As the Great Salt Lake Dries Up, Utah Faces 'An Environmental Nuclear Bomb' (yahoo.com) 304
The state of Utah has the largest saltwater lake in the entire western hemisphere — but it's like the tide went out and never came back, warns the New York Times. [Alternate URL here.]
"If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here's what's in store." The lake's flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.
Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous.
The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah's population. "We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that's going to go off if we don't take some pretty dramatic action," said Joel Ferry, a Republican state lawmaker and rancher who lives on the north side of the lake.
As climate change continues to cause record-breaking drought, there are no easy solutions. Saving the Great Salt Lake would require letting more snowmelt from the mountains flow to the lake, which means less water for residents and farmers. That would threaten the region's breakneck population growth and high-value agriculture — something state leaders seem reluctant to do. Utah's dilemma raises a core question as the country heats up: How quickly are Americans willing to adapt to the effects of climate change, even as those effects become urgent, obvious, and potentially catastrophic...?
Until recently, that hydrological system existed in a delicate balance... [T]wo changes are throwing that system out of balance. One is explosive population growth, diverting more water from those rivers before they reach the lake. The other shift is climate change, according to Robert Gillies, a professor at Utah State University and Utah's state climatologist. Higher temperatures cause more snowpack to transform to water vapor, which then escapes into the atmosphere, rather than turning to liquid and running into rivers. More heat also means greater demand for water for lawns or crops, further reducing the amount that reaches the lake....
The lake's surface area, which covered about 3,300 square miles in the late 1980s, has since shrunk to less than 1,000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here's what's in store." The lake's flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.
Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous.
The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah's population. "We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that's going to go off if we don't take some pretty dramatic action," said Joel Ferry, a Republican state lawmaker and rancher who lives on the north side of the lake.
As climate change continues to cause record-breaking drought, there are no easy solutions. Saving the Great Salt Lake would require letting more snowmelt from the mountains flow to the lake, which means less water for residents and farmers. That would threaten the region's breakneck population growth and high-value agriculture — something state leaders seem reluctant to do. Utah's dilemma raises a core question as the country heats up: How quickly are Americans willing to adapt to the effects of climate change, even as those effects become urgent, obvious, and potentially catastrophic...?
Until recently, that hydrological system existed in a delicate balance... [T]wo changes are throwing that system out of balance. One is explosive population growth, diverting more water from those rivers before they reach the lake. The other shift is climate change, according to Robert Gillies, a professor at Utah State University and Utah's state climatologist. Higher temperatures cause more snowpack to transform to water vapor, which then escapes into the atmosphere, rather than turning to liquid and running into rivers. More heat also means greater demand for water for lawns or crops, further reducing the amount that reaches the lake....
The lake's surface area, which covered about 3,300 square miles in the late 1980s, has since shrunk to less than 1,000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Lawn watering can go. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
It's nice to have green grass but you live in Utah. Go with it.
Even before we started having water issues all over, I have despised grass for decades as a horrific waste of resources (not even just water).
People claim we have water crisis here or there but I will believe none of it until water prices go at least 5x, and grass is at best frowned upon with some areas outright banning.
That's not even enough probably but it's at least a start to real water consideration, something we do not do at all in any meaningful way right now.
In the next few years it will be imperative that all water priorities go to crops and drinking water. The earlier we start on that shift the better.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
You are in luck, you don't have to wait until water prices increase 5x. See
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
The red/brown drought areas have been there for awhile and the American West is now in 22 yr. old drought.
By the way, prices are a lagging indicator, not a leading one. The Ayn Rand followers will follow her off a cliff before they look around and get nervous because they are falling.
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Important people play golf and live in country clubs. They can influence, through politicians, the price of a public utility based on a natural resource that they regulate access to.
The free market does not really apply here, since the only costs being recouped is manpower and electrical power. The water is "free".
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Informative)
Yes I know those areas are in drought, why do they still have grass? Why do they pretty much have the same water rates?
Obviously not in a "real" drought if prices are not reflecting the water levels.
Your questions are good, but your conclusion rests on the flawed premise that our government ideally manages the long-term interests of the populace.
