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Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

latimes.com

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Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#31

Post by ViViDboarder »

sammalloy wrote: post #12
HEmanZ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because some people may not grasp this: it is still individual humans consuming the water. Companies and industry don’t burn resources for no reason, they become products that consumers buy. The only real solution is that we consumers consume less, and probably spend more for the same products, period.

> The only real solution is that we consumers consume less, and probably spend more for the same products, period. I couldn’t disagree more. We need more regulation and taxation, and the real cost of the externalities added to the end product. The public is subsidizing and paying for private industry to pollute and use resources without accountability. That needs to end. The idea that the problem is solely due to per…

It doesn’t look like you disagree to me. The result of such taxes or regulations is less and more expensive consumption.

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#32

Post by landemva »

imchillyb wrote: post #6
throw0101c wrote: post #3

From a 2020 paper: > Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to…

Watch 2-3 episodes of 'How it's Made' and you can see how much water use is industrial. Add the industrial and cattle together and one can quickly see that it's not humans that are consuming the vast majority of potable water, but companies and industry that are depleting what's available for the rest of us.

Is the chip industry in these metrics? Big Intel plant being built in Ohio on land which had been farms.

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2022/06/30/intel-i...

"The average semiconductor fab uses somewhere between 2 million and 4 million gallons of water per day"

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#33

Post by slashdev »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #20
ancapsfascists wrote: post #16

Federal lawmakers need to get over the history of water rights here. The system was built on assumptions that just don't hold (more water was apportioned than ever flows). You can give each state an amount and let them figure it out, or take all existing rights and re allocate them federally. But it needs to happen, and urgently. "But people will lose their income!" - Thats a symptom of requiring these people to work…

Also, UBI is often the cheapest and most efficient way to prop people out of poverty and (surprised?) to support their ambitions in education, starting business etc.

There isn’t enough data to make that claim with any confidence yet.

It could just easily be the start of a spiral into an Argentina style socialist nightmare. The ability to vote for the party offering you a raise may be too dangerous.

There’s no real way to know, because it’s never been tried at enough scale, or real enough, to have any data one way or the other.

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#34

Post by QuantumGood »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #20
ancapsfascists wrote: post #16

Federal lawmakers need to get over the history of water rights here. The system was built on assumptions that just don't hold (more water was apportioned than ever flows). You can give each state an amount and let them figure it out, or take all existing rights and re allocate them federally. But it needs to happen, and urgently. "But people will lose their income!" - Thats a symptom of requiring these people to work…

Also, UBI is often the cheapest and most efficient way to prop people out of poverty and (surprised?) to support their ambitions in education, starting business etc.

UBI has long-term challenges in that organizations will try everything they can to siphon off the money ("rent seeking") until they succeed. UBI needs to deal with this reality to succeed even in the medium term.

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#35

Post by ineptech »

Wow, this has gotten bad fast. I did some reading on the water shortage in the Southwest the last time I saw a story about it on the FP, and came away with the idea that this is a classic coordination trap, and the only solutions are a) everyone involved spontaneously decides to conserve water in unison, and b) the Feds enact quick, decisive regulations that almost no one (the states involved, counties and cities, developers, industrial corporations, big agriculture, etc) likes and enforce them harshly. The former is a fantasy and I'm not sure the latter isn't either. It's hard to draw any conclusion other than: don't move there.

Previous article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the...

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987408

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#36

Post by tzs »

I wonder if it is possible to take two or more high water using industries and combine them in a way that would all the combination to work on substantially less water than they were using individually?

For example we've all read that it takes a little over a gallon to grow an almond. And it takes about 10 gallons to make one integrated circuit.

But that almond does not contain a gallon of water. The almond only contains about 0.0003 gallons of water.

And my computer, which contains dozen of integrated circuits, certainly does not actually contain hundreds of gallons of water.

So could we put almond farms and semiconductor fabs next to each other and arrange that much of the 0.9997 gallons that does not go into the almond is available to the semiconductor fab? (Or maybe the other way around--start with the fab and then do the almonds?)

