• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Seven States Running Out of Water

PoS said:
I can imagine if one of those propane ones is defective and it explodes while youre taking a dump... might not be pretty.
Click to expand...

No more than your oven or your water heater, or in some places your refrigerator. They are vented anyway.
 
danarhea said:
Here in the Houston area it was bad for several years, but thankfully, we are out of drought now. Charlie Fenn, who I used to play bass for in a Country and Western band, was right in the middle of the Dyer Mills wildfire, which broke out near the site of the Texas Renaissance Festival. The flames came right to his door, but his house was spared. His sister's house, next door, burned down. Today I play for Edison Freeman. During the wildfires, he was featured on channel 13 in an interview, in which he said he was not going to evacuate, and that wild horses couldn't drag him from his home. A little later, the cameras showed DPS escorting him off his property, after they got a court order to force him out. Thankfully, his home was spared too. Our band did a number of benefits to raise money to help people rebuild. All the rain in Southeast Texas this year finally ended the drought, and Lake Conroe, which was turning into a giant mud puddle at one time, is now full again.

I have a running joke with Wolff DeLong, who was Gene Kelton's bass player before Gene was killed in an accident. Wolff does rain dances, and some say it was his rain dance that ended the Dyer Mills wildfire. So whenever it floods in Houston, I send him a PM on Facebook, telling him he can stop any time now. LOL.
Click to expand...

Why not write a song about all that?
 
PoS said:
I can imagine if one of those propane ones is defective and it explodes while youre taking a dump... might not be pretty.
Click to expand...

So you drop your load through a torch? :skull::flames:
 
American said:
So you drop your load through a torch?
Click to expand...

Your load drops into a chamber and is incinerated there. Any gases are vented to the outside after running through a catalytic converter that removes harmful gases and smells.
 
Well, it was 108 here yesterday, and we are looking at temps over 110 degrees for the next few weeks. Water is pretty important here, of course, all the good water goes to the golf courses..crazy.

I am an avid gardener, but I don't grow a lawn. Plus, we follow the old "if it is yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down" rule. Wasting water in a desert is criminal.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Waterless toilets have been around a long time. For some reason, no one wants to go back to them:

th


and, as I said before, the state of California uses more water than nature gives us even in wet years. Conservation is all well and good, but, if agriculture is going to continue, water will have to be imported sooner or later, or a practical and inexpensive method of desalinization will have to be developed.

If not, count on the price of groceries to go through the roof.
Click to expand...

Nice crapper, maybe a good whitewash for the shabby chic look? :mrgreen:
 
AJiveMan said:
Nice crapper, maybe a good whitewash for the shabby chic look? :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

It's what I grew up with until we moved to Sacramento when I was in fourth grade. The Sears catalog served double duty, read and wipe. You don't stay in there long, in the summer when it warm, the smell isn't for the squeamish, and when it's winter, your berries shrink to the size of peas.
 
beefheart said:
Well, it was 108 here yesterday, and we are looking at temps over 110 degrees for the next few weeks. Water is pretty important here, of course, all the good water goes to the golf courses..crazy.

I am an avid gardener, but I don't grow a lawn. Plus, we follow the old "if it is yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down" rule. Wasting water in a desert is criminal.
Click to expand...
And while you let your toilet hold your urine all the time to save a few gallons a day... Your local desert golf courses use hundreds of gallons of precious water per golfer, per hole.
How does that make you feel?
 
Buck Ewer said:
And while you let your toilet hold your urine all the time to save a few gallons a day... Your local desert golf courses use hundreds of gallons of precious water per golfer, per hole.
How does that make you feel?
Click to expand...

I'll have to say, it used to royally piss me off when I lived there. My Grandpa was using grey water to keep his trees alive while the folks in the South were filling swimming pools and watering golf courses.
 
mbig said:
Yes, in fact I pointed to thousands of years of SW droughts and mentioned the Early Native American civilizations in that context.

Actually, no one politicized this until your post. No one even mentioned warming or the more loaded AGW.
I should have added that disclaimer in my OP as well. The string was NOT meant to be political in any way.

But what has changed now from the time of the failures of those early Native Americans and the days of Dust Bowl, is the amount of pressure on the resources despite our improved tech.
How many (relatively new) cities like LA/Las Vegas/Phoenix can be even regionally supported in a 10 yr drought?
How long is Cyclical? It could be 2/3/10 years or anything in between in some areas or perhaps, if less likely, even more.
It's been 3+ for some areas already.
If it lasts even one or two more in some areas, it's going to have huge impact on everyone.
There's no infrastructure in place to stop regional problems if they continue.
1000 years ago, Tens of Millions of Northeasterners weren't depending on Intensive agriculture of the Anasazi for their lettuce and other produce.
Click to expand...

