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Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water-intensive agriculture. I am hopeful that the po

Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water-intensive agriculture. I am hopeful that the politicians there are smart enough to realize that semiconductor fabs are an industry whose water needs are worth prioritizing more than farming alfalfa in the desert. The problem is that these agricultural water rights are old, and the folks who hold them are often disenfranchised. Using a ton of water in the desert to farm is their whole livlihood; we don't just pull people's generational careers out from under them any more, like we used to. Not without a chance at an alternative.

coredog64 4y ago
Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers get rich, and more housing is being built.
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  Should people live in an area with no water? It feels like we have so many problems caused by people just not living in the locations in the USA where there is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make electricity with it too. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitation_in_the_lower_48_states_of_the_USA.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitat... I always find it interesting that people keep cramming into the western and specifically southwestern part of the USA. Like the original settlers just kept going that way due to the human natural urge to keep going further and hope things would be better over the horizon. I often wonder what America would be like if the western US was settled first. I imagine people would have noticed how awful and non-conducive to human life it is and kept on trucking to the promised land in the East.
  - tony_cannistra 4y ago
    I hear you, but I feel like this argument is fraught. We can't (shouldn't) really be telling people what they can/can't do. We can restructure incentives, though. (e.g.: taxes). Perhaps this is just kicking the ethical quandary down the road.
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      A more appropriate term would be disincentive, in your example about taxes. You are more or less telling them what to do by hitting them in a wallet. Sin taxes and enriching government to change behavior the government wants is practically synonymous and not appropriate in 99% of cases.
  - khuey 4y ago
    The problem is less people living in areas with no water and more people growing water-intensive food in areas with no water. 80% of water usage in California, which has 40 million residents, is agricultural.
    - daniel-cussen 4y ago
  - bcrosby95 4y ago
    Should people live in an area that needs to burn fossil fuels for heating? Energy efficient heat pumps, which AC is, only work on a relatively narrow band of temperature differentials. You can't really use them in freezing conditions. There's lots of hand wringing about living in hot, dry climates. It's just odd to me because where people live, in general, are not particularly amenable to the number of humans living there.
    - shagie 4y ago
      Heat pumps have come a long way. https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI gets into the energy efficiency of heat pumps and their temperature tolerances.
    - Mistletoe 4y ago
      Cold can be mitigated by enhanced R-value insulation in a single application. Water use is continuous. https://www.energystar.gov/campaign/seal_insulate/identify_problems_you_want_fix/diy_checks_inspections/insulation_r_values https://www.energystar.gov/campaign/seal_insulate/identify_p... I don't really see a hot/cold stratification in this chart- https://www.statista.com/chart/12098/the-us-states-with-the-highest-energy-costs/ https://www.statista.com/chart/12098/the-us-states-with-the-... And even then, the difference in costs seems quite small. Alaska is $332 and Georgia is $310.
  - scythe 4y ago
    If you live on a 20' by 50' plot that gets six inches of rain per year, that's 500 cubic feet, or enough water for ten people to drink all year. And that's low rainfall even by Arizona standards (Phoenix gets 7 inches while Tucson and the plateaus are wetter), a small plot of land (1/43 acre), and ignoring any reuse or importation. The Southwest has plenty of water for people to live their lives, as long as it's utilized efficiently. It's agriculture that isn't suitable. It's also worth recognizing that the western United States was settled first, as people came down the Pacific Coast after crossing the Beringia land bridge during the previous ice age. California in particular has always been quite densely populated, and the only (IIRC) indigenous irrigation systems were built by the Hohokam near the Colorado Plateau. EDIT: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/23978/SMC_80_Mooney_1928_7_1-40.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/23978/SMC_8... >The population [of California] cannot be tabulated by tribes, but there can be no question that it was several times larger than any other area north of Mexico and that the destruction has been correspondingly greater.
- misterprime 4y ago
  And food still shows up in the grocery stores. Yay!

coredog64 4y ago

Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers get rich, and more housing is being built.

Mistletoe 4y ago
Should people live in an area with no water? It feels like we have so many problems caused by people just not living in the locations in the USA where there is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make electricity with it too. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitation_in_the_lower_48_states_of_the_USA.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitat... I always find it interesting that people keep cramming into the western and specifically southwestern part of the USA. Like the original settlers just kept going that way due to the human natural urge to keep going further and hope things would be better over the horizon. I often wonder what America would be like if the western US was settled first. I imagine people would have noticed how awful and non-conducive to human life it is and kept on trucking to the promised land in the East.
- tony_cannistra 4y ago
  I hear you, but I feel like this argument is fraught. We can't (shouldn't) really be telling people what they can/can't do. We can restructure incentives, though. (e.g.: taxes). Perhaps this is just kicking the ethical quandary down the road.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    A more appropriate term would be disincentive, in your example about taxes. You are more or less telling them what to do by hitting them in a wallet. Sin taxes and enriching government to change behavior the government wants is practically synonymous and not appropriate in 99% of cases.
- khuey 4y ago
  The problem is less people living in areas with no water and more people growing water-intensive food in areas with no water. 80% of water usage in California, which has 40 million residents, is agricultural.
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  Should people live in an area that needs to burn fossil fuels for heating? Energy efficient heat pumps, which AC is, only work on a relatively narrow band of temperature differentials. You can't really use them in freezing conditions. There's lots of hand wringing about living in hot, dry climates. It's just odd to me because where people live, in general, are not particularly amenable to the number of humans living there.
  - shagie 4y ago
    Heat pumps have come a long way. https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI gets into the energy efficiency of heat pumps and their temperature tolerances.
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    Cold can be mitigated by enhanced R-value insulation in a single application. Water use is continuous. https://www.energystar.gov/campaign/seal_insulate/identify_problems_you_want_fix/diy_checks_inspections/insulation_r_values https://www.energystar.gov/campaign/seal_insulate/identify_p... I don't really see a hot/cold stratification in this chart- https://www.statista.com/chart/12098/the-us-states-with-the-highest-energy-costs/ https://www.statista.com/chart/12098/the-us-states-with-the-... And even then, the difference in costs seems quite small. Alaska is $332 and Georgia is $310.
- scythe 4y ago
  If you live on a 20' by 50' plot that gets six inches of rain per year, that's 500 cubic feet, or enough water for ten people to drink all year. And that's low rainfall even by Arizona standards (Phoenix gets 7 inches while Tucson and the plateaus are wetter), a small plot of land (1/43 acre), and ignoring any reuse or importation. The Southwest has plenty of water for people to live their lives, as long as it's utilized efficiently. It's agriculture that isn't suitable. It's also worth recognizing that the western United States was settled first, as people came down the Pacific Coast after crossing the Beringia land bridge during the previous ice age. California in particular has always been quite densely populated, and the only (IIRC) indigenous irrigation systems were built by the Hohokam near the Colorado Plateau. EDIT: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/23978/SMC_80_Mooney_1928_7_1-40.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/23978/SMC_8... >The population [of California] cannot be tabulated by tribes, but there can be no question that it was several times larger than any other area north of Mexico and that the destruction has been correspondingly greater.
misterprime 4y ago
And food still shows up in the grocery stores. Yay!