Study Finds Western Megadrought is the Worst in 1,200 Years (npr.org) 113
Shrunk reservoirs. Depleted aquifers. Low rivers. Raging wildfires. It's no secret that the Western U.S. is in a severe drought. New research published Monday shows just how extreme the situation has become. NPR: The Western U.S. and Northern Mexico are experiencing their driest period in at least 1,200 years, according to the new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The last comparable -- though not as severe -- multi-decade megadrought occurred in the 1500s, when the West was still largely inhabited by American Indian tribes. Today, the region is home to tens of millions of people, massive agricultural centers and some of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. -- all in an area where there's less water available than there was in the past, partially due to human-caused climate change.
"We have a society that's relying on there being the amount of water there was in the 1900's," said the study's lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But now with the number of water molecules available to us declining, it really is time for us to get real about how much water there is for us to use." Williams looked at tree-ring data from thousands of sites to conduct the research. They sampled data collected from live trees, dead trees and wood beams preserved at Native American archeological sites. The tree rings gave Williams an insight into drought events dating back to the year 800 AD, around the same time Charlemagne was being crowned Emperor of Rome. He identified four other megadroughts in that time period, the most notable being a 23-year drought that ended in the late 1500's. There were hopes during a wet 2019 that the current megadrought was following a similar pattern, Williams said. "And then from summer 2020 through all of 2021, it was just exceptionally dry across the West...indicating that this drought is nowhere near done."
"We have a society that's relying on there being the amount of water there was in the 1900's," said the study's lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But now with the number of water molecules available to us declining, it really is time for us to get real about how much water there is for us to use." Williams looked at tree-ring data from thousands of sites to conduct the research. They sampled data collected from live trees, dead trees and wood beams preserved at Native American archeological sites. The tree rings gave Williams an insight into drought events dating back to the year 800 AD, around the same time Charlemagne was being crowned Emperor of Rome. He identified four other megadroughts in that time period, the most notable being a 23-year drought that ended in the late 1500's. There were hopes during a wet 2019 that the current megadrought was following a similar pattern, Williams said. "And then from summer 2020 through all of 2021, it was just exceptionally dry across the West...indicating that this drought is nowhere near done."
News? at 11 from NPR (Score:1, Troll)
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Re:News? at 11 from NPR (Score:5, Insightful)
but for their whole lives it looked green because of how much water they wasted keeping it so
This is one of the things that I've often wondered. Do those crops need to be watered that much?
Another thing I've noticed is the lack of preparedness from some of these farms. Back in the day my grandfather had a good size farm, about 40 acres. At first my he had a large pond set up that he would pull water from if the county couldn't provide enough. Then as time went by he added some home made water towers. He would fill them up during the winter when water was plenty, then use it to shore up his water needs during the dry months.
I've always wondered why this is not standard practice on all farms.
An another thing while I'm at it. We'll pump oil all the way from Canada to Texas. Why don't we pump water from, say the great lakes to Las Vegas?
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This is one of the things that I've often wondered. Do those crops need to be watered that much?
"how much" is poorly defined, but in the last 40 years farms in California have mostly switched from flood irrigation to efficient sprinklers. So the amount of water being used on crops has decreased as water efficient practices have been adopted.
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Cost is a factor. Where water is plentiful there's no perceived need to conserve. So in the area in Oregon near Calfornia border, flood irrigation was common because it's really cheap. Ie, literally the ground is covered. Mosquitoes everywhere to a ridiculous number. Because they had a lot of water. Turns out, those living and farming down-river were running out of water. Now it's a legal fight (damn native Americans, they should go back to where they ca... oh wait...).
A snag is what to do about an exi
Re: News? at 11 from NPR (Score:1)
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Yeah. The Midwest invests significant amounts of infrastructure in routing excess water downstream in a more-or-less orderly manner as efficiently as possible, to avoid floods, which are a far more serious concern than droughts here. And since the people downstream (the Great Lakes or else New Orleans) ALSO have overwhelmingly more water than they can use, nobody complains very much if you use more water than you need to use here. Lawn sp
Re: News? at 11 from NPR (Score:2)
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Interesting thought. A quick look shows water usage in California hasn't gone up a significant amount [pacinst.org]. [PDF] The linked report doesn't take into account programs designed to increase the water flow of rivers.
