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We're getting cooked. I'm already paying 10-times more for water usage than I spend on gas, and 5-times more on electricity bills - AC's running non-stop. That'

• sarchertech 1mo ago
  > I'm already paying 10-times more for water usage than I spend on gas Are you irrigating an enormous yard?
  • edoceo 1mo ago
    Maybe they mean consumption is the same but price is up.
    • sarchertech 1mo ago
      The only way I can read what they wrote to mean that is if they are saying water costs $30-40 a gallon.
      • deleted 1mo ago
        [deleted]
      • iLemming 1mo ago
        Have you never used a garden hose? Do you know that a regular, average hose left running overnight can waste like 5,000 gallons of water? My HOA enforces a rule - you must keep at least two trees per household. Trees need water. Not that much, of course, I shared the overnight hose number just for the sense of measure. Now you do the math - couple of trees, bathrooms, showering, drinking, cooking - that water usage adds up.
        • deleted 1mo ago
          [deleted]
        • blks 1mo ago
          Trees don’t grow otherwise in that area? Like if you would stop watering, will they die? Future proof solution could be selling and buying somewhere where climate change won’t hit as hard, eg north, but I guess not everyone can afford that, and cooler regions may not offer sufficient sustenance or infrastructure like schools and jobs.
        • adammarples 1mo ago
          If you live in what sounds like the desert and you're constantly watering your trees, it might be the case that you've picked non-native species that don't handle heat well. Check out the crime pays but botany doesn't on YouTube, he does a lot of videos about this, people in Texas etc planting English oaks and needing to water them all the time while native species are ignored or cut down because they're "messy".
        • sarchertech 1mo ago
          I mean sure don’t leave a garden hose running overnight. That’s insane. If you leave it running next your house you’ll flood your basement. You said you had a pool though. That and trying to keep 2 non native trees alive in the desert is probably equivalent to irrigating a large yard.
  • taneq 1mo ago
    Or driving a small, economical car?
    • sarchertech 1mo ago
      Even if you’re driving a Prius and getting 50mpg, if you’re “driving all the time” you’re spending at least $100 a month in gas. There’s nowhere in the country where a water bill is $1000 a month unless you’re doing a lot of irrigation.
    • mrexroad 1mo ago
      I read the comment as an overview of their utility costs—natural gas, not gasoline.
      • sarchertech 1mo ago
        OP confirmed it was gasoline.
  • parineum 1mo ago
    I assume they mean natural gas
    • iLemming 1mo ago
      No, I meant exactly in the petrol sense. Darn americanims - you never know if gas is gasoline, or poison, anesthetic, or flatulence, or you're just being gaslighted.
  • iLemming 1mo ago
    No, but I have a pool and it's been drying up below the skimmers, I need to keep the water level or the filtration dies.
    • vachina 1mo ago
      lol. What a first world problem to have. Sounds like a very solvable problem too (remove the pool then)
      • iLemming 1mo ago
        Thank you captain. I'm sure this would greatly reduce the climate change effects. Doing it posthaste - the world needs saving.
        • jazzpush2 1mo ago
          To be fair, you were the one complaining about water costs as if it was a climate-related issue, when it's... your pool.
          • iLemming 1mo ago
            Haha. I guess you imagined "Deep Dive Dubai" or something? My pool is basically an oversized bathtub. We would've called it exactly that if it was installed inside the house.
        • chneu 1mo ago
          Tragedy of the commons. It's not just you. It's you + the millions of people using the same "I'm a unique snowflake" logic. If 8 billion people can't do it, maybe consider not doing it.
    • pvaldes 1mo ago
      A sheet of plastic floating in the surface while you don't use it could help to reduce the evaporation. If is a big pool put some holes here and there to allow air access if somebody or a pet falls into the pool. Some marginal plants strategically placed and Nymphaeas can shadow the water (reduce the amount of heat that reaches the water), but you would have a very different kind of pool then and they have their own maintenance issues. If your area allows the culture of columnar cactus and succulents, use it near the pool to provide shadow. They will rarely trow anything into the water and may be beautiful to see by itself. Look for the less vicious species like Euphorbia or Pilosocereus azureus that are strongly vertical while young, refreshing to see (blue is blue) and will not pose any problem if cultured in a wooden raised bed. The idea would be to make a short wall using the cactus as logs placed a few dm apart to allow the wind passing trough. You will need to avoid the access to cats protecting the dirt with a mesh, aizoaceae, gravel or rocks. Allow a lot of space for the roots. A small pot will not really work. Cactus or succulents allowed to grow on the roof or near the house will act also as fire retardants (but not fire supressors) as they accumulate water.
• folkrav 1mo ago
  Maybe this country focusing so much on keeping the gas cheap might have something to do with it.
  • slashdev 1mo ago
    US emissions have declined 18% since 2005. Look at Asia.
    • NegativeLatency 1mo ago
      You mean the place where we buy all our crap from?
    • nyc640 1mo ago
      Yes, let's look at "Asia" (as if that's some meaningful grouping in this context when the countries are so different culturally, geographically, and economically). Since 2005, a huge amount of US manufacturing and resource processing (both large emitters) have been outsourced (largely to Asia, and more specifically China). Our economy doesn't function without these imported emissions, yet they don't count as "US emissions". Even excluding these emissions, the US makes up 4% of the world population and emits 13% of world emissions. Asia makes up 60% of the world's population and emits 52% (more than 3x less per-capita than the US). If you actually consider that the countries in Asia are vastly diverse, you'll find the large majority of these emissions are from China (from said manufacturing and resource processing), and India for example emits far less than its share of the population. This also completely ignores that the effects of warming are from cumulative emissions (not just point-in-time emissions) because CO2 doesn't just disappear every year. As a share of historical emissions, Europe comes off far worse than Asia per capita, and the US even worse than Europe. Even despite this, at least China (and the rest of Asia to a lesser extent) is investing in clean energy. China produces > 80% of the world's solar panels and > 70% of the world's lithium batteries. Meanwhile, in the US the administration is doubling down on subsidies for fossil fuels and issuing stop-work orders on renewable energy projects already under construction. And because I know I have to give this disclaimer these days: I am no apologist for everything else wrong with China and their authoritarian government. But I can't bear this attitude of absolving ourselves of blame for climate change because some other continent has a bigger number than us.
• 0n0n0m0uz 1mo ago
  Libraries in SW Colorado were packed! Alot of people just using the AC since most houses dont even have it
  • iLemming 1mo ago
    A few years ago (before wildfires forced us to move), we were in the East Bay of San Francisco. East Bay gets unusually hot - the mountain range prevents cool winds from the ocean passing over. Summer was extreme, the AC couldn't keep up, we had to hose the outer walls every evening, just to cool it a bit. One day we woke up, had breakfast and the power line had failed. I quickly imagined what happens if it lasts more than a few hours, checked the heatmap, found an area that wasn't dark orange, and told everyone to pack - we're leaving. We headed towards Half Moon Bay. It's a little over an hour drive, but it took us another forty minutes to find a beach with a room for parking - entire coast was packed with the heat escapees like us. The beach was full of stinking kelp, there were tons of flies - they've tormented our stay, but we had little choice. We thought we were lucky to find a spot with not too many people, only to realize there was a carcass of a dead sea lion and it was dead-cat-stenchy. At least, being next to the ocean offered some relief from the heat. Later that afternoon, our neighbors called us to tell us that they were sitting in their minivan, at an empty parking lot. The power was still out, and to have a dignified dinner, they've grabbed some food and convened in the car, which had a working AC. But they didn't want it to look weird, so they drove away from their street, away from curious neighbors and friends. Next summer wildfires came back. This time bigger than ever. Dealing with both smoke and COVID restrictions together felt like too much, and we decided to move. We headed East, our first stop was Barstow, CA - we decided to rest a night. It's pretty far from where the actual fires were raging, yet when we woke up, we were greeted with what looked like snow at first. It was ash. Our car was covered with it. We kept driving. The sky was black from the smoke. It only started clearing out when we crossed into New Mexico. We were all terrified to realize the scale of that disastrous event. Which has now become "a seasonal climate occurrence" - it's almost guaranteed that each year something will massively burn somewhere in the West Coast. And the fuck are we doing about that? Entertaining a clown with renaming a lake.
    • blks 1mo ago
• Aurornis 1mo ago
  > I'm already paying 10-times more for water usage than I spend on gas, and 5-times more on electricity bills Comparing ratios of bills is confusing. This statement would be unsurprising if you drove 10 miles per week in a Prius. It would be very confusing if you were filling up your tank every week and spending $1000/month on a water bill.
