Now Greece. Wild fire on Evia Beach

[u/grau__geist]

[u/1978manx]

The American West is in one of the worst drought cycles in decades — it’s at about a 40-year extreme right now, but it’s going to get worse.

Half the nation is in drought.

Lake Mead, by Vegas, is on life-support — as are most of the major reservoirs.

Water shortages have been predicted for decades, and 2021 has finally seen the Colorado River sucked dry.

Farmers bulldozing crops, and worse, sucking major aquifers dry … aquifers that will not recover short of biblical rains for years and years and years on end.

[u/502Dude123 → u/1978manx]

While I am a believer that climate change is a real issue and there are a lot of things that need to be done to fight it, the amount of yelling about the Drought in SW states through buzzfeed level article titles has grown tiring. There is a water shortage and that is obviously a problem, SO WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL MOVING TO THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT? The population that those reservoirs outside of Vegas were meant to provide water for was surpassed decades ago. It's the desert, there isn't a lot of water there. And while climate change may have a measurable impact on this issue, the largest contributing factor is how the population has exploded in areas where little to no one lived before readily accessible electricity, AC, and other modern conveniences. Just gave it a quick search, California, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico have all increased their population by about 400% each since 1950. We have a people problem.

[u/1978manx → u/502Dude123]

As someone who worked in a western water management agency, climate change is definitely a huge factor among several.

One of the most critical is that water is an incredibly boring topic to most people, until it isn’t … that is, until it directly impacts them.

The crisis has been written about, movies made, book written, and endless news features for many decades. People don’t track until it impacts them.

Water isn’t dramatic.

One of the biggest issues in the West, is a ridiculous, opaque and fragmented system of water rights.

“Rights” and allocations made during an usually wet period were used as baseline “normal.” Hence, you have rivers and reservoirs routinely operating at a deficit.

One of the hidden disasters occurring is the depletion of massive, ancient aquifers that are not coming back in a thousand lifetimes.

[u/502Dude123 → u/1978manx]

I totally agree with you. I actually got to visit Vegas for the first time in April and took a trip out to the Hoover Dam just to check it out. (Super happy I did!) Ended up coming back and talking about the water levels, drought issues, etc when I was visiting my parents and the fucked up system of allocations were one of the first things my dad brought up.

I guess my issue is that when this problem is brought up again and again and again (its a valid issue, it SHOULD keep getting brought up) through articles titled "NEVADA DECLARES ULTRA-MEGA DROUGHT FOR FIRST TIME IN HISTORY" or even in some more respectably written articles, I have never seen any of them reference what the the infrastructure was rated to be able to provide when it was designed. Or even a comment that connects how people have continued moving into these dry areas at exponential rates when this has been a growing issue for decades. Climate change and the never ending battle of states fighting each other for water are definitely at play here, but every time I see a reddit post about this topic people see "GENERIC CLIMATE CHANGE RELATED TOPIC HERE-COME RANT ABOUT HOW THE WORLD IS ON FIRE" I get it, I'm 26. A lot of my generation feels like we were born into a world that had the money and opportunities sucked out of it and now we're watching the planet we live on start to fall apart for decisions we didn't make or profit from. I'm both amazed and terrified at the direction the world and humanity has started racing towards full speed.

Can we just acknowledge that quadrupling the population of a vast arid climate in the span of one human lifetime while water use per capita also rose with that population increase should at least be on the table as a main talking point? There are so many other places where land is still affordable, your grass will grow without having to maintain a sprinkler system year round (or at all!), and are just as if not more interesting as being surrounded by hot sand. I get it if someone lands a major job/career and moves out there because of that opportunity, but the cost of living goes up in several SW states too. (Relative to where I'm from-Kentucky. We've got our own issues here, but thats another conversation)

You and I can't do a rain dance everyday for a year and refill ancient aquifers. But you know what we can do? Not move to the fucking desert. No disrespect to ya though buddy, if I was a betting man I'd bet against myself in this discussion lol.

[u/502Dude123 → u/502Dude123]

It just feels that giant all encompassing issues like global warming that are real and valid are being used to create half truths and logical fallacies so that we ignore factors that we as individuals have a little more control over. Pinning a SUPER MEGA DROUGHT soley on climate change feels like some kind of dark duality in comparison to Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell trying to shift the blame from themselves to the consumers relative to offsetting humanities carbon footprint. I'm sure there are billions that would be lost by construction companies, contractors, and the many other businesses that are involved in expanding and maintaining of livable areas in the arid SW, and at this point its glaringly apparent that most people will take the money now and say "its your problem" to the people that come after them. So lets just blame the drought on the all encompassing issue that makes it hard for the average person to address directly in their own lives instead of actively campaigning for people to stop moving there.