As mentioned above, cost is a lagging indicator and legislation even more so. Most of the key water laws around here were written in the 1800's and seemed to consider ground water an unlimited resource. Water levels in the municipal well fields are dropping, but the city is only allowed to charge the current pumping cost, rather than adjust rates to limit demand to a sustainable level, or even start saving for the inevitable need for deeper wells. It clearly isn't sustainable, but a LOT of money is being made in development and selling people lush lawns in the desert, so good luck changing the laws.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering how fast the summary reported the lake to be shrinking, you're right in that "that's not nearly enough". OTOH, it's a movement in the correct direction. If the price of agricultural water increased 5x, it would probably be enough to cause a lot of farms to go elsewhere. This would mean needing to import a lot more food, meaning higher prices. Etc. Together with knock-on effects, this might be enough to stabilize the lake. Perhaps. Or at least slow the shrinkage. And the air occasionally turning poisonous might result in fewer new people setting up residence.
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If the price of agricultural water increased 5x...
Sure but that's not "prioritizing" agriculture, that's the opposite.
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If the price of agricultural water increased 5x...
Sure but that's not "prioritizing" agriculture, that's the opposite.
I would argue that it is prioritizing water-efficient agriculture and punishing water-inefficient agriculture. Some crops are more drought-tolerant than others. If the cost of water goes way up, the growers who find ways to cut consumption will win in the marketplace over the ones that don't, and you'll see a forced shift towards more sustainable agriculture.
On the one hand, you have farmers growing more drought-tolerant varieties of corn, rice, etc. On the other hand, you have people mass-producing almo
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I would argue that it is prioritizing water-efficient agriculture and punishing water-inefficient agriculture.
Well you would be arguing for something that is wrong because the phrase "prioritize agriculture" on its own does not mean prioritize only the water efficient, it means all of it.
Prioritizing water efficient agriculture would of course help with this problem though.
When you have a patient with a flesh-eating bacteria that isn't responding to antibiotics and you remove the limb, you're still prioritizing that patient over other surgeries that were less urgent.
Sometimes you have to do harm to prevent worse harm. Reducing or even wiping out high-water-use agriculture ensures that agriculture can still provide enough food to feed everyone, whereas allowing the tragedy of the commons to continue means causing agriculture to collapse. So raising the price of agricultural
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This would mean needing to import a lot more food, meaning higher prices.
Which seems reasonable if you live in the desert.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Informative)
In the next few years it will be imperative that all water priorities go to crops and drinking water. The earlier we start on that shift the better.
So we're going to save water by "prioritizing" what we already use 90% of our water for? That doesnt seem like a solution to anything.
Agriculture is a huge user of water in some places, a smaller consumer other places. Over half of the water use overall in the US, though, so yes.
Drinking water represents so low a consumption of water that you can't even see it on the pie chart. Blame toilets, showers, and washing machines for a larger consumer use.
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Same with Arizona, where sometimes the Colorado River doesn't even make it all the way to the ocean. The first time this happened someone should have started throwing on the brakes. But agriculture controls politics in most of the west. It's where the majority of jobs are or derive from. I know that here in California the farmers go up in arms any time there's a remote hint of water conservation; though they're still putting in new style irrigation systems at least.
We do need the farms. But we also need
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But agriculture controls politics in most of the west. It's where the majority of jobs are or derive from.
Except the jobs things is just not true. In California agriculture contributes 2-3% to the State GDP including related fields yet uses 80% of the available water. That is just ridiculous. You are very right about "big ag" controlling politicians though. If we the people of the state had any sense we would simply curtail 5% of agriculture. Residential water use is about 4.5% of the total.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
The numbers are easy to find. In 2020 agriculture was 2.7% of Utah state GDP: https://economic-impact-of-ag.... [uada.edu]
It's much the same throughout the West. Agriculture is a massively inefficient user of water. This big-ag firms are only profitable because they have century old "claims" to senior water rights. There are many, many farmers each with rights to 200,000+ acre-feet of water for FREE from their local streams and rivers. For free!! These senior water rights make no sense in our modern world and must be terminated.
Re: Lawn watering can go. (Score:5, Insightful)
We bought a house that happened to have a sprinkler system. The wife thought it might be nice to keep the grass green in July and August. I showed her the math. Following industry rules of thumb, it was going to be 10 thousand gallons per month to have a hope in hell of keeping it green. So, We donâ(TM)t ever use the sprinklers and just let it go dormant/brown in July and august. It always comes back in September, because of morning dew and lower temps. So sure, no grass is a great idea, or a lot less grass. And never water. If the never water part doesnâ(TM)t work for you, then no grass is the only alternative.
Re: Lawn watering can go. (Score:3)
Oh, and for those on wells: itâ(TM)s still a dumb idea and might run afoul of your water districts regulations. Not to sound like a commie, but the water under a town is everyoneâ(TM)s water.
