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Groundwater does come back... And you can move the land in a way to encourage it to refill faster... Taken from the individuals participating in permaculture: Research "swales"... Talk about a basic understanding of the flow of water! 😂😅
Wouldn't it be better if we used the army corps of engineers to encourage the rain to soak into the earth, rather than run right off the face of the land, into our oceans?... Such as we see in L.A. That isn't a river in L.A. - It's a concrete sealed floodwater diverter.
@@alazarbisrat1978 But... why not both? They are not mutually exclusive. If you do both you save even more. Also, if you did a cost/benefit analysis then not running your tap during brushing your teeth (for example) is a low hanging fruit. Easiest to do with some results. Checking your whole house (for leakages I pressume?) is more effort, but bigger results.
@@Mastordant just saying there aren't many gallons lost doing those simple things so it shouldn't matter too much. although it really should be common sense to do some of those things, limiting shower times or something to the detriment of your comfort is rather unnecessary and doesn't have to be forced upon everyone when there're much bigger fish to fry
As a note on reducing beef and dairy consumption, just removing subsidies would go a long way. Without them, ground hamburger would cost about $30/lb. Also worth noting is that subsidies end up drastically reducing the impact of consumer choice to abstain. You’re buying beef via the IRS whether you like it or not.
Unfortunately those subsidies are unlikely to change until either public outlook changes on it and allow such policies in a democratic system. Think "they're coming for our hamburgers!!". Or food production is disrupted in a way that sidesteps the current environmental problems with food production while still providing the same foods but cheaper. This might actually be a potential reality in the near future with the advent of precision fermentation. We just have to hope that existing industry doesn't attempt to quash it.
@@jklmnopq233if you remove the price fixing and absurd corporate profits non subsidized ground beef would cost about $2 a pound.... Maybe we should look into reasonable regulations all around.
I actually showed my parents your video on induction stoves a few weeks ago and just recently they moved to a much smaller house and requested an induction stove. They said they absolutely love the speed of it and their gas bill is non-existent now! Thanks for the perfect format to entertain and educate!
check the effects of EMF (look at scientifical material from Magda Havas for example). If you let your parents stick with it - at least recommend they don't "stand and stir" at the pot, but rather "set it and forget it". The best way to do this would be to move to another room when the induction stove is on.
@@akaviral5476 not from an English speaking country, so excuse the possible typos. But the science is strong on this one, although not mainstream, so it may not be your thing.
Hey America, where should we put all these people that need to be fed? "Desert where all the water rights are already spoken for?" "Desert where all the water rights are already spoken for!" *cough* LA *cough cough* Las Vegas *cough* Phoenix Ahem, excuse me.
In Texas, they planned acres and acres of Pecan trees that requires lots of water. So they control the water in the Rio Grande. Affecting animals that need water. It's a problem that is going to hit us soon.
We export goods grown with "free" water??? America explain! Why are politicians worried about immigration when there are foreign companies litterally draining our natural resources dry? I mean I know the reason... political donations sources are usually public.
theyre not worried about immigration. it's just a token wealthy powerful people use to buy poor people's votes who wouldnt ever vote for them otherwise
Yep, the invisible hand of the market will regulate it all. And it's invisible because there's no market - it's just hit and the ground, grab the water and export whatever has been grown with it wherever you like. I bet you there was a lobbying group (aka what is called corruption in every other country) at work before this was approved.
Don't worry, it doesn't only happen in the US! Australia has the same problem with foreign and domestic companies, stealing water from the everyday citizen. It's a problem some governments are not looking at.
Because its much easier to blame immigrants (or other marginalized group) who lack a platfrom and ability to defend themselves for your nations problems than blame the politicians, corporations and billionaires who are the real problem.
As a Dutchman, this scares me. We have separate election for water management and was the whole basis for our democractic system. These days we have so much control over our ground water that a recent discussion between farmers and foristers was about lowering the levels so fields are not too muddy for tractors. This is a country that is basically a giant river delta and not an arid desert. Giving your water to the Saudis seems like the dumbest idea ever.
Funny thing is Saudi's only make up 5% of those crop exports. All Saudi's will do is what other countries do & simply buy the crops off the open market now. It's a legit big industry hence why no cares, farmers would kick up a fuss. Funny how fearmongering over foreign country owning land/resources is what is needed for this to be news...but now it's done, no one cares. Maybe activists should set up a Iranian/Chinese shell company & buy up land for water....you'll see change overnight cause politicians love a good headline story 😂 only way to beat the farmer lobby & their public support...guise of 'national security'
"Giving your water to the Saudis seems like the dumbest idea ever." This is what happens when the people of said country have no real say in the policies which govern said country - let alone their local county or state. Pay off a few politicians, gentrify the term as "Lobbying" , and with chump change for a billionaire you get anything you want.
It depends on the American state, but certain states have that, too, but it's at the level of regional and county elections. For example, my regional fire district just had a special election for everyone to vote on whether more funds should be diverted to wildfire prevention, but other fire districts have never had a single election and just do whatever they want. There is no state-wide or national mandate that says counties and regions MUST have elections for these decisions.
