4 ms·

Building a city in one the most inhospitable parts of the country? Seriously, is it going to be underground? Bobby wasn't kidding when he said Phoenix was "A M

Building a city in one the most inhospitable parts of the country? Seriously, is it going to be underground? Bobby wasn't kidding when he said Phoenix was "A Monument To Man's Arrogance. He might as well picked a site on the face of the sun.

mythrwy 9y ago
Phoenix is glorious 4 months of the year, tolerable another 4 and downright nasty the remaining 4. Pretty much like many Northern states but with the seasons reversed. (Give me heat over snow and slush any day of the year.)
- jrs235 9y ago
  You can only strip down to naked before requiring external means of cooling. To stay warm you can always just add another layer. Which one is more eco-friendly? (Don't get me wrong, I prefer to be warm.)
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    While that is technically true people (generally) will heat with some form of combustion. In the desert you can cool quite a bit with evaporation. But then you need water but not all the oil to produce the fuzzy stuff in parkas so... IDK. Complicated formula with lots of inputs. Aside from the environment (or rather, regarding a much more personal environment), people do die from heat in the desert. But it's not common. As long as you have shade and water you'll survive with no protection. On the other hand, a night outside in Minnesota in January is pretty much guaranteed to kill a person without protective gear. (To say nothing of cars sliding off the road in ice storms). I suspect (although don't know) that it requires less energy to make a livable climate in desert summers than northern winters.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  The thing about snow and slush is that they both contain water. Lacking water, much of Arizona is not naturally suitable for large-scale human habitation. People can live there in great numbers today only because enormous quantities of industrial effort have been expended to bring water there from the Colorado River (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project). Lots of other Western communities pull their water from the Colorado too, though -- so many that the river is effectively "over-subscribed," meaning people are pulling more water out of it than nature is putting in. Current projections are that its water levels will drop so low as to provoke serious crises in the communities that depend on it sometime in the 2020s. Until then, though, enjoy the sunshine!
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    Not all of Phoenix's water comes from the Colorado (and in fact not most of it I don't believe). Phoenix is sometimes called "Valley of the Sun". Well, it's not in the mountains, (there are some low mountains around I guess but not really "mountains"). It's called a valley because it's a river valley at the con-flux of several smaller rivers (the Gila, the Salt). Granted these are kind of dry most of the time but water flows underground also. So there are a lot of wells. And water comes from rain and snow melt in the mountains to the north. To your point though it still isn't sustainable at growing population levels. My understanding that much of the well water used is from rain that fell during the last ice age. That's why they call it Phoenix probably. One day it will burn up. But this is a futuristic city on the outskirts. Presumably it will have a sustainable water supply created with cosmic zeolith ions, heavy duty science and good karma :)

mythrwy 9y ago

Phoenix is glorious 4 months of the year, tolerable another 4 and downright nasty the remaining 4. Pretty much like many Northern states but with the seasons reversed. (Give me heat over snow and slush any day of the year.)

jrs235 9y ago
You can only strip down to naked before requiring external means of cooling. To stay warm you can always just add another layer. Which one is more eco-friendly? (Don't get me wrong, I prefer to be warm.)
- mythrwy 9y ago
  While that is technically true people (generally) will heat with some form of combustion. In the desert you can cool quite a bit with evaporation. But then you need water but not all the oil to produce the fuzzy stuff in parkas so... IDK. Complicated formula with lots of inputs. Aside from the environment (or rather, regarding a much more personal environment), people do die from heat in the desert. But it's not common. As long as you have shade and water you'll survive with no protection. On the other hand, a night outside in Minnesota in January is pretty much guaranteed to kill a person without protective gear. (To say nothing of cars sliding off the road in ice storms). I suspect (although don't know) that it requires less energy to make a livable climate in desert summers than northern winters.
smacktoward 9y ago
The thing about snow and slush is that they both contain water. Lacking water, much of Arizona is not naturally suitable for large-scale human habitation. People can live there in great numbers today only because enormous quantities of industrial effort have been expended to bring water there from the Colorado River (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project). Lots of other Western communities pull their water from the Colorado too, though -- so many that the river is effectively "over-subscribed," meaning people are pulling more water out of it than nature is putting in. Current projections are that its water levels will drop so low as to provoke serious crises in the communities that depend on it sometime in the 2020s. Until then, though, enjoy the sunshine!
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Not all of Phoenix's water comes from the Colorado (and in fact not most of it I don't believe). Phoenix is sometimes called "Valley of the Sun". Well, it's not in the mountains, (there are some low mountains around I guess but not really "mountains"). It's called a valley because it's a river valley at the con-flux of several smaller rivers (the Gila, the Salt). Granted these are kind of dry most of the time but water flows underground also. So there are a lot of wells. And water comes from rain and snow melt in the mountains to the north. To your point though it still isn't sustainable at growing population levels. My understanding that much of the well water used is from rain that fell during the last ice age. That's why they call it Phoenix probably. One day it will burn up. But this is a futuristic city on the outskirts. Presumably it will have a sustainable water supply created with cosmic zeolith ions, heavy duty science and good karma :)