My dad's parents settled in Arizona in the Phoenix area after WW2. He spent most of his life there, and I grew up there. Beyond the issues with beef is the question no one in government wants to answer: "What happens in the Southwest when the water runs out?" Lake Meade's elevation above sea level used to average ~1200 feet with roughly 20 million acre feet (fluctuating from ~15 to ~25). In 2001, it started dropping - hard. So far this year, the average is 1060 ft and 8 million acre feet, and it's only going to get worse as the Colorado River continues to dry up. Beyond our own growing water usage (there's a never-ending building boom in Phoenix, along with water-intensive agriculture, chip plants, etc.), we're obligated to supply Mexico with 1.5M acre feet of water every year from the Colorado. On top of that, power generation from Hoover Dam has seen a sharp and steady decline since 2001 (just when we need ever MORE power!). So, water's the thing. It's the ONLY thing when it comes to the Southwest. I believe that at some point in not too long, about 40 million people are going to be out of water in the U.S., and more in Mexico. And there are NO feasible alternatives; you can't just build desalination plants in California and pipe it over the mountains to Arizona and Nevada, or build some massive pipe network from the Mississippi, which is also running low, or pump more out of the ground when aquifers are already being depleted. Then the fun's REALLY gonna start...
Even scarier: I think the regime knows and they have some truly sinister plans that lie somewhere between locking everyone up, sending them into the prison labor pipeline, and letting the rest fight over water and/or die of thirst. Fun times indeed...
My dad's parents settled in Arizona in the Phoenix area after WW2. He spent most of his life there, and I grew up there. Beyond the issues with beef is the question no one in government wants to answer: "What happens in the Southwest when the water runs out?" Lake Meade's elevation above sea level used to average ~1200 feet with roughly 20 million acre feet (fluctuating from ~15 to ~25). In 2001, it started dropping - hard. So far this year, the average is 1060 ft and 8 million acre feet, and it's only going to get worse as the Colorado River continues to dry up. Beyond our own growing water usage (there's a never-ending building boom in Phoenix, along with water-intensive agriculture, chip plants, etc.), we're obligated to supply Mexico with 1.5M acre feet of water every year from the Colorado. On top of that, power generation from Hoover Dam has seen a sharp and steady decline since 2001 (just when we need ever MORE power!). So, water's the thing. It's the ONLY thing when it comes to the Southwest. I believe that at some point in not too long, about 40 million people are going to be out of water in the U.S., and more in Mexico. And there are NO feasible alternatives; you can't just build desalination plants in California and pipe it over the mountains to Arizona and Nevada, or build some massive pipe network from the Mississippi, which is also running low, or pump more out of the ground when aquifers are already being depleted. Then the fun's REALLY gonna start...
Even scarier: I think the regime knows and they have some truly sinister plans that lie somewhere between locking everyone up, sending them into the prison labor pipeline, and letting the rest fight over water and/or die of thirst. Fun times indeed...