I once lived in a town where a car wash was being built and the owner thought heâ(TM)d put in a well to eliminate his water bill. The town got wind of it and either killed the idea, or was somehow able to charge him a reduced rate on water, since the town didnâ(TM)t bear the cost of purifying or pum
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As for whether the car wash should have been there in the first place? This is âmurica. Itâ(TM)s our god given right to have car washes all over the place. (But only if the vacs are free)
Cars are many peoples second biggest investment (after a house). It makes sense to keep them well maintained for maximum useful life and/or future resale.
Re:Lawn watering can go. (Score:4, Insightful)
The grass lawns should go away, and the way to achieve that is to raise the price of water.
You obviously hate poor people.
The way to get rid of lawns is to just fucking ban them. There's no reason to make it more expensive for people to shower every morning and do their wash, unless you just love the idea of making things worse for people who are on limited incomes.
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That's actually a strawman.
Just don't give away water basically free to agriculture and industry and you'll have plenty of water.
You can also charge a lot more for water and then give human beings who earn below a certain income a water credit.
And you can escalate water per 1,000 gallons usage but give a credit for multi-person households.
South Africa works like that (Score:4, Informative)
There's a basic entitlement to water for everyone. Doing this here could be done by massively increasing the price of water, but give everyone a significant, fixed amount, discount. So the rich pay a LOT more, and the poor get free water up to a reasonable amount.
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You obviously hate poor people.
You don't have a clue about water policy. The subsidies go to agriculture corporations, not "poor people".
Residential customers, including the poor, pay 15 times as much as farmers growing rice and cotton in the desert.
In a free market, the poor would pay less.
Many proposals for water reform include a "free tier" of 100 liters per day at no cost. That is enough for drinking, cleaning, washing, and flushing.
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OK, let's say a family of 3 has a typical new water closet (toilet, crapper, whatever you want to call it) that uses 1.6 gallons per flush. Google tells me that it will get flushed a rough average of 5 times a day per person. That's 24 gallons per day, or almost the entire 100 liters you say is good for drinking, cleaning, washing, and flushing. Yes, you ca
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Sorry that I was unclear. The "free tier" proposal is 100 liters per day per person, not per household.
I don't know the details of how the water utility is supposed to know how many people in the household. Perhaps they can go by the number of bedrooms.
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I have a grass lawn, but I also live in the North East and I don't water it, normal rain will do the job. In my area a lawn is an effective barrier to make sure trees don't grow too near the home and break the foundation with its roots,
However if you live in other parts of the world that you need extra effort to keep grass growing, it really seems like you are just trying to live like a North Easterner who often has lawns for practical reasons, just for ascetic ones. If you live in a dessert embrace it.
H
Re:Lawn watering can go. (Score:5, Insightful)
doubling the price of ater, from $20/month to $40/month, wont really add much to the cost of water for people who only use it for drinking and such.
Yes, it will. There are people who live off rice and beans for 3 weeks, and nothing on the 4th week. $20/month goes a long way.
In exchange, those who pay $300/month to water their lawn will pay $600 just as well. It will be a status symbol, as is their 7-figure home and their 6-figure car parked in front.
Re: Lawn watering can go. (Score:2)
Re: Lawn watering can go. (Score:4, Insightful)
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What if the price of water usage remained normal up to a specified volume, then jumped for any usage over that? Just make sure that line isn't placed to screw the people who aren't quite drowning in debt yet.
This was actually my thought too, but as I think about it there would be some headaches. You'd probably want to set water allocation based on household head count, and I can only imagine the nightmare that would be to administer. Although I think if you set the number of allocated gallons at the 'discount' rate based on a occupancy of, say, 6 adults, you'd probably not be too disruptive for the vast majority of people while still kicking use for things like grass and pools into a much higher punitive pric
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I mean, move to another part of the state or another state that doesn't have water problems and an overall lower cost of living.
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Most household water use is for washing, drinking makes up a very small percentage. Many people in cities don't even have gardens.
If the price of water goes up, many people will respond with a reduction in hygiene standards.
We really don't have a shortage of water, we have water of the wrong type (eg saltwater) or in the wrong place. Use of water does not destroy the water, it merely moves it or renders it dirty/polluted.
What's happened is that in some places water is being used faster than the natural cycl
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Water use will drop further with factory meat (Score:5, Interesting)
The big consumer is agriculture
Very true. But, if Tony Seba and his think tank RethinkX are correct, we are less than ten years away from a giant disruption of agriculture, specifically of dairy and then meat. I commented on this recently:
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21435268&cid=62581370 [slashdot.org]
Here's a direct link to the video. (The agriculture stuff is about 45 minutes in.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj96nxtHdTU [youtube.com]
We will still need plants. But cows need water, and the feed for cows takes water, and just growing milk protein in a factory doesn't need very much water. This will make a difference.
