Within our lifetimes, much of the west coast will be uninhabitable desert.
That’s because the spring snowpack in the Rockies is expected to be gone by 2040. And that’s where much of the water for the American southwest comes from.
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With a Coca-Cola plant in Atlanta sucking up huge amounts of water and a nuclear reactor and coal power plant down the river doing the same, the southeast faces major problems because of the drought. How do you cut back? Why if the unthinkable happens and the drought becomes semi-permanent? Celcias asks this and more [...] There are droughts worldwide now, with the US southwest and southeast suffering badly from them. TomDispatch has a long, thoughtful post about this asking, what happens if water really does run out somewhere? And doesn’t come back? In the face of serious drought, Brisbane residents have cut water use nearly in half. Dave Riley, who lives there, says let’s use this as a model for all resource management, for power consumption, recycling, and garbage. Then expand further to include public transportation and, of course, climate change. Brisbane’s major advantage is that exercises [...] In a real sign of the times, the US government has started a drought portal, with current stats, predictions, and more. The volunteer fire chief of Orme Tenn. wakes up at 5:30 am three days a week and makes a dozen round trips to a fire hydrant in Alabama, filling a fire truck with water, and bringing it back. At 6 pm the mayor turns on the water for the town’s 145 residents for three hours. [...] Firefighters drained the Ramona reservoir to fight the fire. Now there’s no water left and little possibility, considering the ongoing serious drought, that it will be replenished any time soon. What happens to a town of thousands when there’s no water? Another serious problem the fire burn areas will face once the fires are out [...] The trick is to conserve the valuable state resource, make wise decisions about how to use it and cut waste. Here’s how: Conservation. (Drought-tolerant plants. Metering. Smart watering systems.) Store groundwater more efficiently. (Especially during years with surpluses) Reuse wastewater (Right now, it all flows into the ocean. Use it for irrigation, industry, [...] Thoughts and quotes from the superb New York Times magazine feature story on drought in the southwest. The problem Lake Mead, the enormous reservoir in Arizona and Nevada that supplies nearly all the water for Las Vegas, is half-empty, and statistical models indicate that it will never be full again. “As we move forward [...] Reduced snowpack due to global warming may prove a bigger problem than rising oceans. But if we get past the Yuck Factor, then water can be reprocessed, saving enormous amounts of money and water as well. Perhaps we will have little choice in the matter. California and Atlanta are now simultaneously in severe drought while [...] |  | ||||
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