Water shortage in the Southwest - worst quote ever!
quarterpast
Posts: 185
So, I'm a dork and I watch the Weather Channel (not just for weather, but for the little news clips in between). They were just talking about how there is a new 5,000 home community being built near Las Vegas and how that town wants to take water from Arizona, since there isn't enough near this town. (My first question is - why build a town where there isn't water?) Anywho, folks in Arizona are fighting to keep their water since there is continually less and less of it.
The best part - an older gentleman and potential home buyer in the new neighborhood was asked what he thought of the water shortage. His reply: "There is no water shortage...if you have enough money." Seriously? And then his wife said they wouldn't sell these homes if there wasn't enough water, looked to her husband for approval of the statement and he agreed. All I could think was "What?!"
Golf courses are not meant to be in deserts, nor are giant homes. Some people are taking the 8 year drought out there too lightly...and the fact that it doesn't look like things will get better any time soon. After all, it's a desert! Even Indian populations, much more adapted to the environment there, have been wiped out due to drought.
The best part - an older gentleman and potential home buyer in the new neighborhood was asked what he thought of the water shortage. His reply: "There is no water shortage...if you have enough money." Seriously? And then his wife said they wouldn't sell these homes if there wasn't enough water, looked to her husband for approval of the statement and he agreed. All I could think was "What?!"
Golf courses are not meant to be in deserts, nor are giant homes. Some people are taking the 8 year drought out there too lightly...and the fact that it doesn't look like things will get better any time soon. After all, it's a desert! Even Indian populations, much more adapted to the environment there, have been wiped out due to drought.
rock bands may come and rock bands may go...
but rock n roll will live forever! - ray davies
but rock n roll will live forever! - ray davies
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cool?
cool............
PEARL JAM~San Antonio, TX. 4~5~03
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This drought in California is a big deal.
I am envisioning a novel where the demise of American society comes when the Central Valley stops growing Americas produce... Feed grain is siphoned from livestock to feed people, the meat and dairy industry collapses, the Ruskies send us relief rations that are poisoned and then invades and bada boom, that's the end.
Back in rreality, this is a very serious issue.
And what is even more unsettling, I've read a few reports, (including the one linked below from National Geographic, so you know these are not all pseudo science reports) that indicate California may be entering a long extended period of drought- decades or even centuries long. Historically, this is has happened here before.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140213-california-drought-record-agriculture-pdo-climate/
Some key points from that article:
"B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadrought—one that could last for 200 years or more."
"During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself,"
"Given that California is one of the largest agricultural regions in the world, the effects of any drought, never mind one that could last for centuries, are huge. About 80 percent of California's freshwater supply is used for agriculture. The cost of fruits and vegetables could soar, says Cantu. "There will be cataclysmic impacts."
75 years before it's gone. Not 75 years before it's unlivable because of severe annual flooding (I was more being figurative when I said underwater, but yeah, give it 100 years and it will be a literal statement!).
I think I need to build a Homestead in Washington.
Only one problem- the population in Washington when I was born was 2.424 million. Today it's 7.062 Imagine how those numbers will grow when people start mass exiting places like California and Phoenix, etc.
Washington's population numbers are much lower number than CA of course but the difference is usable land. Most of the population in Washington state is concentrated on the eastern half of the Olympic Peninsula and the areas surrounding the Puget Sound. Other than than you have Forks (that lovely place where the Twilight series books take place? Average rainfall 119 inches per year plus an additional 13" of snow , higher than average unemployment and a high murder rate to go along with all that... but it is green!) or Eastern Washington (everything east of the Cascades) which is a miserable part of the world- very dry and super hot summers/ super cold winter.
I lived in Washington from around 1990 to 1994 and saw the same kind of changes happening there I've seen her in my home state. I think the best place to ride out the new world is wherever family and friends are. In other words, where your support group is.
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
I think it was the mob, wasn't it??
Everything else around them...they give a f..k ....
They build snowhalls for skiing in Dubai just to have fun.
Can you imagine how many water and energie is needed to make this successful in the desert 364 days a year?
Megalomania is greeting people everywhere in the world who don´t have enough water to live or got a poor crop without getting enough water.
We all stand behind things like this bc we do nothing.
No, we go to Las Vegas and have fun. And don´t look behind that. And let people built new homes in the desert...
and let big concerns take all the water for free for fracking to make heaps of money and pollute the nature...
Money rules the world - not sane and keen mind nor empathy or foresight...
We have to stand up!
We hear people all the time say, "Nothing is going to change. We're helpless in a world run by greed. We can't make a difference so why bother?"
To that I would respond, how can we not bother? Why would we not do what makes sense and is the right thing? I don't understand that fatalistic view that doing nothing will not make a difference. Tell that to Gandhi. Tell that to the Civil Rights workers of the fifties and sixties. Tell that to the Sea Shepherds who have save thousands of sea mammals lives. Etc.
I stand with you kce8.
Local water main break this morning - one of many on a regular basis - and then we have the DWP royally fucking up. Or drunk assholes shearing fire hydrants.
So much waste.
It's just sad, because although money can certainly BUY the things kce mentioned, what is being bought is precious and semi-finite.
Sort of like health, if that makes sense - look at Steve Jobs; nature always trumps a large bank account.
"money can't buy me..."
The Pacific Institute does a lot of research on water issues. They point out that:
--Current cost estimate for the single plant being developed at this time in Carlsbad (in southern California) is one billion dollars.
--Desalinization is very energy consuming. The article points out that, "Desalinated water can cost upwards of $1,900 per acre foot, considerably more than other alternatives such as water conservation and efficiency, stormwater capture, and recycled water."
--There are a number of negative environmental impacts involved in desalinization (see link).
Lets also not forget a very big factor: Population. (I mentioned earlier that has more than triple in my short life span- 63 yrs.- from 10.68 mil to 38.8 mil.)
Unfortunately, the bottom line is there are more cost effective measures that can be put in place now. Also, we would do well to really look at the long term picture. Can we really technologize our way out of the box or are we just putting on billion dollar band aids and throwing more toothpicks under the structure instead of addressing the faulty foundation?
Water Cutbacks Now Mandatory In California For First Time In History
And suddenly California sounds like a place I would not want to go to, let alone live in. I'm not too into drought-stricken places. Makes me feel lucky to live in a rain forest.