I had heard that almonds in California are this crazy thing that wastes water, but when I looked it up in Google I found that the most water-intensive crop is apparently alfalfa [msfagriculture.com]... which is mainly grown to feed cows.
If Tony Seba is right, the next decade is going to be devastating for dairy farmers and then meat farmers. But the amount of water needed will be greatly reduced.
Re:Water use will drop further with factory meat (Score:4, Insightful)
RethinkX probably isn't right, about a lot of things. Anybody trying to sell you on "near zero marginal cost energy" is blowing smoke up your ass, based on current technologies. It's the kind of understanding you'd get of the energy industry if you mostly read blog posts.
The US dairy industry is already heavily subsidized, for a lot of reasons. This guy is arguing that you can just draw a straight line down to zero cost based on historical advancement from "near infinite cost" to "only mildly expensive" for things like petri grown proteins. I sincerely doubt that's true, but even if it is you'll simply see the price control mechanisms and political pressure to avoid social disruption push against it. Couple that with the fact that all these "lab foods" run directly counter to the current organic health food craze and I don't see adoption happening nearly as fast as proponents think.
Not to mention while we might be better at replicating edible proteins, natural foods like meat and dairy are far more than protein (full of things like complex amino acids, for example). Right now we're at the point we can create edible sludge with a fraction of the nutritional value of "real" food. We aren't 5 years away from displacing what is currently consumed, at best we're getting close to lowering the cost (marginally) of very low grade components of various processed food stuffs. Maybe I'll live to see us eating star-trek replicator style synthetic meat and cheese, but I sincerely doubt it. More than likely you'll see the very poorest, lowest rungs of society fed the laboratory food while the existing production of "real" food increasingly becomes a luxury for the wealthy.
Re:Water use will drop further with factory meat (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody trying to sell you on "near zero marginal cost energy" is blowing smoke
Tony Seba made three claims I found compelling:
* The costs have come down so much on solar and wind that they are now the cheapest energy, as long as you can deal with their inherent variability.
* Once solar and wind are built, you have maintenance expenses but no "fuel" expenses. So they cost less on an ongoing basis.
* If you massively overbuild production (which is cheap) while building just enough battery storage (which is expensive) then you can get through the worst days and have a really inexpensive surplus on the best days.
I wouldn't bet anything important on his graphs being perfectly accurate. But I think the trend lines are clear.
This guy is arguing that you can just draw a straight line down to zero cost based on historical advancement from "near infinite cost" to "only mildly expensive" for things like petri grown proteins.
Well, I identified three things he said were coming:
* Using "precision fermentation" to make milk proteins, disrupting dairy.
* Using "precision fermentation" to help make fake meat (cf. the "Impossible Burger")
* Growing meat in factories, most likely using "precision fermentation" to provide necessary nutrients for the meat
All three of these have been demonstrated in real life. I went to my local grocery store and bought a couple pints of Brave Robot brand ice cream, which is dairy that never was inside a cow. (IMHO it didn't taste right... they used coconut oil instead of milk fats and to me tasted obviously different. But I've had really cheap ice cream made from real milk that was worse.) Obviously Impossible Burger is a real thing. And there is a factory meat plant in California [bloomberg.com] now, hoping they will get approval to start selling their meat. (At 50,000 pounds of meat per year they will be a tiny drop in the bucket of meat sales. For now.)
We aren't 5 years away from displacing what is currently consumed, at best we're getting close to lowering the cost (marginally) of very low grade components of various processed food stuffs
Do you think giant food companies who make protein bars would hesitate to buy real milk protein that came from a factory instead of a cow? I don't. It's real milk protein.
According to Tony Seba, almost a third of dairy business is wholesale milk protein, and that is about to be disrupted.
My understanding is that dairy farmers are already not doing very well financially. What will happen if 30 percent of their business is taken by a lower-cost alternative? We are about to find out.
Pump seawater into it (Score:2)
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I have to admit the idea crossed my mind too when I clicked on TFA, after reading TFS.
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It's probably an excellent idea (with problems) until you start talking about the cost.
As others have said, sea water is less salty than the salt-lake is, so add it all at one end, so you keep a gradient, with one stripe remaining about as salty as the current lake. Eventually, of course, you'll end up with a solid block of salt, and then you can cut off chunks and sell them.
