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Anyone else read The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi? It's a near future SF novel about water shortages in the American southwest. It definitely made me sure I

Anyone else read The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi? It's a near future SF novel about water shortages in the American southwest. It definitely made me sure I'd never want to move to Arizona or New Mexico.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
I really enjoyed the book. I live in New Mexico. It's a little unclear to me how realistic the scenario painted there is, for the simple reason that the main problem with water in the US southwest is commercial agriculture, which uses 75% or more of all the water in these areas. This is the result of ideas promulgated in the first 3-4 decades of the 20th century (the Bureau of Reclamation) which touted the idea of a garden paradise, based largely on the unusually wet couple of decades that had just happened. If you eliminated commercial agriculture in the US southwest (let's conveniently pretend that this doesn't cover the Central Valley of CA), there's plenty of water for everything else, even in the middle of the worst drought in 1200 years. The book doesn't appear to deal with this very well. Still, great story and very imaginative. [ EDIT: one idea I did really like in the book was the part about the federal government allowing states to ban inter-state migration, so that the "Zoners" (people from AZ) could not move, and would effectively become refugees within their own state and nation ]
49yearsold 4y ago
Probably you also should make plans not to live in California - this state is also experiencing quite severe droughts year after year - probably will be same fate as Arizona in maybe couple decades?
qiskit 4y ago
Not sure making residential decisions based on SF novels is a wise idea. Arizona has been one of the fastest growing states for many years now. So has nevada and utah. If the population and economic activity is there, the water will find its way there one way or another.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  When you go to turn on the tap and nothing comes out, the next thing that happens is that economic activity grinds to a halt, much as it does when the power supply goes down. Who wants to visit Nevada if there's no water in your hotel to take a shower, just drinking water only? Now, maybe if the snowpack is gone and the rivers are dry someone could set up a gigantic solar desalination plant on the California coast and start producing water to be piped to Nevada and Arizona... which would need more gigantic solar plants to produce the electricity to power the pumps. Someone will have to pay for that, and the costs will be pretty high. Probably higher than the revenue from the tourism or agriculture in the region. What happens then? People leave the region.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  SF novels can be a way to explore the possible outcomes of decisions, technological changes, environmental change and more. "The Water Knife" is a well-informed book that covers a lot of ground. There are plenty of non-fiction books that cover the same on-the-ground truth, but don't bother to speculate on how things might evolve from here. To your point, the book specifically floats a "vision" of a new kind of housing development in Las Vegas and Phoenix that the book calls "arcologies" but you might think of them as high-end earthships for the ultra-wealthy. They use very little outside water, endlessly internally recycling almost every drop of moisture within them. Accessible only to the ultra rich. I personally find this a much more believable idea and much less sci-fi than the notion that Nevada, Arizona etc. will receive water via a multi-thousand mile long, multi-thousand foot elevation spanning pipeline. I think you may be underestimating the challenge of bringing water to the US southwest. Also, as I've mentioned several times in this thread, without commercial agriculture, there essentially would be no water issues here. When 77% of your water is being used to irrigate crops, most of which are exported from your region ... you've got a different kind of problem.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    I've read it too. Regarding the Arcology things in the desert, and the unlikely water pipelines, I thought it to be more likely(economically) that the ultra rich would go for seasteading instead.
rayiner 4y ago
Visiting Arizona made me never want to move to Arizona or Nee Mexico. The minute I got there a kind of depression set in. Just the color of the place. After awhile I realized it was because so little was growing, even compared to say somewhere like Wyoming.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  > "Amen. Dutton describes a process of westernization of the perceptions that has had to happen before the West is beautiful to us. You have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale; you have to understand geological time." Wallace Stegner, quoted from: https://bensonian.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/you-have-to-get-over-the-color-green-westernizing-the-perceptions/ https://bensonian.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/you-have-to-get-o... Also worth reading: https://aarondenham.com/2021/09/04/getting-over-the-color-green/ https://aarondenham.com/2021/09/04/getting-over-the-color-gr...