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Why don't we pump water from, say the great lakes to Las Vegas?
The main reason is because of the continental divide. We do pump water from Colorado to San Diego.
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And sometimes water in the river never makes it to the ocean. Arizona is a problem here too; it's a desert and by diverting water from the river they have some big farms there where logically no farms should exist. It's 19th century thinking implemented in the 20th century, but now it's the 21st century and time to think different. Same issue with Salton Sea, where the Colorado overflowed. Farms sprang up but the lake has been shrinking.
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The main reason is because of the continental divide.
If the pipes are air-tight, then the gravity of the water coming down the other side would largely offset the cost of pumping it up the other.
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I don't think so, the maximum height of a siphon is ~10 meters.
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The main reason is because of the continental divide.
If the pipes are air-tight, then the gravity of the water coming down the other side would largely offset the cost of pumping it up the other.
Nope, doesn't work that way.
A pipeline engineer would know better... but most likely you'd just end up with a near vacuum near the peak and a water column that refused to move any higher. I don't think you can avoid the pumping, and that pumping is going to be really expensive.
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I once talked to a Colorado attorney who specializes in water law and I learned this: 1. Water law in Colorado goes back more than a hundred years. 2. It's insanely complex.
Speaking of the Colorado and water. I just watched documentary on the Curiosity Stream called The Colorado Problem. It covered the original treaty made in the early part of the 20th century about how the states and Mexico divided up the water from the Colorado. It also covered how the First Nations are constantly getting fucked by this agreement, but that is pretty much par for the course now.
I walked away with the notion that it was insanely complex to the point some parts of it are completely unwor
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If NPR started doing real objective journalism they'd have so many new listeners
The Fox News empire has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that objective journalism isn't what pays the bills - it's fear-mongering, race-baiting and dog-whistling, with a bit of manufactured outrage sprinkled in for flavor.
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An another thing while I'm at it. We'll pump oil all the way from Canada to Texas. Why don't we pump water from, say the great lakes to Las Vegas?
Cost. Those pipelines are rediculously expensive, the only reason they make sense is because one can charge a hell of a lot more for oil then one can for water.
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Cost. Those pipelines are rediculously expensive, the only reason they make sense is because one can charge a hell of a lot more for oil then one can for water.
Check back again in a couple of years to see what happens to the price of water.
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I don't think you have any idea what the price difference between oil and water is.
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Why don't we pump water from, say the great lakes to Las Vegas?
I'm sure we could, but at what cost, both financially, and also to the regional (Midwest and Northeast) climate and to relations with our northern neighbors, whose territory and jurisdiction include large parts of 4 of the 5 Great Lakes?
It's an unfortunate but unavoidable truth that water use patterns in the Southwest have long been unsustainable. It would seem prudent to me to address this problem first.
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But the difficulty is in addressing it. The conservative farmers will all blame the literal cities of course. But logically there are just too many damn farms for the amount of water. No amount of sympathetic politicians will solve that, and when we get a long stretch of drought years it becomes very apparent that something needs fixing. Some farmers are getting better and more modern with irrigation. But there's still a huge fraction of deniers - no one wants to be the first to declare that their farm
Re: News? at 11 from NPR (Score:2)
Re:News? at 11 from NPR (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure about pumping to Vegas, but the difference in water consumption between a drought and non-drought year in California is enough to require 38 billion gallons a day. The largest oil pipeline in the world pumps 77 million gallons a day. Not sure what Vegas's requirements are, but it'd probably require a very expensive pipeline that would only be for drought years. We may get to that point, but the current model seems to be to just force conservation to deal with drought.