My apologies, if the mention of politics and political actions misdirected the discussion you wanted to have.

That said, you can blame those who seek to have homes in deserts, with pools and nice green grass and you can blame those who seek to live on the ocean, where hurricanes roar periodically. There are enormous untapped areas of the US and Canada where people could easily live and enjoy a great life off the land as it exists and from the weather as it exists, but humans consider themselves above nature and so try to create lifestyles that are not conducive to the land and weather natural to the environment.

But at their heart, these decisions are also ones that evolve out of politics - development no longer takes place simply because someone occupies a piece of land and sets up home. And politicians and the bureaucrats they control are also the ones who manage the land, or mismanage in the case of areas of the American west where forest fires threatening homes and communities have become almost a monthly occurrence.
 
clownboy said:
It's what I grew up with until we moved to Sacramento when I was in fourth grade. The Sears catalog served double duty, read and wipe. You don't stay in there long, in the summer when it warm, the smell isn't for the squeamish, and when it's winter, your berries shrink to the size of peas.
Click to expand...

In Illinois, we used corn cobs. :eek:
 
Buck Ewer said:
And while you let your toilet hold your urine all the time to save a few gallons a day... Your local desert golf courses use hundreds of gallons of precious water per golfer, per hole.
How does that make you feel?
Click to expand...

Not too pleased, it is terrible waste. We have more golf courses per capita in my county than anywhere else. Crazy.
 
radioman said:
The smart-ass side of me wants to say..."Let 'em drink oil"...but given my state's water issues, along with my
relentlessly charming personality, I won't.

Yeah, big problems.
I think de-salinization plants will be necessary.
The water produced will be more expensive, but we have to have it.
Food prices will rise most certainly.
Pray for rain.
Click to expand...

Here's something that deserves some very serious thought and some serious funding.
Conventional desalination plants might just now be obsolete.

 
beefheart said:
Not too pleased, it is terrible waste. We have more golf courses per capita in my county than anywhere else. Crazy.
Click to expand...
No ... Crazy would be dancing the macarena at a funeral...
What you are describing is insanity.
The wealthy elite are literally pissing on you so they can pretend to be playing their silly game in Scotland.
 
jmotivator said:
The funny thing about this statement is that the President, liberals and Democrats actually believe they CAN control the weather... some of us are more skeptical.
Click to expand...

Not so sure their message is that we can control the weather. More like, as long as we keep dumping crap in the water, and poison into the air, the worse it's gonna get. Funny thing is, there are some people who would disagree with that.
 
clownboy said:
Once again, don't need desalinization. Besides by the time you build just one very expensive plant the droughts will be over until the next cycle. Just go to waterless toilets. Heck, you'll even save on sewerage.
Click to expand...

The other thing Southern Californians can stop doing is pretending that we have to have lush green lawns.
Maintained green lawns are a trend that was imported here from the old English country estates and they didn't actually catch on in America
until the postwar era.

Now, I can understand if someone in Maryland, Virginia or Kentucky wants a lush green lawn.
It's not like you really need to do a lot of work to get it watered.

But the very idea that one has to install an underground SPRINKLER system in SoCal is the first hint you're on a fool's errand.
What do lawns offer anyway? Looks? SoCal isn't England and we're not living in some country manse.
And it's a desert. I can't even begin to imagine how much water we waste on effing GRASS, just so that we can pretend we live in
some grand estate in Europe with rolling green hills and lush foliage.

The appropriate landscape for SoCal is cactii, decorative rocks, hardy succulent desert plants and flowers, and stone.
By the way, L.A. DWP is now offering homeowners up to FOUR thousand dollars to rip out your lawn.

Getting rid of grass is making homeowners' wallets greener - Los Angeles Times

By not doing so, you're not only wasting water, you're turning down free money. :slapme:
 
Captain America said:
Not so sure their message is that we can control the weather. More like, as long as we keep dumping crap in the water, and poison into the air, the worse it's gonna get. Funny thing is, there are some people who would disagree with that.
Click to expand...

Nope, it's totally their message. They point to drought (or tornadoes or hurricanes or blizzards or heat waves and on and on) and then sell CO2 regulation as the cure.
 
