Politics Are Water Wars in the Near Future?

[Loren Pechtel]

My back yard last evening. This is a super dry hillside. We got almost 2” of rain in less than an hour. That water is flowing at dangerous speeds.
View attachment 39731

For the last month we have been getting flash flood warnings at least once a week. We sure need the water, but please, not so continuously!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Almost every article I've read mentions that people who live in areas where water shortages are likely in the near future, need to reduce their own water consumption by at least 25%. Lawns need to be replaced for starters, as AA has already done.

We never have had to water our lawn but I know that those in the Western part of the country usually need to water the lawn to keep it from dying. No? I'd let my lawn die before I considered watering it. Would most people be willing to do that without being forced. One doesn't need to use artificial turf, as there are many plants that grow naturally in desert like conditions.

We considered succulents, but then your yard just becomes a big decoration. You can at least use artificial turf for activities.

aa

I'm curious if it is a permeable turf. If it isn't, shame on you.

 

[bilby]

We may have a shortage of water in SoCal right now but on the bright side, we do have a multi billion dollar high speed train that goes nowhere. Thanks governor Newsom.

"Don't blame me, I only do everything possible to block spending on infrastructure!"



You fucking deserve the crapstorm you are about to endure. You are so blissfully unaware of your dependence on critical systems that you feel smugly gleeful at seeing them deteriorate, because it gives you an excuse to deride those who are desperately trying to save you from your own ignorance and arrogance.

If you were on the Titanic, you would be walking around with a sledgehammer, smashing holes in the lifeboats, to demonstrate to everyone how they wouldn't stand up to an iceberg either, and that they should therefore blame the White Star Line for their predicament.

You are not a part of the solution; You are a part of the problem. And you are proud of that fact, which makes you a serious danger to everyone around you.

Isn’t the problem in CA that those in authority are incompetent?

It seems unlikely. I mean, their political opponents make that claim, but unless you have evidence that people without an axe to grind also make it, it seems more likely that those in authority in CA are roughly as incompetent as those in authority elsewhere.

Not really about the amount spent on infrastructure? ‘cause that’s been a lot.

Has it? What constitutes "a lot"?

How many big water infrastructure projects have there been in the recent past - say, the last couple of decades - compared to the number and size of such projects in the more distant past - say, the nineteen fifties and sixties? Or earlier?

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Almost every article I've read mentions that people who live in areas where water shortages are likely in the near future, need to reduce their own water consumption by at least 25%. Lawns need to be replaced for starters, as AA has already done.

We never have had to water our lawn but I know that those in the Western part of the country usually need to water the lawn to keep it from dying. No? I'd let my lawn die before I considered watering it. Would most people be willing to do that without being forced. One doesn't need to use artificial turf, as there are many plants that grow naturally in desert like conditions.

We considered succulents, but then your yard just becomes a big decoration. You can at least use artificial turf for activities.

aa

I'm curious if it is a permeable turf. If it isn't, shame on you.

It is

aa

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

It'll cost money, but honestly, let's make one thing clear, the Government spent a fortune on water works projects in the SW to making living there possible for the last 80 or so years. Time is due for the next investment.

^ This.

There's no shortage of water. There's a shortage of infrastructure, and a shortage of the will to spend money on public works.

The only reason most of these places are inhabited and inhabitable in the first place is that a shitload of infrastructure was put in place, at great expense, by governments that wanted to encourage the development of these regions as viable places to live.

The lack of political will to maintain, repair, replace or upgrade that infrastructure isn't due to atmospheric changes, it's due to the rightward drift of the political climate in the USA, and the failure by right wing anti-government loons to recognise that the vast majority of their life support systems came from government in the first place, and not from god, nature, or the unaided toil of their parents and grandparents.

Also, the primary thing causing the draught also can create energy. Both Solar and Wind are gradually replacing non-renewables so desalinization shouldn't be so expensive for long.

aa

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It'll cost money, but honestly, let's make one thing clear, the Government spent a fortune on water works projects in the SW to making living there possible for the last 80 or so years. Time is due for the next investment.

^ This.

There's no shortage of water. There's a shortage of infrastructure, and a shortage of the will to spend money on public works.

The only reason most of these places are inhabited and inhabitable in the first place is that a shitload of infrastructure was put in place, at great expense, by governments that wanted to encourage the development of these regions as viable places to live.

