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If this were China...we could build a transnational canal network and federated power grid -- in 10 years. Unfortunately our (every?) democracy, moves too slow
by cellis 4y ago
If this were China...we could build a transnational canal network and federated power grid -- in 10 years. Unfortunately our (every?) democracy, moves too slow for that. So given the pace of large scale projects I'd say in 50 years ... maybe.
- kibwen 4y agoChina has been doing what the grandparent suggests for 20 years now, building networks to transfer water from the south to the north, and even at full-tilt with cheap access to labor and the political will to displace (so far) hundreds of thousands of people, it's not nearly enough to solve their looming water crisis. Regions like Arizona are just inimical to large-scale human habitation and agriculture. The good news is that Arizona is projected to get more humid thanks to climate change. The bad news is that Arizona isn't projected to get any less hot, so look forward to an increasing frequency of wet bulb events in the future.
- golergka 4y agoChina have been building irrigation systems for 2000 years, not 20.
- kibwen 4y agoNobody is disputing that. The projects of the past 20 years have been on a different scale entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Transfer_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Tran...
- nopenopenopeno 4y agoWe don’t have a democracy. We have a private sector that has a government that it masquerades as a democracy.
- zdragnar 4y agoArizona averages what, 4000 feet above sea level? It'd be an absurd waste of energy to pump sufficient fresh water there from anywhere, but especially the east coast.
- SamReidHughes 4y agoI think those parts have winters. The parts in the sunbelt are more like 1500 ft or less. Or 2500 ft for Tucson. I wound up looking it up, so here you go: https://en-us.topographic-map.com/maps/ea/Arizona/ https://en-us.topographic-map.com/maps/ea/Arizona/