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William Shatner Proposes $30 Billion Water Pipeline To California
Taco Cowboy writes The 84-year-old Star Trek star wants to build a water pipeline to California. All it'll cost, according to Mr. Shatner, is $30 billion, and he wants to KickStarter the funding campaign. According to Mr. Shatner, if the KickStarter campaign doesn't raise enough money then he will donate whatever that has been collected to a politician who promise to build that water pipe. Where does he wants to get the water? Seattle, "A place where there's a lot of water. There's too much water," says Mr. Shatner.
Southern California has a long history of stealing water from other places...
Time to just jack up the water rates so people move out.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
He's right, there is plenty of water. It's in the Pacific Ocean. If there's 30 billion to spend (and there isn't), use it to improve desalination methods. Don't rob other cities of their water.
How about California stops growing almonds. Water crisis averted.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
What this would amount to in practice is tapping the Great Lakes to enable unsustainable development in the Southwest. This would be an ecological disaster for both the Great Lakes, which are already losing volume due to climate change, and the Southwest, which has been unsustainably developed for decades.
How about, instead of massive engineering projects, we just don't build cities where there aren't enough natural resources to sustain them?
It's the key 21st century project that needs to get done to keep the US safe from droughts, aquifer depletion and powerful storms.
Silly boy. Under what scenario do you figure that the western states won't simply use all the water we have back east, then demand more? The west coast of California is seeing the dream of living where it hardly ever rains, yet taking other people's water, come to an end.
Get your water where the Colorado river reaches the sea.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If the people in Liberalwood want to do something constructive, they wold stop opposing desalination and let that $30 billion be spent getting California its own water supply.
This is exactly the wrong approach. The last thing California needs is more idiotic "top down" solutions that ignore basic economics. Desalination is a way to exchange expensive and scarce electricity for cheap and plentiful water. It only makes sense because of the artificially inflated cost of water in urban areas. Meanwhile, farmers are using massive amounts of cheap subsidized water to grow rice and cotton in the desert. End the subsidies. Set a market price for water. Problem solved.
Desalination is a plausible solution for water for consumer use--that is, urban and suburban locations.
It is not a very plausible solution for agricultural use-- too expensive. Do you realize that those people take the water and just dump it on the ground?
*(well, some of the suburban people just spray it on the ground, too. But they spray millions and millions of gallons on lawns. Sounds like a lot... but agriculture uses trillions of gallons.)
Water rights are complicated. Since the rule is, whoever grabbed it first owns the rights to the water, the people who own it aren't necessarily the ones who use it most responsibly. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Agriculture is 80% of California's water use (although only 1.5% of California's economy) The big problem is almonds. Who would have thought that such a niche foodstuff would drive agricultural water? https://www.bostonglobe.com/bu...
Trillions? Yep: http://science.nasa.gov/scienc...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Nestle's claims they use 700 million gallons a year bottling. This is the equivalent of what two golf courses use. CA has over 1100 golf courses.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
a KirkStarter?
I'll be here all week.
Because I've got nowhere to go.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.