The lack of political will to maintain, repair, replace or upgrade that infrastructure isn't due to atmospheric changes, it's due to the rightward drift of the political climate in the USA, and the failure by right wing anti-government loons to recognise that the vast majority of their life support systems came from government in the first place, and not from god, nature, or the unaided toil of their parents and grandparents.

Also, the primary thing causing the draught also can create energy. Both Solar and Wind are gradually replacing non-renewables so desalinization shouldn't be so expensive for long.

aa

You be trollin' bilby now.

 

[Elixir]

My back yard last evening. This is a super dry hillside. We got almost 2” of rain in less than an hour. That water is flowing at dangerous speeds.
View attachment 39731

Neighbor’s rain gauge registered 3” in under an hour. It was pretty incredible. Something like it happened about 20 years ago, but not since. No big damage … a couple inches in the garage, dried out today. Greenhouse water line was10”, but it drained too and will be okay if I can dry it out before mold and mushrooms take over.
Here’s the dog yard mid storm

 

[Infidel Savant]

I guess it depends where you live. We don't have water shortages here in my area of Florida.

 

[Swammerdami]

nytimes.com/2022/08/04/opinion/drought-climate-colorado-river.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DFDm4eiOMNAo6B_EGKabBketQzw3GQQN5EOaMiAfd1yuhFNkBqDhOpvJae3pQ

Miscellaneous remarks:

• The Colorado River is (was?) one of the great rivers of North America. Here you can see part of this great river gushing to its mouth in the Golfo de California:
  
  
  
  
  Usage of the river's water is often treated as a family squabble among U.S. states. If I were Mexico and had nuclear weapons, I might demand a better seat at the table!
  
  
• The Board has Pollyannas who, in other threads, insist that depletion of rivers and aquifers due to overpopulation is NOT an issue — just desalinate some salt water. (Or move California's agriculture industry to the Yukon — I can't keep up with Pollyanna's solutions.) Yet the articles about water shortage generally overlook such simple solutions. What gives?
  
  
• I don't have to fly all the way to USA to hear about rivers running out of potable water. Long-term drought and upstream dams have hit the Mekong with a double-whammy: "The Mekong River ecosystem is on the verge of irreversible collapse due to the accumulative effects of climate change and increased numbers of upstream dams as well as other human-made activities such as deforestation, sand mining, extensive irrigation for agriculture and wetland conversion." "In some places in the north, the mighty Mekong has slowed almost to a trickle. The water has changed to an ominous color and begun filling with globs of algae. Catches from the world’s largest inland fishery have dwindled, and the fish that are being caught are so emaciated that they can only be used to feed other fish." China controls the upstream Mekong and is building massive dams and reservoirs. But again, the downstream countries dependent on that River do not have nuclear weapons.
  
  The Ganges — holiest of all rivers, according to some — is another river in trouble. Again this may be partly a geopolitical crisis: China has some control over headwaters in Tibet and the glaciers which feed the Ganges.
  
  
• Finally I'll mention that southernhybrid's link didn't work for me (I got the usual "free articles used up" message). Does that mean the gifting was used up by the time I clicked?
  
  I was able to use the URL (with the '?' and everything after stripped off) without problem on Chrome, where I have Javascript disabled. This gives easy access to NYTimes, though it doesn't work for Washington Post IIRC.
  
  (To get Chrome to load nicely and promptly I first had to KILL the "Google Chrome Installer"; I killed an Adobe Flash Installer for good measure. Have I mentioned that I think my laptop may be riddled with malware? It doesn't bother me much, in part because I regard Microsoft- and Google-ware as the paragons of malware themselves!)

 

[Politesse]

The Board has Pollyannas who, in other threads, insist that depletion of rivers and aquifers due to overpopulation is NOT an issue — just desalinate some salt water. (Or move California's agriculture industry to the Yukon — I can't keep up with Pollyanna's solutions.) Yet the articles about water shortage generally overlook such simple solutions. What gives?

Both "solutions" would create more problems than they solved, though we make further advances in desalinization technology every year, so that may yet prove to become a larger portion of the solution in coming years.

The idea of "moving" all of California's farms and Republicans up to the Yukon is charming in a comic book sort of way, but I hope you aren't suggesting that this would solve any water related problems. No, almonds wouldn't grow up there anyway. The solutions to ag overuse must be found here, and as with the other case, we have not been idle. California umiversities like UC Davis and UC Riverside have pushed water efficiency technology ahead to monumental effect over the last few decades, and will continue.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

No. People are more likely to fight over that their little god told them.