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Not sure about pumping to Vegas, but the difference in water consumption between a drought and non-drought year in California is enough to require 38 billion gallons a day. The largest oil pipeline in the world pumps 77 million gallons a day. Not sure what Vegas's requirements are, but it'd probably require a very expensive pipeline that would only be for drought years. We may get to that point, but the current model seems to be to just force conservation to deal with drought.
Well, for water, you'd really just need a giant canal with a cover to keep evaporation down, since it's not necessary to contain a pollutant. The problem with Great Lakes -> Vegas is that you have these inconvenient hills called the Rocky Mountains in the way. Well, that and you'd be trying to flow uphill 80% of the way...
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Not sure about pumping to Vegas, but the difference in water consumption between a drought and non-drought year in California is enough to require 38 billion gallons a day. The largest oil pipeline in the world pumps 77 million gallons a day. Not sure what Vegas's requirements are, but it'd probably require a very expensive pipeline that would only be for drought years. We may get to that point, but the current model seems to be to just force conservation to deal with drought.
Well, for water, you'd really just need a giant canal with a cover to keep evaporation down, since it's not necessary to contain a pollutant. The problem with Great Lakes -> Vegas is that you have these inconvenient hills called the Rocky Mountains in the way. Well, that and you'd be trying to flow uphill 80% of the way...
The size of the pipe isn't the problem, the elevation is.
You know the biggest power cost in a city? The pumps to move water around.
Now think about how much more it would cost to pump a river.
Re: News? at 11 from NPR (Score:2)
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Re:News? at 11 from NPR (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how the great lake states would feel about their water being used to subsidize large cities in the south west.
Though I'd imagine many would rather send water to California, than have California send Californians.
Re:News? at 11 from NPR (Score:5, Informative)
This is one of the things that I've often wondered. Do those crops need to be watered that much?
I live in Utah -- and it's not just whether or not the crops need to be watered as much, it's whether they need to be grown at all. About 80% of our water goes to farming, and about half of that is to grow alfalfa. We then export that for a modest profit as hay -- often to fill empty container ships on their way back to China.
Meanwhile, the Great Salt Lake is shrinking, threatening to turn into a toxic dust bowl, and kill all skiing (no lake effect snow without a lake). The Utah legislature is dominated by conservatives, to they are not concerned about this at all.
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We'll pump oil all the way from Canada to Texas. Why don't we pump water from, say the great lakes to Las Vegas?
We will, when we can sell it overseas for $100/barrel
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They don't need that much water, but it's cheaper that way. Newer things may use more drip irrigation, but that's new and will take time for it to roll out most place whre it can work. Ie, California central valley just pumped out ground water for a century when there wasn't enough river water. And water rights in California (and much of the west) are messed up, with prices being very low so that there's not a historic need for conservation.
Right now I have seen several old orange orchards die, with some o
Re: News? at 11 from NPR (Score:2)
drip irrigation is "new" in the sense that it was developed in Israel 60 years ago and has been widely available in the states for over 40.
But sure, let's keep giving the farmers the benefit of the doubt and ignore how incredibly cheap their water is.
Wouldn't a large pond in the desert evaporate? (Score:2)
As for why we don't pump water like that Joe biden's infrastructure bill got whittled down from 7 trillion over 10 years to 1 trillion over 10 years. So in the wealthiest country in the world that hasn't spent much of anything on infrastructure since the 1940s we're going to spend around $100 billion a year and that was a major accomplishment of Congress.
Wh
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And now it is abnormally dry.
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Semi Arid Desert is dry, and at times really dry.
Yeah, but 10 years ago I lived in a temperate rainforest?
So living in a semi-arid region is a really big change, skips right over some intermediate climate zones.
It's bad elsewhere in the World too ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I noted elsewhere this article from Spain: Ghost village emerges in Spain as drought empties reservoir [reuters.com]
A ghost village that has emerged as drought has nearly emptied a dam on the Spanish-Portuguese border is drawing crowds of tourists with its eerie, grey ruins.
