5 ms·

You could try to come up with a scheme that targets people you don't like, but that leaves you with an inconvenient truth: people you do like are just as capabl

by mastax 4y ago

You could try to come up with a scheme that targets people you don't like, but that leaves you with an inconvenient truth: people you do like are just as capable of sucking the wells dry.

pwarner 4y ago
Yeah the foreign owned part seems like the least important part.
- steve76 4y ago
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  It's not really so much that the farm is foreign owned, it's that the very water intensive crop is grown so it can be shipped overseas to feed livestock for foreign populations. This is essentially "exporting water". Which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is when water is essentially so mispriced that it's a really bad deal for the place that is supplying the water, especially during a mega-drought.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    > it's that the very water intensive crop is grown The article is very much pot, kettle black. Agriculture is using the majority of the water and mostly for growing alfalfa to feed cows. Everything there is wrong. We don't need that many cows. If the town wants to save itself, it must start water-rationing for agriculture, and ban a lot of alfalfa growing.
    - supportlocal4h 4y ago
      Instead we need to be growing more chicken feed?
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      > If the town wants to save itself, it must start water-rationing for agriculture, and ban a lot of alfalfa growing. Or more effectively (because it is much simpler and can’t be gamed nearly as easily), price the water appropriately based on the sustainable supply. Then it will not be profitable to use at huge scale for low-value water-intensive crops. If fairly pricing the water ends up hurting local residents, that would best be dealt with by directly paying cash to every resident to make up the typical difference. (We should do the same with other resources that are scarce or have negative externalities; e.g. gasoline should have the environmental costs of carbon emissions priced into it with a very steep tax, and then every resident should be directly paid cash enough to make up the difference for a typical person’s transportation. Otherwise, people are incentivized to over-use resources that are effectively being subsidized, and the free market economy cannot perform its function.)
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        > price the water appropriately based on the sustainable supply. In the regions where the water problem is most relevant, pricing based on the sustainable supply isn't possible because the water supply isn't sustainable, and won't be no matter how much you charge or how little you use.
        CaptainNegative 4y ago
        Wouldn't that be a self-correcting problem as much of the population moves away due to enormous utility costs?
        Maursault 4y ago
        The water-use by agriculture is unsustainable whether there is population or not. Compared to agriculture use of water, all other water uses are negligible. So if you eliminate the residential population and empty the cities, agriculture will still use all the water and fail. But if you eliminate the agriculture, there will be plenty of water for the cities and population. A desert has enough water to support a population. It was foolish to introduce industrialized agriculture in a desert.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    But to the original point, with domestic ownership, the domestic owner would grow the same crops and sell them to the same foreign buyers because they're willing to pay the prices that make it work. The only solution is limit ground water extraction. Putting this on foreign owners dodges the solution no one wants to talk about.
- ericmcer 4y ago
  It is more relevant when you see all the signs and ads about neighborhoods "doing their part" to help conserve water by not watering plants and taking shorter showers. If those conservations are being used to enrich a microscopic part of population who is shipping all that water overseas it raises questions about who and what we are conserving for.
jeffbee 4y ago
True, the Americans of western Kansas have managed to drain the aquifers there right down to zero.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Not sure what point you're making. Let's pivot. Fresh water at the moment is not a short-term renewable resource. In some places fresh water takes a long time to correct when there is an input/output imbalance. So just like any non-renewable resource, particularly one vital to life and food, it should be guarded as a local and national security asset.
- mastax 4y ago
  Let me be more clear. The article is very focused on the "evil foreigners" angle, which is understandable. I also do not like Saudi Arabia buying up farms and exporting water. But this problem is a tiny subset of the overall problem, which is unsustainable water use. I am concerned that by focusing too much on the evil foreigners, we'll end up with a solution targeted at the evil foreigners, or exporting alfalfa, and we'll end up with the same farms growing alfalfa for cows in California or Arizona which does not solve the problem at all. What we need is to cap all water usage to sustainable levels, ideally with a cap and trade or market system which would incentivize investing in water conservation and encourage efficient land use. Given how climate change legislation has gone in the US we'll probably end up with the worst water uses being banned, and subsidies for better water uses. It's politically easier to pay people for good outcomes than to charge them for bad ones.
  - ericmcer 4y ago
    I know the evil foreigners angle is associated with racism and ignorance nowadays but separate societies have different priorities and agendas right? A society should view its natural resources being sold externally as less beneficial than being used internally, unless in some kind of universally beneficial exchange. If a society doesn't exist to enrich its members then what is even the point of it?
    - supertrope 4y ago
      The United States cannot simultaneously push the benefits of free trade and block foreign investment. Reactionary laws like banning the export of crude oil ultimately drive up costs. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

by mastax 4y ago

You could try to come up with a scheme that targets people you don't like, but that leaves you with an inconvenient truth: people you do like are just as capable of sucking the wells dry.

