Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?

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Opinion | Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?

26 comments

Maybe trying to farm in swathes of arid land using massively inefficient watering techniques and refusing to innovate for decades wasn't the best idea.
Or, hear me out, what if we try growing food in the Midwest, rather than the biofuels, industrial lubricants, and cattle feed we grow there now?
- I mean... That all just sounds like corn, which, in my opinion, is a pretty good food.
  
  Lol, you should try eating feed corn sometime.
Holy hell, I swear people who write opinion pieces like this have no idea what a mountain is.
It takes about 30 Watts to move a gallon of water up one meter. Start running the numbers on what it would take to move water from the Great Lakes (500 ish feet ) over the Rocky Mountains and you should quickly realize how terrible this idea is.
Same calculations should be used to determine that farming at 1-2 thousand feet in elevation makes desalination a bad choice as well. But desalination can be used for all the people living near the coast and allow farms to use more of the water at the higher elevations.
- Desalination tends not to be used by the coast because it's far more expensive than anything other than going without water.
  
  It's far cheaper than it used to be
Everybody saying farm in different areas and I'm saying get rid of every golf course or any other excessively wasteful recreational use of water.
Wanna go to war with Canada?
- Yeah the Great Lakes Commission would never allow this.
- It's clear that this will become an issue and the USA will just help itself. In this article not a thought is given to how Canada depends on this water. Canada is completely unprepared to resist this, and the USA knows it.
  
  We're going to light the White House on fire again
  
  It's because John Candy isn't around anymore to form an invasion party
- That's pretty much where this goes if there's any meaningful pumping.
what if they stop growing cow food
- That would be a very big deal; as would ending the use of food as a motor fuel.
Desalination and verticle farming. The tech has been around for a while, but the poor rich people don't want to miss out buying this year's model yacht.
- Desalination is ~~expensive~~ energy intensive and vertical farming is to ~~expensive~~ labor intensive. We could do them but they are massive inefficiencies when other options are available.
  For better resource utilisation we could go vegan, except for animals exclusively eating grass/hay and waste products. But doing that would increase the price of meat and milk products, while making other foods cheaper and more available.
  Sadly we can't have people only eating meat on some days, like in the "good old days", better use up all of earth before handling it of to the next generations.
  PS: Sorry, I'm feeling argumentative today.
  
  No, you're good. And that right there is the basis of the problem: costeffectiveness. There is so much more that the world could have, but those that have the money to make things only want to make those things if they can make a certain amount of profit. Making a profit isn't good enough if it isn't a lot of profit.
  For example: solar. When I was a kid, all I would hear is how solar is so inefficient that it would be cost prohibitive to power everything off solar. Now it's just a matter of time.
- Vertical farming is not actually efficient. https://youtu.be/8BXHu_yXVQk?si=3-xdPPgce3xRmbpu
You will feel the wrath of canadian geese if you even dare think of stealing one single drop.
And we will not be sorry.
- Um where I'm at, we sold the rights to our water reservoirs. Last year the lakes were the lowest in 50 years or more. I wish we released the attack geese.
Nope. Just need to invest in desalination.

26 comments