With the reservoir at 15% of its capacity, details of a life frozen in 1992, when the Aceredo village in Spain's northwestern Galicia region was flooded to create the Alto Lindoso reservoir, are being revealed once more.
Walking on the muddy ground cracked by the drought in some spots, visitors found partially collapsed roofs, bricks and wooden debris that once made up doors or beams, and even a drinking fountain with water still streaming from a rusty pipe.
Crates with empty beer bottles were stacked by what used to be a cafe, and a semi-destroyed old car was rusting away by a stone wall. Drone footage showed the derelict buildings.
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and even a drinking fountain with water still streaming from a rusty pipe.
Well, there's the problem!
primary water: Maybe there is no shortage? (Score:1, Funny)
These guys claim there is a vast amount of fresh water inside the earth, and we just have to drill down to it.
https://primarywater.org/ [primarywater.org]
Kinda but not quite (Score:2)
The moment you hear the statement that a theory has been "repressed for decades by the California government (and other governments worldwide)", you take a pinch of salt. Follow the money, if it worked as well as they say it does some joker would have made a big business out of it years ago. There's plenty of large agricultural companies who would happily pay big money for good reliable sources of water.
And yeah primary water exists and is known as juvenile water by geologists [wikipedia.org]. However it ain't what those g
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I was going to say. These charlatans aren't even big enough to be debunked thoroughly online. They avoid this by using their own term for the water.
On the other hand, I looked at this person's comment history. They don't even believe germ theory. Looks like conspiracies and secret truths are just a lot more attractive to some people.
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I do appreciate learning about some... intersting theories like this and primary water is one I had not heard of before. Skimming over the site and another it links to I tried getting some idea of if this is real, how far does one have to drill to access it.
Like you said, if it was accessible using existing well drilling technology than it is more than feasible to prove the idea out in several locations. Drilling wells is not really "cheap" but it's not exotic or really all that expensive either for what
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I would be willing to wager a whole dollar that the people who believe this stuff have some really interesting views about Atlantis, or Space Nazis, or Sasquatch too.
I would not be at all surprised if they hold unorthodox views regarding what shape the planet is.
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The main difference in accessing primary water is that it requires drilling into a geologic fissure or fault to release the primary water that has risen near the surface.
Gee, what could go wrong removing large quantities of this water from faults in a place like California? Ah well, I say (as someone not living anywhere near CA) let's find out!
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Water is a lubricant, Barney.
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Water is a lubricant, Barney.
Yes. So when the fault cant slip a little every now and then. The pressure instead builds up into a 'big one'...
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Anyway, you are talking about playing with the internal pressure of the fault as well. Also does removing the water prevent small slips, setting the fault up for large ones? Like I said, I'd love to see the outcome, from 1500 miles away where I am.
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"Limitless". I do not think this word means what they think it does.
conservation is a 4 letter word (Score:3, Insightful)
We have the capacity to be smarter, but this is going to play out just like any other species of animal in an ecosystem. As far as water, oil and coal goes, it's pump baby pump and drill baby drill until we wither exhaust the resource or we start to overload/collapse ecosystems. The resulting changes are going to be abrupt and largely unplanned.
It doesn't have to be like this, but our species currently has a serious case of head-up-ass-itis.
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"Half our society simply refuses to believe that any resource has any physical limitations whatsoever. "
What do you expect from people who believe in talking snakes?
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People in the west have been praying for more water for decades. Eventually God will take notice and end the drought. In the mean time, keep sending in your donations.
Climate change is real, not new. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's happening and why are now secondary questions. What we do about it now is the primary question. We're already committed to some pretty unpleasant changes, perhaps it's time to cut our losses? I seem to recall someone once telling me "if you're in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging".
I recommend we adapt - quickly. Oh, and not actively making things any worse would be great.
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One problem concerns atmospheric rivers. These are channels where water vapour gets transported over significant distances. Since rainfall shifts with the albedo of the ground, it would seem reasonable to argue that this is shifting atmospheric rivers from where we'd really like the rain to where we really don't need it (say, out to sea or right over Cardiff in Wales) and shifting them upwards (since Archimedes' principle dictates how far warm air will rise and expand).
