I know negotiations among states that draw from the Colorado River are ongoing with water rationing measures being discussed, but it feels like the threat of water shortage doesn’t align with booming growth in this part of the country. Is the threat overstated? Are there solutions available when things get really dire? Or is it just hubris of prioritizing short term profits instead of long term sustainability? All the above?
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There are constant mixed messages about climate change from the leaders in the USA which makes it difficult for people to know what to believe. Across history the only real shortages people have suffered in the USA is possibly the Great Depression a 100years ago. In Europe there was food rationing until the 1950s following WW2 so family members would have lived through that and understand the necessity to preserve things.
Additionally despite only having 5% of the worlds population, the US uses 30% of the worlds resources, proving again they struggle to be able to conserve.
Long-term threats are things people are fundamentally not wired to handle well. Things like climate change, risk of eventual (often lung) cancer, pollution, and eventual resource shortages (such as water) are things people naturally have more issues wrapping their heads around being ‘urgent’ when compared to immediate things like hunger/thirst, being confronted with a dangerous situation (a la a violent person), not having enough money in your account to make ends meet this week/month, lacking a fundamental need or security in your own life that you feel effecting you NOW, and so on.
But, that’s an important thing to know and account for with human nature: slow, obscure threats are naturally going to feel not bad or not very ‘real’, but often they are some of the worst out there, as we often have power to change them–after all, we see them coming much more easily–but often we fail at do much about them by comparison.
A big thing related to the water use is the aquifer that supplies a huge portion of the US–it’s not renewable, or at least, it takes a LONG time to renew, and we’ve been steadily draining it to where people might potentially see it run out in their lifetime. People use it for drinking water, and for crops, but also things like watering their lawn in places that water-hungry lush green grass has no place naturally being. Tapping into this aquifer was huge in allowing towns and cities to flourish in much dryer areas across the great plains where rainfall and river water are not enough to sustain what we currently have there (or, what is being used currently) by a large amount. Yet it goes on. A distant-feeling future point where this becomes an issue is something people are wired to be more comfortable being a future problem (which, will very much become a problem). Same with the river issue.
Because evolution did not give you the tools to accurately evaluate risk.
So here’s a fun experiment for you. The way you measure mortality is often through deaths per 100,000. That way you don’t get things twisted by 6,000 die of a population a billion vs 3,000 who die in a population of 4,000. One of those is clearly significantly more dangerous, right? Right.
So here’s the question for you: Rank these in order of how deadly you think they are:
* Being a police officer.
* Riding a motorcycle.
* Giving birth.
When you feel confident, check this: >!With motorcycles it’s about 74 per 100,000, giving birth is about 37 per 100,000 and for cops it’s about 1 per 100,000.!<
Is that the order you expected?
When climate change hits it’s going to cause a huge amount migration due to climate change. Current estimates are around 1/8th of the world’s population might need to completely relocate. Ever hear about the Bronze Age Collapse? But that is 30 years out and a number too big for your monkey brain to understand.
Humans are bad at forecasting long-term consequences. Especially when the profit motive is constantly pressing on you to make short-term decisions in order to avoid short-term catastrophies like bankruptcy and homelessness.
Then you’ve got the people who are invested in those short term solutions doing everything in their power to convince the public there’s no problem so they can continue making profit, because they’re pretty sure they can money their way out of the long term consequence.
Simply, if it’s not a “now” problem, it’s not a problem, and anyone who says it is, is an alarmist, possibly a communist, and definitely a lunatic you shouldn’t be listening to. Instead you should be buying more Ozone-B-Gone brand hairspray.
Because people moving to these places is not a primary concern for in water usage. Phoenix for example uses *less* water today with a population of 5 million people than it did in the 1950s with a population around 250,000.
Agriculture is the primary water draining culprit. With that, many farmers and governments are working on more sustainable farming practices or less water-intensive crops in the Southwest.
We will all be long gone before water becomes a crisis for residential in the Southwest.
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Honestly the state of Arizona should not exist as it exists today and they’re slowly going to dry themselves out of existence.
Most of Southern California doesn’t understand where their water comes from. Arizona’s government is happy as long as the Saudis keep paying for all the water they use to farm alfalfa for their horses. Nevada actually does ok with water conservation and recycling.
It’s a combo of apathy and naivety. I’m shocked at how accessible and unprotected the water supply for most of SoCal is. You can just drive right up to the aqueducts. Bad actors could easily disrupt that water supply.
Ok no one is answering your question. They’re not going to run out of water. Though it will get more expensive. When the price is right, people will sell their water rights. The majority of water usage is for agriculture. So the farmers will sell their water and grow less crops.
Plus, they still have water in the aquifer, but its brackish. They will probably start pumping and treating that water as it becomes more economical.
I heard recently that we can make Canada give it to us. Going to have to fact check that one though.
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