  • iLemming 1mo ago
    I can explain. I work from home - no commute. Yes, I don't have to drive as much as the average person has to in my area. This summer has been extremely hot, hotter than any previous - seems that's becoming a new normal. Past couple of weeks the heat remained in the 90s, even around midnight. Water district installed big banners with warnings "draught stages in effect", there's a penalty for irrigating at certain hours - it gets added to the bill. These banners getting erected for the past three years. Yes, water here is expensive.
    • Aurornis 1mo ago
      > I work from home - no commute. Don’t you think this was important information to include in your post? Your whole point was built on spending more on water than gas, but then we had to read the comments to discover that you don’t commute and you have water-hungry situations like a pool and HOA mandated landscaping?
      • iLemming 1mo ago
        I'm not trying to deceive anyone - no matter how anyone could twist it, it is true - the heat is real, the water shortages are the new reality, and I am in fact spending more on water than gas. And it's not because I don't have to drive at all - I do, just not as much as the average person who needs to go to the office every single day. I still need to drive daily.
  • blks 1mo ago
    How much water usually cost in dryer regions of USA?
• dzhiurgis 1mo ago
  So you live in a place where it’s unsustainable and complain about what exactly? Aren’t you the problem?
  • iLemming 1mo ago
    > Aren’t you the problem? I am. We all are. We are an invasive, parasitic species, and regardless of where we live or our lifestyle, we still are a great threat to the environment. I'm sorry that my mere existence is a huge inconvenience to all sorts of animals, including you.
    • dzhiurgis 1mo ago
      So instead of doing something about it (moving out somewhere sustainable) you moan on social media and accuse everyone being their fault?
      • iLemming 1mo ago
        I'm not moaning and not accusing anyone, but you. You, specifically you, making the living unsustainable. Who the hell taught you the letters and how to type? Check on them, I think they just died out of shame. Honestly, I think the world would've been a better place if you stayed uneducated. Go back to whatever kindergarten you came from, being so mean.
        • dzhiurgis 1mo ago
          Pot calling the kettle black… The funniest thing here is you barking unexplained natural oscillation that people knew for millennia.
• blks 1mo ago
  Better solution would be migration and building and expanding cities. I have huge doubts current systems will be able to or even consider to tackle catastrophic problems that are 10-20-30 years ahead, huge public investments, forcing capital to share too, drain dry all the oil biz. Instead it will be free for all
  • Timon3 1mo ago
    But what will be the safe places people could migrate to? I'm not sure we can really predict this, especially since the least affected locations are going to be the ones everybody will be interested in. And given the ramping-up xenophobia I can't imagine climate refugees suddenly being welcomed with open arms...
    • iLemming 1mo ago
      [dead]
    • spwa4 1mo ago
      This can be read rather directly from the UN's prediction maps. But essentially: anything northeast-US will be fine, anything Paris and north from there will be fine, in fact, probably better than today. The big problem starting in the South Of France, or in the US south, especially Nevada and Arizona. Intolerable temperatures a few weeks every year, not a constant problem. Note: the general consensus is that the 2026-2036 period will see little if any warming (meaning currently El Nino is pushing hard, but that will stop, and then it'll be dragging the temperature down for a while, which won't cause a drop, but will keep things more-or-less constant). So you have time to decide. https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch
    • blks 1mo ago
      Don’t be mistaken, climate refugees will be white as well
• MrSkelter 1mo ago
  I am currently in London. I have run AC every night since May in order to sleep. The interior of my new build luxury apartment in the financial district is routinely over 30°C during the day and can’t be cooled below that even with the windows covered and the (portable) AC running. At the turn of the century the CIA predicted climate change and water being the primary drivers of conflict in the 20s. We are already seeing the US deposing Venezuela’s government and taking their energy as US’s intentional fossil fuel dependency bites. Things will only get worse unless radical changes are made. We have to move faster than the skeptics and entrenched interests desire. To save the planet some people are going to lose their wealth power and position. Despite their protestations it’s entirely logical, just and necessary.
  • tpm 1mo ago
    > The interior of my new build luxury apartment in the financial district is routinely over 30°C That's not a well built building though. Our flat in warmer location in Europe does not get over 27C unless it's over 33C outside, and that withou the AC active.