Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
This is amazing news. Glad we have an actual competent governor now. Good work Katie Hobbs! Fuck republican scum.
Was this a big issue in Arizona? Were lots of people upset about it?
Yes and yes. Water intensive crop grown in a place that lacks water resources.
Source: Arizonian
Source: Arizonian
X to doubt °=°
Source: Arizonan
Agriculture uses up the most water in the Southwest - particularly in AZ and California. So, yes curtailing water use from thirsty crops is a big issue. Furthermore, these companies are drawing ground water from increasingly deep wells which is unsustainable and leads to shallower neighboring wells drying up.
I'm aware, at least superficially, about the problem. What I was getting at was how present is the problem in the minds of the average Arizonan. I could have worded it better. I appreciate the rundown though.
Every local news network has been covering it, for reference. It's pretty universally popular since it's a Saudi owned farm thats growing super, super wasteful alfalfa in the fucking desert.
Tbh, on the political front it's kind of a meatball thrown to Katie Hobbs, not that I'll be upset about that at all. Conservatives should never get their hands on the governorship again.
Trying to grow something in the middle of the desert... literally an explanation of the Saudi state.
The Arabian Desert is not continuous desert. However, the second worst place to put a city in the Arabian desert is occupied by the capital of Saudi Arabia. How's that for urban planning?
Well I'm glad she knocked that meatball right out of the park. I'm going to be watching your Senate race as soon as the primaries are over.
It's pretty big news since the reznicks would very very much like to divert attention away from their water use profiteering.
Hint, don't buy anything "Wonderful" or Fiji water.
The only water I buy is Polar seltzer and they bottle out of Massachusetts
Lots of people in Nevada also need that water. So yes.
I've heard that Nevada in general and Las Vegas specifically are really leading the way in water conservation. We really need to get ahead of this issue and stop playing catch up.
As ironic as that sounds considering the vast golf courses, water fountains on the LV strip, LV has actually taken meaningful steps to reduce water consumption. They've halved their water use in the last 20 years. Still could/should do more
You guys in the US are using up way too much of your groundwater for farming in scorching hot areas like Arizona and Texas even without the Saudis. Isn’t there enough farmland in states with a less hostile climate?
In the past there were enormous aquifers below the surface. The water was under so much pressure that you could tap it and it would erupt like a geyser. So for generations farmers in these areas had what they thought was unlimited water. Now those aquifers are empty or nearly empty and these farmers are resistant to that reality.
Of course no one wants to face this devastating reality…
In the end it will probably be a large wealth transfer from the states without groundwater to the ones that still have groundwater. Farmers will have to buy land in the groundwater states and the land in the dry states will be practically worthless.
I'm a true believer in technology so I'm hopeful that there will be considerable innovation in desalinization so we can continue to farm in arid areas.
Desalinization would only work in getting Los Angeles and San Diego off of Colorado River water.
The big money right now is in sewage treatment. There are several treatment plants in inland cities which treat their sewage water so that it can either be used for agricultural purposes or even get recycled as potable water.
That's interesting I'll have to do some research on that.
One of the more documented cases is the Intel chip plant in Chandler. Intel's plant treats its effluent to potable standards and pumps the water into the local aquifer to store it. Intel has a lot of water there.
Or we could just not live in the desert, living in biomes suitable to us and wasting fewer resources is more viable
I just don't see how that could be accomplished legally or politically.
Subsidies, taxes, tax credits, zoning, etc.
Maybe. (1) I don't think there's the political will to enact anything like that & (2) I don't think that would entice as many people as you think. People get really attached to their home. These areas are growing. The population in the southwest has grown over 11% in the last decade and it's projected to continue to grow.
Doesn't address the entire cities already there. We ain't forcing entire cities to just abandon ship.
It's far more useful if we talk about actually making what's already there sustainable rather than some authoritarian march out of the deserts.
It depends on the crops and the time of year.
A lot of the crops grown in Arizona are fruits and vegetables grown to be harvest in the off-season of typical harvests.
People should note that indigenous groups had also been practicing agriculture along the rivers all through the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Agriculture isn't the problem overall, unsustainable crops like alfalfa are.
Maybe, but the Hohokam died out before the Columbian Exchange and part of it may have been related to a dry century.
The Hohokam are far from the only group that have lived in those deserts all along the Colorado and it's tributaries
Saudi Arabia unable to buy a US resource?
Ok who has meddled with the cosmic forces and needs to atone?