Buck Ewer said:
No ... Crazy would be dancing the macarena at a funeral...
What you are describing is insanity.
The wealthy elite are literally pissing on you so they can pretend to be playing their silly game in Scotland.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but, I have a 1950's built brick house, put new double paned windows in, closed off 3/4ths of the house for the summer. Back half has its own A/C, and I have a big portable Evaporative cooler that I keep filled with water blowing on me as I work. It stays 82 inside, which is freezing compared to 110 in the shade outside! I do have a pool, I hate it, too much work, but it is part of the house, and it does feel good on a hot day...
 
mbig said:
Maybe we'll finally get the controversial Keystone Pipeline, but carrying... Water... South from Canada/Great lakes!
They've already floated a shorter one from the rainy Northwest to dry California.
Click to expand...

Never, I sincerely hope.
 
clownboy said:
Your load drops into a chamber and is incinerated there. Any gases are vented to the outside after running through a catalytic converter that removes harmful gases and smells.
Click to expand...

That'll cause global warming.
 
jmotivator said:
Nope, it's totally their message. They point to drought (or tornadoes or hurricanes or blizzards or heat waves and on and on) and then sell CO2 regulation as the cure.
Click to expand...

And you disagree, of course. All that science, but you know better.

I am surrounded by wizards and geniuses.

Must be my lucky day!
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
The other thing Southern Californians can stop doing is pretending that we have to have lush green lawns.
Maintained green lawns are a trend that was imported here from the old English country estates and they didn't actually catch on in America
until the postwar era.

Now, I can understand if someone in Maryland, Virginia or Kentucky wants a lush green lawn.
It's not like you really need to do a lot of work to get it watered.

But the very idea that one has to install an underground SPRINKLER system in SoCal is the first hint you're on a fool's errand.
What do lawns offer anyway? Looks? SoCal isn't England and we're not living in some country manse.
And it's a desert. I can't even begin to imagine how much water we waste on effing GRASS, just so that we can pretend we live in
some grand estate in Europe with rolling green hills and lush foliage.

The appropriate landscape for SoCal is cactii, decorative rocks, hardy succulent desert plants and flowers, and stone.
By the way, L.A. DWP is now offering homeowners up to FOUR thousand dollars to rip out your lawn.

Getting rid of grass is making homeowners' wallets greener - Los Angeles Times

By not doing so, you're not only wasting water, you're turning down free money. :slapme:
Click to expand...
here is how they do it in Arizona...
large-desertcrestllc-landscape-in-az-01.jpg
They actually concede that they live in the desert and landscape their homes accordingly.
 
Captain America said:
And you disagree, of course. All that science, but you know better.

I am surrounded by wizards and geniuses.

Must be my lucky day!
Click to expand...


Ah, so you have gone from telling me that Democrats aren't saying they can change the weather to telling me I deny science for being skeptical of the Democrats ability to change the weather.

To be honest, I expected more of a fight from you before you would collapse into the standard AGW logical fallacies.
 
jmotivator said:
Ah, so you have gone from telling me that Democrats aren't saying they can change the weather to telling me I deny science for being skeptical of the Democrats ability to change the weather.

To be honest, I expected more of a fight from you before you would collapse into the standard AGW logical fallacies.
Click to expand...

I pick my own battles. If I thought it would do any good..........

I am not one who would go and piss up a rope.
 
notquiteright said:
When it comes to agriculture the biggest obstacle to production is there is no large body of salty water nearby. It is a lack of timely rains when the crops need it. 2 feet of snow mean far less than 2 inches of rain in July when it comes to cotton, soybeans, and corn. A cold, dry winter followed by poor spring rains and a late freeze is a disaster in the winter wheat belt.

Irrigation is impractical for the vast majority of acres producing wheat, corn, beef, cotton and soybeans. Roughly 11% of cropland- non vegetable- is irrigated. Huge amounts of water is used in agriculture but that is dwarfed by the usage in areas that have sidewalks and pizza delivery.

Climate change means a lot more than a few degrees of air temp change... it means the end of rain cycles we rely on for the 100s of millions of dryland crop acres we rely on. It perversely means millions of other acres are delayed in planting due to late freezes and torrential rains, then yields cut short due to early frosts. Once a killing frost hits it doesn't matter if there is a month more of warm weather.

High tech MAY keep the tap water flowing along the coasts, but it won't stop West Texas and Western Oklahoma turning into Arizona. We need rain, good old fashion 1.0 legacy systems wet... :peace
Click to expand...
That may be true where you're from. Here, snow in the mountains is the key to successful crops. It normally doesn't rain from sometime in April until sometime in November, anywhere from 6 to 9 months of the year. Of course, there are variations.

Rain doesn't help the crops. In fact, when it does rain in September and earlier, which is rare, it can do a lot of damage to the raisins and nuts.

California depends on snow melting and filling rivers, which in turn fills reservoirs, which in turn fills irrigation canals, which irrigates crops. Without that, there may be a little winter wheat, maybe some seasonal grazing, but not much else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom