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Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water - and jump to a high-tech, unknown impact, expensive, complex, expensive solution. What co

Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water - and jump to a high-tech, unknown impact, expensive, complex, expensive solution. What could go wrong?

giantg2 5y ago
"Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water" I agree that it's a demand-side issue, but the solutions are not "simple".
- SamBam 5y ago
  Large federal grants/subsidies to stimulate farming in the Northern states, coupled with a progressive/tiered taxes on using more than [edit] xx million gallons of water in places like California and Colorado? ...I could see how the residents of those latter states would not be too happy with that solution, though. But it's not like the Federal Government isn't already constantly picking favorites for subsidies (see ethanol, oil, etc.).
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Why punish individuals for their water consumption? That's not exactly the low hanging fruit, the vast majority of water in California is used for farming.
    - SamBam 5y ago
      I wasn't suggesting taxing individuals but large-scale farming. That's why I said x thousand gallons, though I guess I ought to have said xx million gallons. Edited.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        Ah, okay, that makes sense. I read the thousand gallons combined with the following 'won't make residents too happy' and assumed you were thinking of individuals.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  Some of them are. Like we could stop making how green your lawn is into some kind of class marker. The first step would be defanging whatever legal machinery HOA's use to ensure that you keep up with the Joneses re: how much water you can afford to waste.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    That is something that people should look at, but Agriculture and industry are the main users.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  There are no solutions. Those who can will use what they can, those who can't will be left high and dry. This is expected when supply rapidly declines when demand remains constant or increases over time. The watershed will change faster than human behavior and policy will adapt. There was already not enough water for the rights distributed in the 1922 Colorado River Compact [1]: > The delegates figured allocations on hydrologic data from the Reclamation Bureau that indicated annual Colorado River flow at Lees Ferry to be 16.4 maf. In truth, however, Colorado River flow is a good deal less than that. Data from three centuries indicate an average flow of about 13.5 maf. Also, flows are highly erratic, ranging from 4.4 maf to over 22 maf. > Built into the compact then, between what it promised and what the river was prepared to deliver, was water scarcity. There is not enough water to go around. As a result, water scarcity is the root of most of the disputes and problems subsequently arising over the compact and the Law of the River. It is a situation that links past and present Colorado River issues and will be an abiding concern in the future. EDIT: You personally can make the choice to not live somewhere that will eventually face water scarcity [2]. [1] https://wrrc.arizona.edu/publications/arroyo-newsletter/sharing-colorado-river-water-history-public-policy-and-colorado-river https://wrrc.arizona.edu/publications/arroyo-newsletter/shar... ("Sharing Colorado River Water: History, Public Policy and the Colorado River Compact") [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210721173013/https://i.imgur.com/H8xfpNw.png https://web.archive.org/web/20210721173013/https://i.imgur.c...
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "There are no solutions." There are solutions, but they are not simple. You could relocate the main users, like agriculture and industrial users, to areas that are not as arid. This would also cause some migration of individuals. I mean, that is the driver of the scarcity - building cities in the desert.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      My apologies. "The solutions are untenable and no amount of realistic effort would enable their implementation." would've been a more accurate statement.
- simiones 5y ago
  They are "simple", but hard to implement. You stop farming and in arid areas (and also stop high water consumption industries in those same areas) - simple. Also simple to achieve: either tax industrial water usage, or outright ration water for industrial use. Hard to do - people don't want to move, local food shortages may happen, people hate taxes and price hikes etc.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    With the proposed implementation, its merely a concept and not a solution. As they say, the devil is in the details. The n-order impacts of such a systemic change would not be simple. So as a concept, it's simple. As a solution, it's complex. For example, many people will fight the industrial and agricultural water use tax because their jobs depend on it. It would force people out of that area when those jobs dry up, just as the mandatory changes would.
t0mbstone 5y ago
Stopping water consumption is an inadequate solution to our three biggest water supply problems: 1. Desalination 2. Purification 3. Distribution There would be no shortage of fresh water on earth if we simply put resources into solving these three problems.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  There is no shortage of fresh water in the US. The water is simply not near where the farms are because we're unbelievably irresponsible with where we do farming.
- simiones 5y ago
  All of those things are likely to increase our global warming issues, as they are highly energy consuming in several ways. If we want any semblance of current society to keep chugging along 50-100 years from now, we need to reduce our production of almost everything, energy most of all. There is simply no other solution to stop catastrophic global warming.
  - FooHentai 5y ago
    I have to say it's vanishingly rare to see someone else advocate for net reduction in energy usage. In so many similar discussions it seems to be as much a taboo as topics like population control or not being able to freely buy tat products from china. But it seems one way or the other these shifts are inevitable, either by choice or it left unaddressed the other way as a natural consequence and with much greater suffering. Same with water use in arid areas, it's either restricted today or ultimately gone tomorrow. I guess the approach of burying our heads in the sand can be at least assured of an increasing sand supply to support it.
  - t0mbstone 5y ago
    Energy consumption is not a problem, provided it comes from the sun. The sun is going to burn and blast the earth with energy, whether we harness it or not. Harnessing the sun's energy and applying it towards water desalination and distribution would allow us to grow all sort of plants (including trees) in areas that would otherwise be unable to sustain plant growth. Plants are composed largely of carbon that is extracted from the air, so the more plants you can grow, the closer we get to solving global warming.
tomc1985 5y ago
The thing is, "stop consuming so much water" not the simple solution.

Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water - and jump to a high-tech, unknown impact, expensive, complex, expensive solution. What could go wrong?

giantg2 5y ago

"Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water" I agree that it's a demand-side issue, but the solutions are not "simple".

SamBam 5y ago
Large federal grants/subsidies to stimulate farming in the Northern states, coupled with a progressive/tiered taxes on using more than [edit] xx million gallons of water in places like California and Colorado? ...I could see how the residents of those latter states would not be too happy with that solution, though. But it's not like the Federal Government isn't already constantly picking favorites for subsidies (see ethanol, oil, etc.).
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Why punish individuals for their water consumption? That's not exactly the low hanging fruit, the vast majority of water in California is used for farming.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    I wasn't suggesting taxing individuals but large-scale farming. That's why I said x thousand gallons, though I guess I ought to have said xx million gallons. Edited.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      Ah, okay, that makes sense. I read the thousand gallons combined with the following 'won't make residents too happy' and assumed you were thinking of individuals.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
Some of them are. Like we could stop making how green your lawn is into some kind of class marker. The first step would be defanging whatever legal machinery HOA's use to ensure that you keep up with the Joneses re: how much water you can afford to waste.
- giantg2 5y ago
  That is something that people should look at, but Agriculture and industry are the main users.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
There are no solutions. Those who can will use what they can, those who can't will be left high and dry. This is expected when supply rapidly declines when demand remains constant or increases over time. The watershed will change faster than human behavior and policy will adapt. There was already not enough water for the rights distributed in the 1922 Colorado River Compact [1]: > The delegates figured allocations on hydrologic data from the Reclamation Bureau that indicated annual Colorado River flow at Lees Ferry to be 16.4 maf. In truth, however, Colorado River flow is a good deal less than that. Data from three centuries indicate an average flow of about 13.5 maf. Also, flows are highly erratic, ranging from 4.4 maf to over 22 maf. > Built into the compact then, between what it promised and what the river was prepared to deliver, was water scarcity. There is not enough water to go around. As a result, water scarcity is the root of most of the disputes and problems subsequently arising over the compact and the Law of the River. It is a situation that links past and present Colorado River issues and will be an abiding concern in the future. EDIT: You personally can make the choice to not live somewhere that will eventually face water scarcity [2]. [1] https://wrrc.arizona.edu/publications/arroyo-newsletter/sharing-colorado-river-water-history-public-policy-and-colorado-river https://wrrc.arizona.edu/publications/arroyo-newsletter/shar... ("Sharing Colorado River Water: History, Public Policy and the Colorado River Compact") [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210721173013/https://i.imgur.com/H8xfpNw.png https://web.archive.org/web/20210721173013/https://i.imgur.c...
- giantg2 5y ago
  "There are no solutions." There are solutions, but they are not simple. You could relocate the main users, like agriculture and industrial users, to areas that are not as arid. This would also cause some migration of individuals. I mean, that is the driver of the scarcity - building cities in the desert.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    My apologies. "The solutions are untenable and no amount of realistic effort would enable their implementation." would've been a more accurate statement.
simiones 5y ago
They are "simple", but hard to implement. You stop farming and in arid areas (and also stop high water consumption industries in those same areas) - simple. Also simple to achieve: either tax industrial water usage, or outright ration water for industrial use. Hard to do - people don't want to move, local food shortages may happen, people hate taxes and price hikes etc.
- giantg2 5y ago
  With the proposed implementation, its merely a concept and not a solution. As they say, the devil is in the details. The n-order impacts of such a systemic change would not be simple. So as a concept, it's simple. As a solution, it's complex. For example, many people will fight the industrial and agricultural water use tax because their jobs depend on it. It would force people out of that area when those jobs dry up, just as the mandatory changes would.

t0mbstone 5y ago

Stopping water consumption is an inadequate solution to our three biggest water supply problems: 1. Desalination 2. Purification 3. Distribution There would be no shortage of fresh water on earth if we simply put resources into solving these three problems.

thehappypm 5y ago
There is no shortage of fresh water in the US. The water is simply not near where the farms are because we're unbelievably irresponsible with where we do farming.
simiones 5y ago
All of those things are likely to increase our global warming issues, as they are highly energy consuming in several ways. If we want any semblance of current society to keep chugging along 50-100 years from now, we need to reduce our production of almost everything, energy most of all. There is simply no other solution to stop catastrophic global warming.
- FooHentai 5y ago
  I have to say it's vanishingly rare to see someone else advocate for net reduction in energy usage. In so many similar discussions it seems to be as much a taboo as topics like population control or not being able to freely buy tat products from china. But it seems one way or the other these shifts are inevitable, either by choice or it left unaddressed the other way as a natural consequence and with much greater suffering. Same with water use in arid areas, it's either restricted today or ultimately gone tomorrow. I guess the approach of burying our heads in the sand can be at least assured of an increasing sand supply to support it.
- t0mbstone 5y ago
  Energy consumption is not a problem, provided it comes from the sun. The sun is going to burn and blast the earth with energy, whether we harness it or not. Harnessing the sun's energy and applying it towards water desalination and distribution would allow us to grow all sort of plants (including trees) in areas that would otherwise be unable to sustain plant growth. Plants are composed largely of carbon that is extracted from the air, so the more plants you can grow, the closer we get to solving global warming.

tomc1985 5y ago

The thing is, "stop consuming so much water" not the simple solution.