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The 20 Farming Families Who Use More Water From the Colorado River Than Some Western States
(projects.propublica.org)
this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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If I understand correctly from the article, it sounds like they're caught in a loop (sans Abattis family) and need something to change in order to further cut water usage (sans Abattis; because it sounds like they just don't give a fuck).
Basically if I got this right:
They grow a combination of food for humans and feedstock for animals; and most of the water is being consumed by feedstock.
They (sans Abattis family) are aware that they use a shitton of water and have been trying to take steps to reduce their water consumption, but doing so is expensive because of the equipment that's required.
They're able to grow feedstock because water is cheap enough for feedstock to be profitable, which is necessary to reduce their water consumption because growing food alone isn't as profitable enough.
Food isn't profitable enough because apparently the wholesale market value of food is so low that it's hard to make ends meet on food alone, which is why they also grow feedstock using cheap water.
However doing so means they consume a lot more water than they need to, which means they need better ways of getting water for their crops, which is something they're aware of and trying to address, but they need money for that, which comes from feedstock grown using cheap water, which means they consume a lot more water than they need to, and so on.
Then you have the Abattis family who appear to use significantly more water than the rest of the major families and just don't care.
Note: I'm not trying to excuse or justify their excessive water usage, but the article makes it sound like it's more complicated than "just cut their water access".
Maybe, they just need to not try to farm in the FUCKING DESERT.
Farming in the desert is as old as humans writing shit down.
That doesn't mean keep doing it.
Yes but taking so much water from the river that it no longer reaches the fucking ocean is not.
You're right about that; that is an industrial era issue.
That's an appeal to tradition; a logical fallacy.
it's just a statement of fact. it made no argument at all, and is not, in itself, fallacious.
It is a statement that growing crops in a desert is something humans have done since humans developed agriculture.
The alternative is removing a ton of food from the market, spiking inflation.
I'm not invested in this topic argument. I was just interested in highlighting your logical fallacy.
Critical thinking and logic has been on a decline in modern societies, and I believe it's important to point it out so that hopefully people learn to refine their beliefs/illogical thinking tendencies.
I'm sure you can make logical points in an argument advocating for farming in the desert. But that doesn't change the fact that your previous argument explicitly used a logical fallacy and therefore is invalid.
Again, I'm not interested in debating this subject, so you'd be wasting your time trying to convince me of your perspective. I was just trying to help you improve your arguments/promote logical thinking.
For those not OP, it is still good to analyze new ideas against standard practice as a way to refine the argument further.
The argument that "people shouldn't live in deserts" may sound good on the surface, people need water and therefore people should live next to a water source. However, this neglects the fact that rivers still flow through deserts and a lot of cradles of civilization came from deserts, in part due to the coordination required to water crops. It also doesn't address that people no longer need to grow crops to make an area economicly productive. Some industries that don't require water can be more water efficient, and therefore settlement may not strain as much of the limited water resources as possible.
A refinement of the argument to "the water resources of a desert shouldn't be stretched to the point where rivers commonly run dry" is a better argument. It gets further to the issue at hand, using a limited resource isn't a problem until you are using so much of the resource that you can't handle shortages.
This isn't an argument to OP, but for others reading.
So, not that old.
Also, factor in why the water became cheap and/or free. The Department of Reclamation ran around the west over the last century building dams and selling cheap water. These are now generations of family later doing what they have always done. Not apologizing for the behavior of the families, but the US government built this house of cards, they even knew as early as the 1950s that the water wasn't going to support the growth rate, and basically decided, "Eh, that's 50 years from now's problem." Even earlier on they realized the estimation for average Colorado River flow was incorrect. Capitalist "let's just worry about this quarter" mentality led to where we are now, thanks government!
Some arbitrary "fun" facts throughout these learnings:
Heavy metal dust storms do sound pretty fucking cool tho
Wish we could just grow food and sell at-cost while we all pitched in to subsidize the wages of those involved, but I guess wasting more water than some states use just to make a profit is a good alternative system.
I bet we will see more and more farmers turn to pot and hemp as the industry grows. I bet that the wholesale margins on good pot are a lot better than that of food