Texas Agriculture Commissioner sounds the alarm, says Texas is running out of water
Texas Agriculture Commissioner sounds the alarm, says Texas is running out of water
I used to work on a national, multi-year multidisciplinary study on, without doxxing myself, basically what he is talking about... but across the US. we looked at technologies, practices, and strategies for conserving, reusing, and waste / ecological impacts. millions and millions of federal dollars were and are spent on both research and infrastructure upgrades, demonstrations, education, etc.
the brick wall some states have been racing, even accelerating towards has been visible from the cockpit for several years and usually decades, even by the politically cowardly and conservative federal agencies.
the small farms are going to go first, if they haven't already. then the medium, then the politically connected and wealthiest farms... though they will probably receive buy outs. the what remains of agricultural communities will fold too and accelerate dislocation and economic migration into the larger cities.
industry will greedily snap up whatever former agricultural water was around evaporating any surplus present after agriculture grinds to a halt.
this future is locked in. it cannot be resisted, only fled.
the fact that an elected official in Texas is using the press to convince the public that Texas needs more federal dollars with all its federal strings should tell you these are people want to be seen as crisis managers, but really looking to suck the last bit of the milkshake.
This is one of my major concerns with the global stability of agriculture. The projections of yield losses due to climate change are significant and economically impactful, but they're not something we're incapable of planning around. But if we deplete all the aquifers there's the possibility of a swift and catastrophic collapse. In India, cities are sinking due to rapid groundwater extraction. Things have the potential to get very ugly very quickly if management doesn't improve.
It's fun how everytime I learn about a new climate catastrophe I assume it's like crop failure and then it turns out it's "city wide sinkhole, to not do crop failure"
Yeah, considering tradeoffs is important. And this would be a problem even if climate change wasn't part of the picture; aquifer depletion is happening because capitalism is demanding production cycles faster than the capacity of natural resources (soil and water) to regenerate. We could easily stay within those cycles if we (say it with me, class) reduce wastage, overproduction, and animal agriculture, but that would mean lower profits
Haha oops we depleted the topsoil and drained the ground water 🤷
Great Lakes residents, it's time we get together and form a compact before anyone tries any funny business.
My partner wants to move to be near his family down South and I'm like, can they just come up here?
Allah be praised
I only read the first chapter for free for the Ministry for the Future or whatever it was called but imo they really fucked up having the wet bulb mass death event portrayed in uttar pradesh instead of some random town in Texas
Don't worry India is completely sidelined for the rest of the novel except for one noble savage vignette, one technocrat, and one paragraph talking about a social-liberal uprising against BHP-Hindutva that didn't rely on any of the currently existing left factions in the country.
E: and the noble savage vignette is there to talk about pro-climate bitcoin.
sounds about right I mean I figure that's why they used India as the backdrop for the wet bulb event. It's backwards india, ofc, things like that can't happen HERE u_u dumbbbb
time to build another golf course
also do more crypto mining and build some chip fabs
Better privatise the water service, that'll fix it.
Aral Sea-style crisis might happen.
I'm no geologist but
It sounds to me like Sid Miller wants to inject salt into Texas' water table
Even better idea, ban fracking entirely.
Burning it all to the ground and salting the earth, huh? Yeehaw
God bless texas. No one else would.