If this is indeed a correct surmise, t
Not bad. (Score:2)
I think we need to play the hand we have - if we can't wean ourselves off of energy consumption (and I know I can't), we should find ways to get that energy that don't involve me eating/drinking/breathing the mess. And like I said, if we could just not make things worse, well, that'd be great.
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Queensland rain and La Nina (Score:2)
It has been a very wet summer here, quite annoying actually.
The reason is the "Southern Oscillation". Sometimes the sea warms up on the western Pacific, and cools on the east, producing rain here and drought in South America. And some years visa versa.
There is underlying climate change, but it gets swamped by these relatively short term effects.
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Oh, I absolutely agree. It takes, on average, 7.5 years to build a Gen 3 or 3+ nuclear power plant, provided it is initially budgeted correctly and those constructing it aren't trying to shave off corners (short cuts make for long delays), and it would be cheaper to build 5 or 6 thousand of them than to maintain the fossil fuel power stations we have at present.
As long as the banks are willing to loan governments the money, even if the interest rates are quite high, with a ten-year deferment on repayment, t
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Shouldn't be too hard, a couple of strategically placed typhoons would be a start.
Then there's the joy of 8 inches a day of rain landing on the drought stricken land and mountains, flooding the farmland and wiping out all the highways and train tracks.
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You can't place a typhoon unless it's the aircraft. This isn't about climate engineering at all, which is impossible.
This is the idea that albedo is a positive feedback loop and that desertification is self-maintaining because it alters the albedo and thus reduces the amount of water flowing into the area. If it works one way, it aught to work the other, but as we're only tweaking one parameter and not the multitude of variables vegetation alters, it can't restore a climate. At best, rain would increase to
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The reason I brought up typhoons is often the underlining cause of an atmospheric river, usually called a pineapple express, here, actually is a typhoon in the western Pacific, far from land but changing the jet stream.
I really don't know if changing the albedo would help as I don't know much about the atmospheric rivers that hit California, it's hundreds of miles south of here.
As for the flooding and 8 inches of rain, look at some of these pictures, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bc+f... [duckduckgo.com] all highways and the 2
BS (Score:3, Insightful)
The major problem is misallocation and misuse. Raising water intensive crops in the desert. Greens lawns and golf courses. Zero restrictions, even when you *know* your city us using an unsustainable amount of water. Farmers with inherited water rights flooding their fields for no reason, because not using the water means they might lose the water rights. Allocations from rivers based on years of unusually high rainfall. The list goes on...
The US Southwest is a desert. Lack of rainfall is not the problem. Human idiocy is the problem.
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Home use is miniscule in CA, 11%. Even limit discs are pointless. Address industry and algriculture.
But hey, have limit discs to freak out the population over an emergency so the rest of the nation can enjoy winter vegetables and California cuisine (read: has avocados).
Thank you!
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past performance is no guarantee (Score:3)
"And then from summer 2020 through all of 2021, it was just exceptionally dry across the West...indicating that this drought is nowhere near done."
And, it has continued into the start of 2022. But, past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
A more accurate statement would be "...indicating that this drought wasn't done, and we lack the tools to predict how long it will continue."
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Pump it faster (Score:3)
And we're not doing a damn thing about it (Score:5, Interesting)
If you live in the SW and aren't going to die in the next 20 years get ready to move. If you don't live in the SW, get ready for 75+ million water refugees about to hit your job and housing markets.
If you don't think this will hurt you and you make under $10 million a year, you are wrong. You'll need at least that to buy a private security force to patrol your compound during the coming water fueled violence.
And if you're somehow being distracted by the usual boogiemen (CRT, Cancel Culture, , Welfare Queens or whatever they're calling it this election cycle) please stop. You've got more than enough information to see through these 60 year old Southern Strategy style wedge issues.
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we should be building desalinization plants and aqueducts to transport the water from them.
