4 ms·

You can live out there with little water impact if you don't insist on importing the kind of green water intensive landscaping that the rest of the country want

by rtkwe 5y ago

You can live out there with little water impact if you don't insist on importing the kind of green water intensive landscaping that the rest of the country wants. People living there is relatively ok from a water point of view (though from a power usage perspective we really should be building very different homes in that area too) it's doing farming in some of the drier parts of the US that seems wasteful when we know water is an issue there.

WkndTriathlete 5y ago
Nitpick: in the wet areas of the country it's not that we want green landscaping, it's that it is almost impossible to not have green landscaping because of how much rain we get. Lay down a layer of rock landscaping over landscaping fabric around a home in suburban Minnesota without maintaining it (e.g. by aggressively applying weed preventer and weeding it) and in 3-5 years it will be covered with native prairie grasses and weeds growing between and around the rock.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  What I mean is the grass monoculture, trees, shrubs and flowers that for the ur-lawn in the US most of the us that requires a lot of extra watering to maintain.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    >grass monoculture, trees, shrubs and flowers that for the ur-lawn in the US most of the us that requires a lot of extra watering to maintain It does not. I lived in the midwest for the majority of my life and never once had to water my lawn to keep everything green and alive.
CountDrewku 5y ago
> 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"
- rtkwe 5y ago
  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.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    Farming feeds people and gives them jobs. It's not a separate entity that has nothing to do with the people living there.
    - rtkwe 5y ago
      For the whole US only 1.3% of people are employed directly on farms and for Utah the number is 1,442 or 0.04% of the population. [0] There are other places farms can be other than a desert. Some jobs have too big of an impact to just support endlessly simply because it's someone's job. These water intensive processes have massive impacts on the environment, look at the valley in California that's sunk 11 feet because of the immense amount of water that's been pulled out of the land. [0] https://jobs.utah.gov/jsp/utalmis/#/occupation/452093/report https://jobs.utah.gov/jsp/utalmis/#/occupation/452093/report
      - CountDrewku 5y ago
        >here are other places farms can be other than a desert. Where? You act like these farms are just there because they like wasting water. Someone is buying the product or they wouldn't exist. If you want a modern lifestyle deal with it. Deserts are going to have to be used for growing stuff.

by rtkwe 5y ago

WkndTriathlete 5y ago

Nitpick: in the wet areas of the country it's not that we want green landscaping, it's that it is almost impossible to not have green landscaping because of how much rain we get. Lay down a layer of rock landscaping over landscaping fabric around a home in suburban Minnesota without maintaining it (e.g. by aggressively applying weed preventer and weeding it) and in 3-5 years it will be covered with native prairie grasses and weeds growing between and around the rock.

rtkwe 5y ago
What I mean is the grass monoculture, trees, shrubs and flowers that for the ur-lawn in the US most of the us that requires a lot of extra watering to maintain.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  >grass monoculture, trees, shrubs and flowers that for the ur-lawn in the US most of the us that requires a lot of extra watering to maintain It does not. I lived in the midwest for the majority of my life and never once had to water my lawn to keep everything green and alive.

CountDrewku 5y ago

> 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"

rtkwe 5y ago
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.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Farming feeds people and gives them jobs. It's not a separate entity that has nothing to do with the people living there.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    For the whole US only 1.3% of people are employed directly on farms and for Utah the number is 1,442 or 0.04% of the population. [0] There are other places farms can be other than a desert. Some jobs have too big of an impact to just support endlessly simply because it's someone's job. These water intensive processes have massive impacts on the environment, look at the valley in California that's sunk 11 feet because of the immense amount of water that's been pulled out of the land. [0] https://jobs.utah.gov/jsp/utalmis/#/occupation/452093/report https://jobs.utah.gov/jsp/utalmis/#/occupation/452093/report
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      >here are other places farms can be other than a desert. Where? You act like these farms are just there because they like wasting water. Someone is buying the product or they wouldn't exist. If you want a modern lifestyle deal with it. Deserts are going to have to be used for growing stuff.