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> the sun provides free energy and the clouds free water This is somewhat tangential to the author's point, however considering the resources from the Earth as
by mssundaram 6y ago
> the sun provides free energy and the clouds free water
This is somewhat tangential to the author's point, however considering the resources from the Earth as free (not the sun) has been a disaster - environmentally, socially and economically. It's like double entry accounting but only entering on one side.
- ravi-delia 6y agoThat being said, exactly 0 of the listed examples are actually bad to consider free. If you don't collect rain coming down, it'll just come down anyway.
- manicdee 6y agoIf you collect the rain coming down, someone downstream ends up with no water. Water is not free.
- ravi-delia 6y agoNot really, since other than the small amount of water that gets shipped out in the plant, the rest is just released right back out. Besides, as long as you're only collecting the water that falls directly on you as rain, you're not taking any more than your lot; someone 'downstream' can also collect water that falls directly on them.
- wainstead 6y agoIf you’re talking rain barrels, sure. But some states in America make it illegal for you to collect rainwater on your own property because it legally belongs to someone else.
- manicdee 6y agoThat's great if the entire river system is continually receiving decent amounts of rain. In most real world scenarios there's a rain-rich area in the top of the watershed, then a less rain-rich but flood-prone area, then a bit more rain closer to the seashore, then the river delta. In Australia for example there's a practise of "flood water harvesting" where you build large earth walls along your property boundary, and collect all the water that falls on your land. Combined with irrigation downstream this means the river dries up in the space of a hundred kilometres. There's very little water released back into the river, since that's basically wasting water as far as the agriculture industry is concerned.
- gpm 6y agoFarming depleting water tables has been an issue. It's not that it won't come down anyways, but that it won't go wherever it was going next anyways.
- villasv 6y agoInterfering with the hydrologic cycle can impact soil quality and may result in bunch of biome effects. It can also have good effects instead of bad effects, though. It really depends on the local dynamics.
- macspoofing 6y ago>Interfering with the hydrologic cycle can impact soil quality and may result in bunch of biome effects. Sure but people also need to eat.
- Technically 6y agoI assumed this was meant in terms of energy required to exploit the resource—if water's literally falling from the sky the energy required is zero.
- dsr_ 6y agoMost agricultural water costs are from growing crops in areas where there is not enough rainfall: California's Imperial Valley is a desert (3 inches of rain per year) and produces $1 billion of food and cotton each year. Then all the waste runs into the Salton Sea -- another unpaid-for externality.
- abeppu 6y agoSo, maybe someone here knows the number -- but what would the cost of a loaf of bread be (or what would the multiplicative factor on food costs be) if we restrained ourselves to growing without irrigation?