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This will increase the amount of salt in the lake even if the volume of water is maintained or increased. Sea water is less salty than the lake so the first top-up will lower the salinity from what it is now but it will still be saltier than it was when the lake was last at the topped-up level. And next time it evaporates down to the current level it will be saltier than it is now.
I bet an environmental assessment of the idea will reveal it to be, at best, a long-term time bomb. Adding salt is easy; taki
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The salt lake is losing water due to reduced rainfall and reduced snowmelt reaching the lake. Fresh water flows into the lake are being redirected elsewhere. The obvious solution is to increase fresh water flows into the lake. Seawater wouldn't fit the bill.
At the risk of being down modded in the pulp (Score:4, Insightful)
The America of today could never even get a rocket off the ground much less land on the Moon if we didn't already have the tech from previous generations who still understood what it means to come together as a nation and solve problems.
Re:At the risk of being down modded in the pulp (Score:5, Insightful)
When we as a nation face problems that are too big to be solved with free market solutions
1. Water policy in the American Southwest has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with a "free market". It is based on huge government infrastructure spending plus massive taxpayer-funded subsidies for the biggest wasters.
2. A free market for water would be a VAST improvement over the current situation. If water was priced-to-market, consumption would be dramatically reduced.
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Free markets are lagging "policies" if I can call them policies. They only work to keep an equilibrium in a closed system. The water in the American West is not a closed system. 22 yrs. of drought has not yet brought about conservation because the free market resists accommodating externalities. The free market also doesn't work at the sources of a problem, it only views the results. It is a recipe for disaster because it cannot prevent squat.
You completely misunderstood my point (Score:2)
If water was priced to market all you would see is rent seeking. You would see companies creating shortages in order to increase profits. That's what happen
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You're oversimplifying the problem. The land currently contains more people than is sustainable without artificial measures.
We are growing crops in places that don't make sense for those crops. We don't need them for our survival. For example the people who grow the almonds make a little money, the people who grow the rice make a lot of money, neither one pays much in taxes, both get water very very cheap, so in the end both of these crops are unprofitable for California. I have to imagine the same thing is happening in most other states, too. The agriculture uses many times as much water as people in their residences, so you re
Re: At the risk of being down modded in the pulp (Score:2)
If by "come together" you mean take my money and give it to somebody else, then, yeah, fuck that.
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I'd add to this is that Utah in general is probably conservatism at its most noble. Good neighbors and probably the most willing to attempt to live up to Christian ideals.
If you can't make some type of peace with them, perhaps it is you who has the problem.
Hope they can work through this.
Re:Pretty stupid to say one party is better (Score:4, Insightful)
They are nice individually but collectively their decisions of (1) high birth rate, and (2) no environmental controls, particularly anything which hurts #1 may still be dangerous and foolish.
Re:Pretty stupid to say one party is better (Score:4, Funny)
They are working through this, they are praying for Jesus to save them and their lake. Problem solved.
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If you can't make some type of peace with them, perhaps it is you who has the problem.
I cant talk for the above but I'll have a problem with them for as long as they send their children to my front door to try to talk to me about religion.
My house is on a common rout for these people and their visits are common enough to where I now feel compelled to look out my front door's peephole before answering the door to unexpected knocking during the day. I do this not because I worry over safety (my neighborhood is quite safe) but because I don't want to be bothered by Mormons.
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I'm trying really, really hard to imagine the cops in Utah even bothering to show up when you complain that Mormons are coming to your door, but I'm just not managing it.
Re:Pretty stupid to say one party is better (Score:5, Insightful)
But that was 30+ years ago and while some of the congressional members have been in office just that long the political winds have one side completely opposed to solutions to these problems at least at a national level. Pretending that both sides are the same is ignoring everything that they are campaigning for. One side regularly talks about abolishing the EPA, the other is trying to walk the line between losing a few precious Green Party voters and corporate funding. I'm not a fan of the Democrat's environmental policy since it's too weak, but lets not pretend the other side hasn't doesn't get a hard on when they hear the chant 'Drill Baby Drill'.
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"If we'd had a bit more "Drill Baby Drill" in years prior to today, we'd likely not be seeing $5+ per gallon gasoline prices today."
Seriously?? You really think that? Why??
10 seconds of typing and I find this fact checker:
"President Biden claimed that there are 9,000 unused oil drilling permits. That’s mostly true.
At the end of 2021, there were about 9,000 approved permits to drill. They include some issued under Biden and some still active from Trump."
So, despite having over 9,000 (9,173 apparently -
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We have nothing to transition to because gas has been kept cheap.
