take, so realistically the Mississippi is the closest water source.
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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.
The infrastructure issue is a huge problem. Municipalities are going bankrupt. They can't afford to replace these systems that were laid out decades ago. Who will pay for it when there isn't money available even to pay existing pensions on the municipality and the state level, and federal policy changes with the wind every 4 years? In the mean time while that is being debated historic storms are finding the weakest links to stress and breaking them, and compromises are being made to sustain the bare essential of infrastructure.
And that's just the public works. Homes are rotting too, and they aren't building new ones fast enough. A housing tract that was nice and new in 1995 probably needs work on the roof today, a repair bill that might be worth 10-20% the total value of the home. You won't get that nice coastal salary to make these sorts of bills worry free, either. This is the midwest where engineers are paid like 80k and that's seen as pretty good pay.
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We grow crops in the desert because there is so much sun there that the crops grow faster and to a higher consistent quality, and because there is much fewer pests that damage the plants.
If this is an argument, it is a very poor one and if this is a justification, it is entirely irrelevant. Deserts have ecosystems that are adapted to life with limited water. Trying to transplant a crop that evolved with plentiful water into an ecosystem with very little is a bad idea. Even worse is the capitalistic incentive to divert natural watercourse to farm in an arid region.
The thing we should do in this situation is increase our ocean desalination efforts (not to an extent that would counteract sea level rise, but it wouldn't hurt), alongside creating more water pipelines to achieve better distribution into areas which need it. We aren't going to stop crowing crops in desert conditions. It's too effective. We should build more water pipelines to bring water into regions like the California central valley and Colorado and Utah where water is more scarce but crop conditions are good aside from the water availability.
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> You can live out there with little water impact. it's doing farming in some of the drier parts of the US that seems wasteful when we know water is an issue there. Ok then they'll use it up and the problem will solve itself. I don't agree that you can live there and have the infrastructure to support jobs, food etc. with "very little impact"
Most of the water usage in the US west is farming not from residential use and a lot of residential use isn't destructive since it's treated and released.
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> Virtually all agricultural irrigation evaporates. It doesn't even run off into local streams (which you can verify by, heh, the lack of local streams in the Utah desert), much less seep into the ground. The evaporation figures I can find range from 30% to 50%, which is hardly virtually all. I've never been to the Utah desert, but in the California desert I've dumped out water and watched it disappear into the groun…
Those figures are for water that doesn't enter the plants, though. All that water, except for a tiny fraction represented in the shipped output (nuts, whatever) still ends up locally in the air. And "disappearing into the ground" is absolutely not water entering an aquifer! All you get is wet dirt. Which then... dries out. Again, this isn't how aquifers work. There's no free lunch here. Growing plants in a desert und…
Are you confusing confined aquifers and unconfined aquifers? That's exactly how unconfined aquifers work. Where I live the wells never go dry because every time it rains they are replenished.
Maybe the desert doesn't have unconfined aquifers and that's why you're so strident on this? I really don't know, but I'm curious so please elucidate if you can.
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Most of the water usage in the US west is farming not from residential use and a lot of residential use isn't destructive since it's treated and released.
Farming feeds people and gives them jobs. It's not a separate entity that has nothing to do with the people living there.
[0] https://jobs.utah.gov/jsp/utalmis/#/occupation/452093/report
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> and yeah, amazing you're getting downvoted. I've been downvoted here for expressing the same sentiment before. Because it’s an irrational prioritization. It’s like refusing to move to a new location for your dream job because the cost of milk is a little higher. People like yourself and OP tend to struggle with this because it’s hard to imagine water not being an unlimited free resource. Once you think of it like f…
Right.... So holding onto an investment property in a location where I think prices will go up in the next 20 years is irrational. I simply stated my opinion, you can disagree with it all you like. I'm a programmer, I can do my dream job from the comfort of my home without traveling, wasting my time and gas.
Thinking that they will go up because of water is the irrational bit.
Israel is the worst case (desalination of sea water) and water is still affordable there. It’s a non-issue that would be as far down the list of considerations when choosing where to live as electricity costs.
You may have “thought about it” a lot, but even a little bit of research of what the worst case looks like would have revealed it’s a terrible reason for any investment plans.