A few days ago, the New York Times posted an article about the 11-year drought that has been occurring in the Southwest. Lake Mead, on the Colorado River, has a water level only 15 inches above its lowest recorded minimum in 1956. From Las Vegas to Los Angeles, water prices have skyrocketed, water use restrictions have been tightened, and people are starting to feel the pain. Now, in order to relieve the stress on Lake Mead, they’re considering releasing water from Lake Powell, also on the Colorado River, so that it flows into Lake Mead. The map below is kind of hard to read but Lake Mead is at the southern tip of Nevada, and Lake Powell is in southern Utah.
Right now, 70% of water use can be attributed to outdoor activities. While some of this is legitimate, i.e. irrigation of crop growth, a lot of that is pure landscaping. Word of advice: if you want a luscious green lawn, move somewhere NOT in the desert. I know you want your yard to be just as pretty as your neighbors, but for the good of everyone, please don't fall into the tragedy of the commons. I really don’t understand the population boom in the Southwest. It’s a seemingly uninhabitable environment that we humans decided we should make habitable. The thought: why should we adjust ourselves to the climate when we can simply adjust it to fit our needs? It’s a perspective that I’m sure will change once the water crisis felt around the world finally hits America hard. The drought in the Southwest? Not bad enough.
Nationally, agriculture is responsible for 80% of our water use. What are some ways to address that? I would like to advocate vertical farming, if not simply as an effort to conserve water. A vertical farm is basically a bunch of greenhouses stacked on top of one another. They use technology like hydroponics, which requires 70% less water than conventional agriculture, and aeroponics, which uses 70% less than that. There are other benefits too. In addition to having a small physical footprint, vertical farming is indoors, which makes it relatively immune to weather variation, such as droughts and disease/pest invasion. Furthermore, biogas digesters and living machines can be employed to convert waste into usable resources, including methane for energy. Vertical farming isn't without downsides, however. The daylighting and heating needed to farm indoors requires a lot of energy. About half of the energy can be covered by biogas digestion, but the rest will need various energy sources, like solar and wind, to keep farming economical and sustainable. I could say more, but I won’t. Instead, if you want to learn more about vertical farms, I’m going to add a long spiel about them under “Favorite Concepts”.
Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University, is the field's all star. Here's his website.
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