Gas must be kept cheap because we have nothing to transition to.
Catch-22, brought to us by the rightwing policies you're so fond of.
In the meantime, like I said, civilization if facing a total meltdown within decades. $9 gas, even if it happens this week, is NOTHING compared to the consequences of keeping gas cheap.
Re:Pretty stupid to say one party is better (Score:5, Insightful)
Please try respecting other people and thinking instead, how can we solve problems.
It's hard to respect Republicans when their party is actively anti-environment, and we live here. It's hard to solve problems while Republicans are actively creating them for profit. False equivalence is false.
One party is provably better for the environment than the other. It's spectacularly stupid to suggest otherwise. There is a paper trail.
Massive infrastructure spending (Score:5, Interesting)
See the dirty Little secret of the baby boomers success is that the government heavily subsidized housing and businesses infrastructure needs in order to keep the economy expanding so that productivity would go up and it would be more goods produced keeping inflation extremely low even though wages aren't going up. Add to that a tech boom created by the government infrastructure program called the internet and that housing boom created by all that infrastructure spending and the boomers were able to produce a huge amount of wealth for themselves.
Fast forward to today and we've been doing austerity politics since around 1998. This means that the price of housing and goods has been going up but we've been keeping wages low. We've been keeping wages low on purpose because neoliberal pieces of shit think that low wages will help keep inflation down. That's what these latest round of interest rates are about. It's supposed to get you and me fired so that we're desperately work and lower our wages and then companies are going to cut prices because they don't have to spend as much paying you and me.
We basically been balancing the books on the backs of Gen X, and M and Z. None of this was necessary there was plenty of money but we also wanted to give 50 to 70% of all the money to 1% of the population. Americans are big on hero worship and we fall all over ourselves to hand money to billionaires...
So where does that leave us? Well we haven't been building cities or factories and we've been allowing massive market consolidation. This means we have robber barons and monopolies all over the place raising prices with impunity. And of course because there's a democrat in the white house we're going to blame them for that. So you have things like the baby formula shortage which was caused because there are now only three companies and three factories owned by those companies making baby formula and one of the three companies shut down and Donald Trump's tariffs made it impossible to import baby formula without a literal emergency executive order... Hence $140 baby formula sold by scalpers. Oh, and of course we doubt criminalize scalping baby formula. Or if we do the laws are so poorly enforced it doesn't matter. Because the free market is everything and scalping baby formula is just another part of the free market.
So to get back to your original question what would voting Democrats do? It would get you trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending that would result in new cities being built and water being sent to the cities and water being used to grow food. That would reduce prices. It would also result in higher wages thanks to Democrats support unions and collective bargaining and those wages wouldn't raise prices because we would break up the monopolies that have been allowed to form and bring back competition.
If you're a capitalist you need to vote democrat. Capitalism requires regulation. It's a complex machine like any complex machine it requires maintenance. The Republican party has refused to do that maintenance. Eventually the system is going to break down and when it does instead of capitalism you're going to have Chinese style kleptocracy
Re:Pretty stupid to say one party is better (Score:5, Interesting)
You conservatives have been so focused on killing Rie v. Wade and making sure that schizophrenic 18-year olds all have access to assault rifles, you havent bothered doing anything else. You think “we can address those lesser problems after we get our pet projects done”. But youve created a monster: an electorate that’s used to tearing things down, distrusts nearly everything, and has no real understanding of how to move the ball forward. Democrats are far from perfect, but generally that group hasnt been working to program voters in this manner. “Listen to the scientists” is a message that resonates with half the voters or less
Water Cycle (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been wondering how much of a feedback loop there is in these types of systems with regards to the west drying up.
If the water in the west wasn't diverted and spread out for fields and lawns, with so much of it being absorbed by the ground that would have otherwise flowed into lakes and ponds, would the west be as dry as it otherwise would be with climate change in such a hurry?
In this case, the question would be, if the Great Salt Lake was the original size, how would that affect rainfall within 500 miles? How about the temperature?
I'd have to think that at some level, there is a feedback loop. A big lake would provide moisture for evaporation, which would then fall in the mountains 'around' that lake. How much does this affect the local climate? Would a larger lake bring down the temperatures surrounding the lake?
I wouldn't think it would be anything close to offset the overall effects of climate change and reduced precipitation, but, how does this affect the overall timing, severity and duration of these cycles?
Do we have anyone about to write a grad paper that would like to chime in, or share some results?