Desalination is way too expensive for agriculture (by about 5-10x). And residential water use in CA is only responsible for 10% of the total water use, so it makes no sense to build desalination plants except for a few areas where the regular water supply is unavailable.
That's why the government needs to do it (Score:2, Interesting)
What do you think is going to happen to the price of food and to the economy at Large when vast swaths of our agriculture sector shuts down for lack of water? And do you think the agribusinesses are going to roll over what do you think they're more likely to enforce strict and Draconian measures on consumers?
Also California isn't the only state involved here. Arizona uses 20% of its water for residential use. You can bet
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What do you think is going to happen to the price of food and to the economy at Large when vast swaths of our agriculture sector shuts down for lack of water?
I am not a resident of the USA, but I have read that one of the big problems with agriculture in the drier states is that extremely thirsty crops are being grown, such as rice and almonds. I understand that this works economically, because farmers are effectively getting their water for free, via massive state government subsidy. As far as I know, the US as a whole is not likely to suffer massive food shortages and economic damage due to water shortages in the southwest. How about growing the right crops to
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What do you think is going to happen to the price of food and to the economy at Large when vast swaths of our agriculture sector shuts down for lack of water? And do you think the agribusinesses are going to roll over what do you think they're more likely to enforce strict and Draconian measures on consumers?
Most of the US staple food is grown on the Great Plains, that don't have huge problems with water. The affected areas in California mostly grow cash crops that we'll be able to live without just fine.
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What do you think is going to happen to the price of food and to the economy at Large when vast swaths of our agriculture sector shuts down for lack of water? And do you think the agribusinesses are going to roll over what do you think they're more likely to enforce strict and Draconian measures on consumers?
A basic greenhouse can save water use by 60%. Even if that fails, plenty of places in the world have water and are happy to exchange their farmed products for US dollars.
As for draconian measures, agribusinesses have no power. They're out-voted 9 to 1, even if you count the all the illegals who work on farms (it's not even clear if they have a horse in the race, water costs are paid by the owner, not the workers). The only reason they have any political power at all is because water costs are not on the vot
And after the "Mega Drought" Comes ... (Score:2)
The "Pineapple Express" which devastated California & Oregon in 1862.
Those who ignore the past ... will drown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The Pineapple Express is a weather pattern we get every year, it is what we call the weather that starts in S.E. Asia and delivers us warm rain a few times a year in the autumn.
Most of the rain comes down from the Gulf of Alaska and is colder.
Nobody here drowns in a flood. That's a regional problem caused by Barney Fife trying to macho his way past an obstruction, combined with a frequent inability to swim. Here, Macho Man just drives the 150 miles over the mountains and around and back to get to the other
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When a Pineapple Express event dumps 10 feet of rain in less than a month and a half from the equator, it is not the yearly event of which you note.
True that we get minor variations and once every 2-3 centuries we get the mega-dump.
But it points out that this is cyclical and has been for AT LEAST 2000 years and that it obviously has ZERO TO DO WITH MAN-MADE FACTORS.
We ran out of capacity (Score:5, Interesting)
Much of California's current capacity was designed in the 50's and 60's with capacity for these dry times. Some wiggle room for population growth was there, but not like we have now. Since the 80's our population has nearly doubled. (Source) https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com] Dams like Oroville are already 50 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As far as global warming, the #1 contributor is concrete, followed by steel ibeams. Not cars, not large ships, but concrete and steel. Yet we keep pushing high density hi-rise buildings made out of the biggest contributor of global warming.
See it doesn't make sense to me to keep blaming global warming or saying we're in a drought without looking at the cause of both. It's like saying, "People are dying of cancer" but ignoring things like cigarettes. The real issue is as long as politicians are looking to increase tax revenue, and their campaigns are funded by real estate and construction unions, this root cause will never be pointed out.
What's the solution here? I don't think telling people to move out is going to work, but certainly the strategy should include nuclear power desalination. Fission for now, fusion for the future.
