The environmentalists have been telling us since at least the 1960s that fossil fuels were screwing up the biosphere. This could have been avoided, but making those fossil fuel profits were just too precious.
Is your salad on the chopping block?
Nope. We’re already buying, like, chilean greens or something.
I’d like to thank the current american administration for helping us choose better food sourcing and vacation spots! 🇨🇦
Why are you fuckers raising lettuce in the desert?
At least lettuce is something for human consumption. They also grow alfafa and cotton there…
I recently saw a discussion/unhinged argument on Nextdoor for the Denver area and in the course of several dozen comments I noticed a familiar pattern when it comes to water use conversations among the general pop. I’ve been noticing this for years.
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First of all, no one suggests changing their own behavior, least of all their dietary choices. Perish the thought that someone were to even consider restricting their massive intake of meat and dairy and nevermind being vegetarian or vegan. No one broached this particular topic at all in this particular instance. Even though it’s one of the more obvious things.
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Lawns of the Kentucky bluegrass type. These are sacrosanct and not to be questioned. Xeriscaping is obviously a plot by some unnamed “them” to make everything hotter because something something “they” hate the suburbs which is just assumed to be the (only) American Way Of Life ™.
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A common distraction is talking about building high rises for people to live in, and/or “allowing” too many people to come into the state. LOL. This is from people defending their lawns.
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Pools/golf courses. Probably because these are visible things. I think this is probably a classic case of availability bias in action, though. I don’t think the numbers really line up.
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The most hilarious turn was when someone pulled out the “they control the weather, if they wanted water, they could make it rain”. Well, obviously, let’s go right to the Jewish Space Lasers type of logic…
Anyway, we definitely are in for some wild times in the West. It doesn’t help that we have absolute clowns at the top that think the biggest problems facing the nation are too many brown people, drag queen story hour, men in women’s sports, vaccines causing autism, Covid vaccine causing death, our former trading situation with Canada, the name of the Gulf of Mexico, and other deeply stupid and irrelevant things.
I think dragging people to sanity on their dietary choices and having realistic use of water that is sustainable would be hard enough with responsible Democrats in charge, but with these dumbfucks in charge? I don’t hold out much hope.
I think it’s going to take Glen Canyon Dam finally being unable to pass water before anyone even remotely begins to take to seriously. As a side, I still can’t believe how dirty Las Vegas was done with the new Colorado Rover plan. What that city has done with water conservation should be modeled by every city in the west, and it looks like they are being punished for something. Makes no sense.
I guess I’m not aware of their conservation; what kind of steps have they taken?
They’ve implemented a variety of water restrictions regarding lawn watering, pools, ponds, car washing, etc and have dedicated employees for enforcement. A ton of voluntary assistance programs to remove lawns altogether and mandated new housing have no front grass. Those big water fixtures at casinos are heavily regulated to have minimal water loss. Generally just ahead of the curve on what many cities are recently starting to implement to reduce water use and waste.
That’s good news. This is data from a few years ago for Denver:
https://denverite.com/2019/05/06/denverites-can-use-120-million-gallons-a-day-to-water-their-lawns/
As far as the city’s water use is concerned, Denver Water estimates lawn irrigation accounts for 50 percent of single-family homes’ total use. Single-family homes use 47 percent of all the city’s water sales, according to a 2011 study. If that’s still true today, lawn watering uses nearly a quarter of every drop Denver Water sells to the city.
And that’s potable water, too. I mean, what are we even doing?
It’s good for cities to do their part, but AFAIK, we need to focus on agriculture - what crops are raised for what, the techniques they use, what we are putting on our plates, etc, since in Colorado that is 90% of the usage, while municipal use is 7%. Yes, it’s rather stupid to use 25% of that municipal water and spray it on a non-native plant for decorative purposes, but we are going to have to rethink what we eat and how we make that food…
https://coloradosun.com/2026/03/16/is-most-of-colorados-water-used-for-agriculture/
And that’s potable water, too.
Cities are hard-pressed to maintain ONE netowrk of water pipes.
I mean, what are we even doing?
I’d say “barely coping”
Here’s the bare facts: bungalows cost more in infrastructure maintenance than they ever pay in taxes. More frontage means more pipes and wires and conduit.
Think about how much of your area is bungalows, and understand the city is never recouping the cost of keeping that running in those areas, and is thus robbing funds from more dense areas to pay for the suburbs.
Is your city raising property taxes? No? Then it’s not even breaking even now, let alone with a second non-potable water network.
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Wonder if they’ll have to cut back on that alfafa.
No cuts to alfalfa.
No regulation of golf course water use.
No limit to how much State Farm Stadium can use on it’s chronically over watered turf.
No effort to fix municipal pipe leaks.
No conservation requirements for high rises or new builds
But you can guarantee the cost of a toilet’s worth of pee will be 3x by the end of next year.
No effort to fix municipal pipe leaks.
No funding. Raising property taxes is good, but suicidal politically.
But you can guarantee the cost of a toilet’s worth of pee will be 3x by the end of next year.
I don’t know exactly how much alfafa uses as a percentage. Agriculture is listed at about 72-75% from what I can find, golf is 2%. Not sure about the stadium or pipe leaks…
I realize golf is not necessary for life, but some of the choices we make about crops grown in the desert are not necessarily about food either, at least for humans: alfafa is for livestock feed, and cotton is not edible either.
People don’t like to bring it up, but questioning what is on your plate is going to be part of a lot of this, I think.
I’m vegetarian, and though I don’t really discuss it IRL unless the conversation is foisted on me, I have seen my share of emotional reactions from people when it comes to their food choices…there is a certain kind of omnivores that get overly emotional by just being in the presence of a vegetarian or vegan.
Oh, no! What will the Saudi racehorses eat!
I think I read that there was something underway to remove the Saudis, but maybe it already happened. In any case, I read that alfafa isn’t going away after that.
Just so long as they don’t restrict any new AI data center construction that relies on the Colorado River.
I can live without food, but not without ChatGPT.
I don’t know what their use is or planned to be as a percentage, but right now agriculture is 72-75%. Crops like alfafa and cotton are not for human consumption, though…