--
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. - W. H. Auden
Re: Water Cycle (Score:2)
No grad paper, but I just want to say me-too about the question. The hot wet places arent having the same fires. If CA used seawater pumped into Sierra Nevadas to make saline lakes, (maybe use as kinetic battery for renewables) what effect for surroundings?
Re: Water Cycle (Score:4, Insightful)
If CA used seawater pumped into Sierra Nevadas to make saline lakes, (maybe use as kinetic battery for renewables) what effect for surroundings?
You don't want salt in aquifers. That would be the effect. It's a dumb idea.
Don't look up (Score:2)
We all know the world is now doing fairly well, but it is going to shit if we do not act within the century.
Yet nobody really cares about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Why should the people that have the power? They'll be dead in 20-30 years, and nothing too bad will happen before that.
Sure, it may get hotter in some places, but they can afford air conditioning. And food will get more expensive, but they can afford that. So why bother doing anything?
3300 sq mi - 1000 sq mi in 50 years? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a hard time believing that's due to anthropogenic global warming - it's way too drastic a change over way too short an interval. Now if you said it was caused by other human actions... I could easily believe that, but you'd have to provide sufficient believable detail.
Wait... let's go look at some easy-to-find data.Wikipedia states the lake's size has fluctuated greatly over time. 1980 was a historical peak at 3300 square miles; 1963 set a previous historic low of 950 square miles. Back in 1873 it wa
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are you getting "global warming"? Nowhere in the summary or the Yahoo! article (I don't have a Times subscription) mentioned the word "warming". Even in the summary they said one of the culprits is population growth.
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Where are you getting "global warming"? Nowhere in the summary or the Yahoo! article (I don't have a Times subscription) mentioned the word "warming". Even in the summary they said one of the culprits is population growth.
It's pretty clear to me (I live in Utah) that it's both. It's population growth combined with a long, severe drought that is looking less like a drought and more like aridification; climate change making this part of the Mountain West -- which is already a high desert -- hotter and drier than before. That we're likely seeing permanent aridification is the general consensus among regional climatologists and geologists.
Population growth by itself is probably enough to account for some reduction in lake leve
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Looks like someone didn't RTFA.
Go back, then read, then return and apologize.
Harsh realities (Score:4, Funny)
$Deity forbid that mitigating an entirely predictable environmental catastrophe of their own making "threaten the region's breakneck population growth and high-value agriculture"!
They'll need a lot of help, so I'm sending thoughts and prayers!
It's your own doing (Score:2)
Business opportunity (Score:2)
It's time to mine some salt and arsenic before the wind blows it away!
This sounds like liberal science! (Score:2)
Every conservative / republican probably.
And now they want those commie scientists to fix their problems.
How the turn tables. /s
Re: This sounds like liberal science! (Score:2)
Do something about it? (Score:2)
"That would threaten the region's breakneck population growth and high-value agriculture..."
It sounds like those things are threatened anyway. The question is do you manage it or just let an environmental catastrophe unfold.
saltware lakes? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is a "I can't be bothered to spellcheck my submissions"-thing, even though i have the word "Editor" in my chosen alias. It happens quite often.
Yours truly,
Bobba Fett.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is spelled incorrectly.
The fact that the misspelling of a word happens to match the spelling of another word does not mean that the former is spelt correctly.
Slashdot "Editors" should be ashamed of the awful job they do.
Reality asserts itself (Score:2)
"We can have eternal growth with finite resources", "I don't believe in climate change".
They can hold on to those beliefs as they choke to death on a cloud of arsenic or watch everything around them dry up, screaming that it isn't true.
Reality will persist.
And the "nuclear" part is just clickbait (Score:2)
How lame.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
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If you want to discuss something, that's awesome.
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And I'm discussing the meaning of metaphor with you. You clearly needed the help if you thought the "nuclear" in that headline was anything but.
There's a reason it's always been called Salt Lake (Score:3)
That lake has been drying up for the last 11,000 years and was originally part of a massive lake called Lake Bonneville another 20,000 years earlier. When humans settled into that area the lake was already on the decline.
There is no doubt that urban water demands have exacerbated the demise of the lake, but it would have naturally dried up sooner or later.
Climate change caused this? Almost certainly, but that has been going on LONG before humans were around. Normal climate fluctuations are responsible for it's formation in the first place.
Things change naturally, you don't need a boogeyman to explain it.
Re: (Score:3)
The paper makes a brief mention of the overflowing of the lake in the early 80s and the subsequent drainage to reduce the level by 1.8m in the late 80s.
New projects to divert more water continue: https://water.utah.gov/bear-ri... [utah.gov]
Blaming climate change is more popular than "we're using water at a greater rate".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, it is actually both.
Too many people using too much water.
Too many people creating too much co2.
High co2 levels altering climate so there is less snowpack and also so the snow that does fall doesn't stick as much during the winter.
People aren't the problem, agriculture is. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not to many people living in the area, the problem is too much agriculture in what is essentially one giant desert.
https://utahrivers.org/are-we-... [utahrivers.org].
"Farming and ranching accounts for about 85% of Utah’s water use, while indoor use by residents (a water need) consumes a mere 3-4%. In other words, even if our population doubled, our indoor water needs would still only amount to 6-7% of Utah’s total water use—hardly a water crisis."
Much like California, Utah has plenty of water for all its people. What it doesn't have is enough water for all it's people if big ag keeps up their high level of use in the face of a major shortage.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
even if our population doubled, our indoor water needs
Even if I accept the premise (which seems reasonable), you still need to grow the food somewhere. With everyone bitching and moaning about California ag being thirsty, where's the place it's going to go? Kansas (corn/wheat)? Deep south (rice)?
Re:People aren't the problem, agriculture is. (Score:5, Interesting)
What if you removed all the corn subsidies so they used that land to grow more useful food? I mean, you subsidise corn so much, you have to sell it to China for less than what it would cost for them to grow it locally just to get rid of it. They think it's funny that your taxpayers subsidise their corn. Why are corn subsidies such a sacred cow in US politics?
Re:People aren't the problem, agriculture is. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are corn subsidies such a sacred cow in US politics?
Because big portions of the midwest would utterly collapse without them. We're going to decrease corn production in a big way in the immediate future though, because we're preparing to decrease the percentage of ethanol in the fuel specifically in order to decrease the ecological impact. As it turns out (and as I've been saying for years, including here) topsoil-based fuels sell out the future of food production. Corn for ethanol is grown continuously, meaning without crop rotation. It's a farmland destroyer, and it's barely even energy-positive.
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By the way, that statistic is a bit misleading. Overall it's true, but it's the distribution and location of the water that is critical. Not all agriculture happens along the densely-populated Wasatch front, where more than half of all Utahns live. Most agriculture happens in other rural areas that happen to be close to sources of water that have been diverted for agricultural use in other valleys and mountain ranges. It's not like that water could magically be diverted to the Wasatch front to alleviate
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Yes, it accounts for about 85% of the state's water use.
Alfalfa crops alone account for the bulk of the water use. The alfalfa isn't for local use, the vast majority is exported to Asia. And it is by far the most profitable, yielding about a half billion dollars annually at $854 per acre. Wheat is the second most money but only about 8% of the total money at $32M annually or $326/acre, corn at $20M annually, then cherries at $8M annually. [usda.gov] The numbers could shift if farming priorities changed, although it
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Too many people creating too much co2.
We can look at ways to produce energy at low costs.
https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We can look at ways to produce energy with low CO2 emissions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We can look at ways to produce energy that is safe.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
https://www.ans.org/news/artic... [ans.org]
A good thing for us is that a number of energy sources come out on top on these metrics. Not in any specific order we have geothermal, hydro, onshore wind, and nuclear fission. Solar
Re:It is not freaking climate change. (Score:4)
We're already losing population faster than we can produce it. If you want to reduce populations in the United States, your best bet is to go after immigration.
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Why not both? The only truly stupid thing to say is that any major ecological change near people has only one single cause.
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Both problems are happening simultaneously. They interrelate. You don't get to pick just one.
Re:Careful (Score:4, Insightful)
No. He'll get modded to hell because he thinks there's a single cause of a complex problem. You're complaining about other's group think, yet you singularly support any excuse that doesn't include in the words climate change in every scenario that gets discussed on Slashdot.
I don't know about you, but I outgrew the "do the opposite of what everyone else says" phase of my life when I was 13. But your UID is more than 13 years old so why is it that you never grew up?
Re:Careful (Score:5, Informative)
Who said a single cause?
The original post?
It is overpopulation, period.
Re: (Score:3)
If there were only 1 such layer you might have a point, but the fossil record shows multiple events and also thousands of single individual events such as animals getting stuck in bogs or simply dying at sea and falling to the bottom. But you stick to your bible school of simpleton science if it makes you feel happier.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL! It's just Slashcode which was built this way. You might see a red header when the article is freshly published or when you paid a subscription to Slashdot. In that case, it's called "see article in the future" or something like that.
The header turns green after a very short while.
Re: (Score:2)
Typical that people ignore the climate change and deny it is climate change. Grow up.