Yes, building U.S. cities in hot deserts w/o water wasn’t a great move - but too few know that HEATING homes uses more energy than COOLING does.
Homes in Miami use less energy to control climate than homes in Minneapolis, but we don’t finger-wag about the foolishness of building in cold places.
"Phoenix has lower per capita carbon emissions than Boston" (almost entirely due to heating in Boston) is one of those factoids people get really mad at you if you tell them.
people also don't like hearing that Phoenix has been a continuously inhabited site of fixed agriculture and dense population for several thousands years and is not, in fact, a dumb or unsustainable place to build a city (though it is, in my opinion, unpleasantly hot)
I have gathered the lion's share of the water shortage is about agriculture (in Arizona they grow alfalfa for Saudi Arabia; in California they violently resist the slightest suggestions of water efficiency measures) -- and always has been
Some farmers believe that water set aside to keep rivers running is ‘wasted’ water being ‘dumped in the ocean’, instead of like, vital for local ecosystems, preventing fires and landslides, etc.
"I could be selling even more alfalfa to Saudis if they'd just murder the ecosystem!" -- a stout font of true wisdom currently voting for an idiot who wants to invade Mexico
If not the farmers themselves then they let people put those signs up on their property.
I dunno if you’re familiar with I5 but it runs through the central valley and that’s where most of the food is grown, except the parts where the beeves are.
I am not, I am just familiar with how rich landowners decide to put on a gimmie cap and act like they are the stolid sons of Jeffersonian virtue and deserve everything forever. You can see the actual farmers in the background -- they usually don't have land to put a sign on.
Well it’s all big ag land and there’s just a handful of rich assholes that control a significant portion of it.
Politicians somehow buy into the idea that residential water use is what needs to be regulated the most, even though it accounts for like 15% of total use.
Like, negligible gains on agricultural use would utterly eclipse even drastic cuts to residential use.
We should get rid of all lawns, because they’re dumb for multiple reasons, but saving 2% of 85% is more than saving 10% of 15%, while being less onerous.
I'm guessing it's because of the whole rural landowner disproportionate political power thing. Who cares about those despicable merchants in the cities?
(I have been fully Taberpilled on the nature of American ag at present)
This weird canard has really developed over the past few years. Trump brought it up I think during the wildfires? Someone whispered a statistic showing total watershed vs current potable water and their minds broke.