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Yet we keep pushing high density hi-rise buildings made out of the biggest contributor of global warming.
Other side of the coin is that high density living is typically cleaner in terms of air pollution then lower density, at least on a per capita basis. The higher the population density the easier and cheaper it is to provide effective mass transit to your people for instance.
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>The higher the population density the easier and cheaper it is to provide effective mass transit to your people for instance.
Ya but the US is too engrained in tribal politics and land use issues at the moment to do it right. Japan is a monoculture rooted in Daimyo rule. Daimyo's were nothing more than extensions of the Shogun/Emperors will. They did deal with local issues, but if the Shogun wanted something across all provinces, it was the Daimyo's job to make it happen. The peasantry considered the
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What a weird post. Why are your only examples from Asia and why would why would America's political divide matter in the context of individual city zoning?
I know here in California the folks in Silicon Valley refuse to build up despite ideal economic conditions to do so and most of that region is very solidly blue. In other words, it is most assuredly not a political divide that is stopping the valley from building upwards.
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> Why are your only examples from Asia
My experience of talking about this subject. Most arguments for HSR use Japan/China as an example of how HSR is done, but fail to mention what I did.
>and why would why would America's political divide matter in the context of individual city zoning?
The USA has a system of states being "Self Governing" and that percolates down a large degree to counties and municipalities. For that matter it even percolates down to individual neighborhoods. That is the tribalism
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Here take a look at this, page 25.
https://cawaterlibrary.net/wp-... [cawaterlibrary.net]
Majority of our groundwater use is urban. It also details what the groundwater capacities are. We'd have plenty here if we reduced some of this excess population.
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https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
China has double the co2 output the US does.
Living in natural stone or wooden dwellings keeps the co2 sequestered.
There is no such thing as a large city without major pollution and die off of flora and fauna unless artificially maintained. You are a Chinese bot.
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Now, to temper that statement a bit . . . remember that both fission and fusion involve radiation - the big difference is you can shut down a fusion reactor quickly and easily. You still have to shield against radiation, your materials are still subject to radiation induced fatiguing, and those materials need to be decontaminated or disposed of periodically.
Bottom line -
Re: (Score:3)
Stop moving water around. (Score:2)
What? No water is reachable from a well? Then that land should not be used and instead be part of a forest or natural park.
It is time to start only using what the land can provide - it is the only sustainable way.
Yes many will roll their eyes, but this would limit over use of resources. Too late now but if this had been in place from about 100 years ago the current pr
Re: (Score:2)
What? No water is reachable from a well? Then that land should not be used and instead be part of a forest
roflcopter
"Mommy, where do trees come from?"
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Duned (Score:2)
here in utah (Score:2)
Here in Utah we are required to keep a lot of water going down hill. We are also preparation shutting down water damns and shipping water from one reservoir to another so that we can keep sending water to Las Vegas(hoover damn).
And Ag seam to get the brunt of hate for water usage. Which is quite unfair, as the water they "use" isn't used the same as residential, much of it returning to streams/rivers and the environment. It's also not chlorinated/treated water. Also, cutting water to Ag directly affects yo
Covid19 to the rescue! (Score:1)
water (Score:1)
I'm waiting for something to make it political (Score:1)
Blue: My president says it's a terrible drought!
Red: No, my president says it's just a seasonal thing, nothing to worry about.
Blue: We have science and records!
Red: FAKE!
sacrificed (Score:1)
I guess the climate changers from 1200 years ago were sacrificed in a timely fashion to local idol Gretapuzzi , and the drought was promptly stopped
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I'll get a second opinion from a source that's not known for being establishment propagandists,
I'm waiting with bated breath. I hope your second opinion source is a bit less anonymous and a bit less of a coward than you. Maybe even someone who has published a divergent opinion in a proper scientific outlet?
Water doesn't get USED UP!
Right. Just like money, it's just going from one place to another. Try telling that to your bank when your account runs dry. I'm sure they will be thrilled to give you some more - after all, it will not be used up.