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

I really enjoyed the book. I live in New Mexico. It's a little unclear to me how realistic the scenario painted there is, for the simple reason that the main problem with water in the US southwest is commercial agriculture, which uses 75% or more of all the water in these areas. This is the result of ideas promulgated in the first 3-4 decades of the 20th century (the Bureau of Reclamation) which touted the idea of a garden paradise, based largely on the unusually wet couple of decades that had just happened. If you eliminated commercial agriculture in the US southwest (let's conveniently pretend that this doesn't cover the Central Valley of CA), there's plenty of water for everything else, even in the middle of the worst drought in 1200 years. The book doesn't appear to deal with this very well. Still, great story and very imaginative. [ EDIT: one idea I did really like in the book was the part about the federal government allowing states to ban inter-state migration, so that the "Zoners" (people from AZ) could not move, and would effectively become refugees within their own state and nation ]

49yearsold 4y ago

Probably you also should make plans not to live in California - this state is also experiencing quite severe droughts year after year - probably will be same fate as Arizona in maybe couple decades?

qiskit 4y ago

Not sure making residential decisions based on SF novels is a wise idea. Arizona has been one of the fastest growing states for many years now. So has nevada and utah. If the population and economic activity is there, the water will find its way there one way or another.

photochemsyn 4y ago
When you go to turn on the tap and nothing comes out, the next thing that happens is that economic activity grinds to a halt, much as it does when the power supply goes down. Who wants to visit Nevada if there's no water in your hotel to take a shower, just drinking water only? Now, maybe if the snowpack is gone and the rivers are dry someone could set up a gigantic solar desalination plant on the California coast and start producing water to be piped to Nevada and Arizona... which would need more gigantic solar plants to produce the electricity to power the pumps. Someone will have to pay for that, and the costs will be pretty high. Probably higher than the revenue from the tourism or agriculture in the region. What happens then? People leave the region.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
SF novels can be a way to explore the possible outcomes of decisions, technological changes, environmental change and more. "The Water Knife" is a well-informed book that covers a lot of ground. There are plenty of non-fiction books that cover the same on-the-ground truth, but don't bother to speculate on how things might evolve from here. To your point, the book specifically floats a "vision" of a new kind of housing development in Las Vegas and Phoenix that the book calls "arcologies" but you might think of them as high-end earthships for the ultra-wealthy. They use very little outside water, endlessly internally recycling almost every drop of moisture within them. Accessible only to the ultra rich. I personally find this a much more believable idea and much less sci-fi than the notion that Nevada, Arizona etc. will receive water via a multi-thousand mile long, multi-thousand foot elevation spanning pipeline. I think you may be underestimating the challenge of bringing water to the US southwest. Also, as I've mentioned several times in this thread, without commercial agriculture, there essentially would be no water issues here. When 77% of your water is being used to irrigate crops, most of which are exported from your region ... you've got a different kind of problem.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  I've read it too. Regarding the Arcology things in the desert, and the unlikely water pipelines, I thought it to be more likely(economically) that the ultra rich would go for seasteading instead.

rayiner 4y ago

Visiting Arizona made me never want to move to Arizona or Nee Mexico. The minute I got there a kind of depression set in. Just the color of the place. After awhile I realized it was because so little was growing, even compared to say somewhere like Wyoming.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> "Amen. Dutton describes a process of westernization of the perceptions that has had to happen before the West is beautiful to us. You have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale; you have to understand geological time." Wallace Stegner, quoted from: https://bensonian.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/you-have-to-get-over-the-color-green-westernizing-the-perceptions/ https://bensonian.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/you-have-to-get-o... Also worth reading: https://aarondenham.com/2021/09/04/getting-over-the-color-green/ https://aarondenham.com/2021/09/04/getting-over-the-color-gr...