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Climate change is threatening the water supply of over 40 million people that rely on the Colorado River. Scientists have observed that, as the average temperature increases - due to climate change - so does the evaporation rate of the snow caps there. To quote the science news journal, " on average, a regional temperature increase of 1.4 degrees Celsius over the last century reduced the annual amount of water flowing through the river by more than 11 percent,". Scientists even predict that as the average temperature increases by 1 degree Celsius over the next few years, the amount of water that will disappear from the river would be 5 times the amount that Las Vegas uses each year.
This news is very concerning to me, and I think that this will have many negative effects on our society in the near future. For example it would stunt crop growth and yield, create water shortages in many communities, inflate prices of water, etc. To think that within the next few years we could lose up to 500 billion gallons of water is extremely scary to me and I honestly don't know what can be done to fix this crisis.
- What do you think can be done to help limit our daily water consumption?
- How else might this lack of water affect us here in California?
- How will this shortage of water impact communities that live in drier areas like Palm Springs or Las Vegas?
5 comments:
I think that we should go a one step further back in this issue and address the fundamental problem: lack of urgency towards developing climate legislation. If we take the route of decreasing water consumption, the local governments should implement a tax on large water usage to deter people from wasting water. While we can try to ration our water consumption, it may be more beneficial to keep the global temperature from further increasing. The federal government should draft laws to decrease oil and meat production. If the government addresses the larger issue at hand, the results will be more meaningful.
This certainly seems like a serious problem that will undoubtedly affect millions of Americans who get their water from the Colorado River. Places like southern California, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada will likely see extreme economic decline as well as a price surge for bottled water. Regarding your first question, I don’t really think limiting our water consumption will help the drying Colorado River (although limiting water consumption is definitely beneficial for society as a whole since fresh water is such a scarce resource). Perhaps a solution to this problem would be to ship water from areas who are now receiving an abundance of water from changing climates. As for question two, as I mentioned earlier, southern California will be greatly affected since they get their water from the Colorado River. If shipping water is simply too costly, and the benefits can’t outweigh the potential of millions of Americans going without a steady water source, then maybe more development with desalination could be the next best thing. Sea levels are rising so turning it into freshwater would definitely kill two birds with one stone.
I think there are many basic things that can be done to limit our daily water consumption; we've all been told to take shorter showers, let our lawns die, etc. But in places like LA, there are legitimate restrictions on water usage - you can only do your laundry on certain days, for example. I think if the state government were to implement more strict regulations there could be benefits (as well as some very upset Californians but oh well). I agree with Carlos regarding the effects this specific problem will have, but I also want to address the deal of desalination; this process of removing salt from water to create clean drinking water is revolutionary. Billion of gallons of clean water can be produced each day. Unfortunately, this is an incredibly expensive process, and whether or not the government/people would be willing to pay for this is uncertain. People would become angry if taxes were implemented for the purpose, because nobody likes taxes. However, this is an incredibly important situation, so maybe our government will show some sense of urgency regarding our water problems.
I believe that this is a serious problem that will affect and have affected millions of people. Personally, I think that these issues go back to climate change. The thing is, we are not losing any amount of water. If you think about it, the water on Earth stays on Earth. In reality, we are losing the amount of freshwater provided. Most of our freshwater has become contaminated. So, if there's a solution to extract the bacteria and dirt out of contaminated water fast and in large amounts at a time, it would definitely help with the water issue. Olivia poses a good point, however. Removing the salt out of water is incredibly expensive and raises taxing will cause a great uproar. However, the world is not in the best state right now and something drastic must be down before it is too late. Another important concern is that we must pay more attention to is global warming. Cutting our CO2 emissions will not only help global warming but also with water as well. It is a necessity to act fast and do everything we can to reverse climate change. Hopefully, these issues will be more and more of a concern so that people can start acting faster and more drastic.
This is definitely a huge issue and only one of the devastating effects of our current climate crisis. The drying of the Colorado River will obviously impact all the people relying on it as a source of water. Without this water, people will have to turn to other water supplies which will have to come from other locations, which will require more transport of water or more buying of water from stores. This then has a negative impact on the environment, continuing the cycle. Furthermore, this huge loss of water will greatly hurt the ecosystem of the river and its surroundings. While water conservation strategies ultimately won't be able to negate the giant impact of the Colorado River drying, I still think that it is important to conserve whatever water we can, and people can do this just by changing their routines. Some easy ways include not watering your lawn as frequently, taking quicker showers, catching the water from the faucet in a bucket as you wait for the water to warm up before showers/baths, only using the washing machine and dishwasher when there are full loads, having some meatless meals, and more. However, at this point, the only way we are going to be able to stop these climate crises is to have major change occur at the top too, meaning that the government must start creating and enforcing policies to significantly cut CO2 emissions, reduce plastic consumption, switch to sustainable energies, etc. Large companies must also commit to these changes if we are to have any hope of stopping what feels like an inevitable collapse of our environment. Only once action starts can we help horrible situations like this Colorado River one, and yet there is still an incredibly disheartening lack of response from those in power.
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