pwarner 4y ago

Yeah the foreign owned part seems like the least important part.

steve76 4y ago
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
It's not really so much that the farm is foreign owned, it's that the very water intensive crop is grown so it can be shipped overseas to feed livestock for foreign populations. This is essentially "exporting water". Which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is when water is essentially so mispriced that it's a really bad deal for the place that is supplying the water, especially during a mega-drought.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > it's that the very water intensive crop is grown The article is very much pot, kettle black. Agriculture is using the majority of the water and mostly for growing alfalfa to feed cows. Everything there is wrong. We don't need that many cows. If the town wants to save itself, it must start water-rationing for agriculture, and ban a lot of alfalfa growing.
  - supportlocal4h 4y ago
    Instead we need to be growing more chicken feed?
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    > If the town wants to save itself, it must start water-rationing for agriculture, and ban a lot of alfalfa growing. Or more effectively (because it is much simpler and can’t be gamed nearly as easily), price the water appropriately based on the sustainable supply. Then it will not be profitable to use at huge scale for low-value water-intensive crops. If fairly pricing the water ends up hurting local residents, that would best be dealt with by directly paying cash to every resident to make up the typical difference. (We should do the same with other resources that are scarce or have negative externalities; e.g. gasoline should have the environmental costs of carbon emissions priced into it with a very steep tax, and then every resident should be directly paid cash enough to make up the difference for a typical person’s transportation. Otherwise, people are incentivized to over-use resources that are effectively being subsidized, and the free market economy cannot perform its function.)
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > price the water appropriately based on the sustainable supply. In the regions where the water problem is most relevant, pricing based on the sustainable supply isn't possible because the water supply isn't sustainable, and won't be no matter how much you charge or how little you use.
      - CaptainNegative 4y ago
        Wouldn't that be a self-correcting problem as much of the population moves away due to enormous utility costs?
        Maursault 4y ago
        The water-use by agriculture is unsustainable whether there is population or not. Compared to agriculture use of water, all other water uses are negligible. So if you eliminate the residential population and empty the cities, agriculture will still use all the water and fail. But if you eliminate the agriculture, there will be plenty of water for the cities and population. A desert has enough water to support a population. It was foolish to introduce industrialized agriculture in a desert.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  But to the original point, with domestic ownership, the domestic owner would grow the same crops and sell them to the same foreign buyers because they're willing to pay the prices that make it work. The only solution is limit ground water extraction. Putting this on foreign owners dodges the solution no one wants to talk about.
ericmcer 4y ago
It is more relevant when you see all the signs and ads about neighborhoods "doing their part" to help conserve water by not watering plants and taking shorter showers. If those conservations are being used to enrich a microscopic part of population who is shipping all that water overseas it raises questions about who and what we are conserving for.

jeffbee 4y ago

True, the Americans of western Kansas have managed to drain the aquifers there right down to zero.

unethical_ban 4y ago

Not sure what point you're making. Let's pivot. Fresh water at the moment is not a short-term renewable resource. In some places fresh water takes a long time to correct when there is an input/output imbalance. So just like any non-renewable resource, particularly one vital to life and food, it should be guarded as a local and national security asset.

mastax 4y ago
Let me be more clear. The article is very focused on the "evil foreigners" angle, which is understandable. I also do not like Saudi Arabia buying up farms and exporting water. But this problem is a tiny subset of the overall problem, which is unsustainable water use. I am concerned that by focusing too much on the evil foreigners, we'll end up with a solution targeted at the evil foreigners, or exporting alfalfa, and we'll end up with the same farms growing alfalfa for cows in California or Arizona which does not solve the problem at all. What we need is to cap all water usage to sustainable levels, ideally with a cap and trade or market system which would incentivize investing in water conservation and encourage efficient land use. Given how climate change legislation has gone in the US we'll probably end up with the worst water uses being banned, and subsidies for better water uses. It's politically easier to pay people for good outcomes than to charge them for bad ones.
- ericmcer 4y ago
  I know the evil foreigners angle is associated with racism and ignorance nowadays but separate societies have different priorities and agendas right? A society should view its natural resources being sold externally as less beneficial than being used internally, unless in some kind of universally beneficial exchange. If a society doesn't exist to enrich its members then what is even the point of it?
  - supertrope 4y ago
    The United States cannot simultaneously push the benefits of free trade and block foreign investment. Reactionary laws like banning the export of crude oil ultimately drive up costs. There's no such thing as a free lunch.