And could we put some other agricultural or manufacturer after all that, and so on?

Some of these uses might contaminate the water so some cleanup might be needed before it could be used downstream, but there are a lot of agricultural and industrial processes that need water with varying requirements as to how clean it needs to be so it seems plausible that there should be some combinations that would work well together.

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#37

Post by phpisthebest »

ancapsfascists wrote: post #16

Federal lawmakers need to get over the history of water rights here. The system was built on assumptions that just don't hold (more water was apportioned than ever flows). You can give each state an amount and let them figure it out, or take all existing rights and re allocate them federally. But it needs to happen, and urgently. "But people will lose their income!" - Thats a symptom of requiring these people to work…

No post body was provided.

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#38

Post by phpisthebest »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #23
throw0101c wrote: post #3

From a 2020 paper: > Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to…

> Irrigation of cattle feed crops is the single largest consumptive user ... 55 percent in the Colorado River basin. That's a pretty shocking statistic. Seems like the most logical place to cut despite impact on dairy/cattle production.

You know there is all kinds of talk about civil war over politics like guns, or abortion, etc.

The one thing that will cause a civil war is if you take away American's access to beef. Good luck trying to do that

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#39

Post by eikenberry »

QuantumGood wrote: post #34
andrei_says_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, UBI is often the cheapest and most efficient way to prop people out of poverty and (surprised?) to support their ambitions in education, starting business etc.

UBI has long-term challenges in that organizations will try everything they can to siphon off the money ("rent seeking") until they succeed. UBI needs to deal with this reality to succeed even in the medium term.

I've also never seen anyone address the high chance that post UBI the #1 issue for every politician will become "I will raise the UBI" and if they don't their opposition will. How will we deal with an ever increasing UBI and where will that every increasing source of money come from?

Re: Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water

#40

Post by gremlinsinc »

phpisthebest wrote: post #37
ancapsfascists wrote: post #16

Federal lawmakers need to get over the history of water rights here. The system was built on assumptions that just don't hold (more water was apportioned than ever flows). You can give each state an amount and let them figure it out, or take all existing rights and re allocate them federally. But it needs to happen, and urgently. "But people will lose their income!" - Thats a symptom of requiring these people to work…

Quoted post unavailable.

>>I get it, I'm an anarchist. > Doubtful There's pragmatic anarchism - the belief in the concepts that some facets of anarchy is good : i.e. less reliance on a central govt and hierarchies, perhaps instead some system where 90% of your tax money has to be spent w/in 100 miles of your home, the rest can be fought over between the State+Federal. Make states more like EU countries, etc. Instead of full socialism - just make companies either switch to co-ops or make the 'board' be made up of at least x% average (non-management-level) workers and give every worker at least (some) voting powers, and make labor unions practically a given.

Companies could create mutual aid programs that benefit their local residents who are their customers as well as employees. Universal healthcare for example could come from just being loyal to worker-owned businesses above corporate companies.

>> Government is the problem here We have government regardless of if it works in our best interest or not (protecting water, ubi, healthcare). I'm an anarchist too, albeit pragmatic, with a focus on syndicalism, but we have to work in the framework we're given and that's capitalistic country, so the only way we can fix this is govt intervention or community enforced interventions.

Ideally to me THIS is what the federal govt SHOULD be about and ONLY this : interstate matters, foreign affairs, and military (though I think each STATE should have their own military that they 'loan' to the feds). I'm with Jefferson on the idea that we should be more loyal to our local neighborhood, then our state and only then the federal.

We definitely can use more regulation for companies that don't have some social benefit designation, but I'm not sure how to reconcile that specifically with anarchism except going all in on co-ops because a company where all the workers are on the board, are less likely to vote Yay on dumping forever chemicals in the water and poisoning their own water sources.

The problem is corporations are treated like humans without any of the moral costs and punishments. Corporations should be able to be 'executed'.

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