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The real problem with most of the American southwest, including and especially Colorado, is that the watershed can't support any more people. What we need out h

by rpcope1 11y ago

The real problem with most of the American southwest, including and especially Colorado, is that the watershed can't support any more people. What we need out here is less people, not more. Just because the land is "empty" doesn't mean we can or should attempt to move people there.

blisterpeanuts 11y ago
I guess that's a valid point, that I hadn't considered. But surely there's a way to provide water. We're talking about a population shift, not a population increase so the country's net water usage should not increase. Maybe giant water collectors that obtain moisture from the atmosphere?
davidw 11y ago
You could have a lot more people in those places if their water use were more efficient. This is the kind of thing that markets can actually solve pretty well, as they allow people to adjust their usage to prices. Naturally, prices must be in tune with actual costs.
SwellJoe 11y ago
Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy, account for half of water usage in California. Texas usage is trending toward oil and gas using a dangerously large amount of water (fracking requires billions of gallons of water at the scale it happens in persistently drought stricken Texas). I am not familiar with New Mexico or Arizona or Nevada, but it would not be surprising to find that one or more industries dominate water usage, and in ways that are not sustainable or responsible. Water usage by individuals, for cleaning and cooking and drinking, is often miniscule, in comparison to industrial usage.
- ebiester 11y ago
  How are we going to have a city (and food and jobs) without that industrial usage?
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    Stop fracking. It's the most expensive way to get oil out of the ground, and wouldn't be cost-comparable to renewable energy sources if the industry wasn't empowered to use dangerous amounts of water in drought-stricken areas, use eminent domain to steal land for pipelines, and generally externalize every cost, making everyone who doesn't have lobbyists foot the bill for their reckless behavior. At this point, the only reason fracking is profitable is because government is propping it up. Solar and wind (particularly in places like Texas, California and the southwest) is cost-competitive (or even cheaper, if you calculate long-term, because solar panels and wind farms have a very long productive lifetime and quite low ongoing costs, unlike oil and gas), if you take away the crutches that our government provides oil. As for food, meat and dairy doesn't need to be produced in water-starved environments (and probably doesn't need to be consumed at the rate that Americans consume meat and dairy). Again, industry gets a pass and gets to socialize environmental costs that they simply shouldn't be able to externalize. But, he who has the money and the lobbyists makes the laws.

by rpcope1 11y ago

blisterpeanuts 11y ago

I guess that's a valid point, that I hadn't considered. But surely there's a way to provide water. We're talking about a population shift, not a population increase so the country's net water usage should not increase. Maybe giant water collectors that obtain moisture from the atmosphere?

davidw 11y ago

You could have a lot more people in those places if their water use were more efficient. This is the kind of thing that markets can actually solve pretty well, as they allow people to adjust their usage to prices. Naturally, prices must be in tune with actual costs.

SwellJoe 11y ago

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy, account for half of water usage in California. Texas usage is trending toward oil and gas using a dangerously large amount of water (fracking requires billions of gallons of water at the scale it happens in persistently drought stricken Texas). I am not familiar with New Mexico or Arizona or Nevada, but it would not be surprising to find that one or more industries dominate water usage, and in ways that are not sustainable or responsible. Water usage by individuals, for cleaning and cooking and drinking, is often miniscule, in comparison to industrial usage.

ebiester 11y ago
How are we going to have a city (and food and jobs) without that industrial usage?
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  Stop fracking. It's the most expensive way to get oil out of the ground, and wouldn't be cost-comparable to renewable energy sources if the industry wasn't empowered to use dangerous amounts of water in drought-stricken areas, use eminent domain to steal land for pipelines, and generally externalize every cost, making everyone who doesn't have lobbyists foot the bill for their reckless behavior. At this point, the only reason fracking is profitable is because government is propping it up. Solar and wind (particularly in places like Texas, California and the southwest) is cost-competitive (or even cheaper, if you calculate long-term, because solar panels and wind farms have a very long productive lifetime and quite low ongoing costs, unlike oil and gas), if you take away the crutches that our government provides oil. As for food, meat and dairy doesn't need to be produced in water-starved environments (and probably doesn't need to be consumed at the rate that Americans consume meat and dairy). Again, industry gets a pass and gets to socialize environmental costs that they simply shouldn't be able to externalize. But, he who has the money and the lobbyists makes the laws.