 

[southernhybrid]

Finally I'll mention that southernhybrid's link didn't work for me (I got the usual "free articles used up" message). Does that mean the gifting was used up by the time I clicked?

Sorry about that. Gifted articles are supposed to be available for two weeks, but for some reason, they don't always work.

I missed a few posts. Has anyone mentioned the problems with desalinization, regarding the excessive carbon output and the possible damage to sea life, etc. Does anyone know if research is being done to make desalinization less harmful to the environment? I admit I am trying to learn more about the ways to solve these water shortages, which is why I'm adding so many links.

I did see a list of states most impacted and much to my delight, Georgia is one of about 5 states that isn't expected to be negatively impacted by water shortages. Still, we do sometimes have droughts here, so nothing is certain.

 

[southernhybrid]

No. People are more likely to fight over that their little god told them.

Perhaps, but there has been some fighting in Mexico due to the severe water shortage there. Government workers who deliver water have been attacked for not providing as much water as residents want. Plus, there are a lot of articles that use the term "water wars", which is why I chose that term. Regardless, water shortages are going to cause a lot of misery.

Here's another article about the European water shortage. Hope this one will be available for anyone who wants to read it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/...w8GxrO4kL68n3v8dr5hh-ASGvxuU9g&smid=url-share

France declared Friday that it was in the grip of its “most severe” drought, one that has also desiccated large areas of Europe this summer, causing wildfires and imperiling crops astemperature records shatter across the continent.

“This drought is the most severe recorded in our country,” Élisabeth Borne, the French prime minister, said in a statement on Friday.

Ms. Borne said France had received insufficient rainfall and had been hit in recent weeks by an “accumulation of successive heat waves,” increasing demand for water even as precious reserves evaporated in seemingly endless days of sweltering heat. She urged the French to be “very vigilant” about their water usage.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

We're not unlike the Kaibab deer. You overpopulate and overconsume, you suffer. You forget you're a piece of a natural balanced framework, you weaken and collapse. Let's just keep kicking the can down the road. Oh, eventually you run out of road. Maybe we already have.

 

[TomC]

We're not unlike the Kaibab deer. You overpopulate and overconsume, you suffer. You forget you're a piece of a natural balanced framework, you weaken and collapse. Let's just keep kicking the can down the road. Oh, eventually you run out of road. Maybe we already have.

I don't know who, but someone once described man as "The rational animal".

Yeah, right.
Tom

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

We're not unlike the Kaibab deer. You overpopulate and overconsume, you suffer. You forget you're a piece of a natural balanced framework, you weaken and collapse. Let's just keep kicking the can down the road. Oh, eventually you run out of road. Maybe we already have.

I don't know who, but someone once described man as "The rational animal".

Yeah, right.
Tom

Even idiots can do things rational.

We lived in El Paso for two years in an upstairs apartment with a swamp cooler. Are swamp coolers still the thing? Pretty cheap way to cool I thought when the humidity is low. Wouldn't work around here but the AC gets used sparingly. Wouldn't need it at all except for the heat island effect. Friends living in the boonies cool off at night au naturale.

 

[TomC]

Friends living in the boonies cool off at night au naturale.

I don't wait until night.

Wanna know what I'm wearing right now, on a hot humid Saturday afternoon?

Yep.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

^^^ TMI

 

[Rhea]

One thing I would like to see is much MUCH more regulation of factories that bottle water.

I believe there is one in California that has nearly completey dried up a lake, because the original permit had no limits on it. I believe those should be rescinded and re-written.

Bottled water is a huge cause of water being wasted. When I see them after an event, with many of them half full and about to be dumped, I can only cringe at the community whose source was used to fill them - perhaps california - only to be dumped half-used in an area with so much water that we don’t even get forest fires. We should be using our own tapwater and not makig these wasteful cases of bottled water an expectation at every event.


Anecdote: I remember one of my California cousins visiting and as we drove on the interstate (80 in PA) someone in the ca ahead of us flicked a cigarette out the window. He freaked out. Called out what he saw and expected us to stop and make sure the flame was out and call the police. Different for California Boy than for us, where it is just nasty litter. He couldn’t believe we would see that and just keep driving.

 

[TomC]

Bottled water is a huge cause of water being wasted.

Personally, I see single use plastic bottles as the bigger problem.
Tom