@@GoddoDoggo You misunderstand. EACH watershed needs to have a separate independent governing body with its own elections and taxes. It needs to be independent of counties, regions, states or national elections. It should only concern itself with managing the water. That is how we've been doing it in the Netherlands for over 600 years and it works great for all kinds of water management.
I've been working for a Water District in Southern California for 16 years. Five years ago I went on my first Metropolitan Water District infrastructure tour. Five years ago I also started eating a mostly plant-based diet. I've been waiting years for this EXACT video! Thank you for all your dedication and hard work to produce this masterpiece and shed some light on something that regularly gets taken for granted! You guys ROCK!
...Internet is useless, so can any of my fellow Climate-Town-Fans who knows what they're talking abou give me a comprehensive list of the highest water-drainers among all Plants? Maybe with a little notee on it being 'worth i' or not?
Ah, yes, the good old "better things are not possible because any kind of agricultural regulation would mean instant, forever famine". There's a lot of that in Europe too
Indeed. We just had that in Germany, where politics tried to tax diesel fuel a bit more. Boy did they get an answer from the unhappy union of self-righteous farmers...
The video mentioned that restricting water to Farmers would make people starve but that's not true. Limiting water to crops that humans eat directly instead of alfalfa which we do not would make a big difference and no one would starve.
I could cite a study that found that ending animal agriculture would feed 4 billion more people. It would also go a long way to solving climate change and save a lot of water
yep. In New Mexico, the part that uses the Rio not the Colorado, and discussing how it is wrong we have less water because there is less snow melt, because there is less snow pack, coupled with the fact that I am the one required to conserve water, and reduce the size of my personal vegetable garden, while Saudis can use as much water as they want to feed cows in the middle east, will have people acting like you are advocating banning all farming forever.
& not just water, but land too. Meat & dairy products only make up a small portion of our overall calories consumed, but they account for 80% of our agricultural land use -- & most of that 80% is just cows. We could comfortably feed the whole world on 1/5th the land we use now if we didn't eat meat.
@@njdevilku1340 Not to worry, friend. Change won't happen thanks to us making personal consumption choices. & it won't happen until suffering is great enough that we're all happy to go without these particular treats to save ourselves. Before then we may have minor reforms here & there, but they won't make much of a difference at all.
That's because the Meat Industry DESPERATELY wants to turn you against viable plant-based alternatives - the US government gives BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to them so they can artificially cheapen meat & spew propoganda. Don't trust a word out of the Meat Industry's mouth. There is no such thing as sustainable meat farming for the masses. There is no such thing as "Grass fed, organic, free-range" meat on an industrial scale. There is no such thing as Ethical meat farming. #GoVegan
As a Californian who also lived in AZ with a lot of passion and rage for this topic, thank you so much for making this. I'm so sick and tired of ignorant people claiming it's almonds and golf courses. It's fucking alfafa for American and Middle Eastern/Chinese cows and paper water rights from the early 20th century! These water rights are in dire dire need of being torched. Of the many disgusting things going on in the environment, the wanton and casual destruction of the Colorado River and SW watershed by "eco-green leader" CA is so appalling it defies language. These mega farms have been caught many times wasting as much water as they can. Arrowhead even recently (finally!) got kicked out of CA after something like 90% of their water was found to be mysteriously disappearing-- probably being fucked dumped just so they could maintain their water allotments! It's not small farmers who are doing this shit. It's gigantic megafarmers who own an absolutely mind boggling amount of land and water and waste the vast majority of it. Just google the San Joaquin Valley sinking and see how much it has sunk from groundwater pumping. Saudi Arabia needs to be kicked the fuck out of AZ, we need to stop feeding foreign cows, Americans need to eat less cows and dairy products, and entirely new water rights need to be drawn up. Full stop. This madness needs to end.
I'm also a Californian living in AZ, and too have paid a lot of attention to water policy in the west. You beat me to it! BTW: John Wesley Powell rocked.
One thing I liked about this video is that they aren't completely infected with the China bad mind virus. American allies and "enemies" both import tons of alfalfa. A lot of discussion on American water often makes it seem like it's a clear good vs evil type thing. But cutting off alfalfa exports would piss off more people than simply China or Saudi Arabia.
Fun fact: "use it or lose it" is also how the govt does discretionary budgets. That goes about as well for govt spending as it does for water conservation.
Yes, I can attest to that, and it's not unique to the US. I am in Canada and we always had overtime in my department when fiscal end was coming around, even if there wasn't enough work to sustain it.
*THANK YOU* for talking about the water-hogging elephant in the room: agriculture. I'm so sick and tired of arguing with misinformed Arizonans who think all the state's water is being wasted on chip factories and golf courses. It simply isn't -- in fact despite the Phoenix Valley's population more than tripling over the last 50 years, it actually consumes *LESS* overall water because urbanization took the place of thirsty farmland. The Colorado River Basin's water problem is firstly a resource management problem. If farmers had to pay a real market rate for water, they'd surely innovate better conservation to stay in business. But nope, we're led to believe that taking shorter showers is going to save the Southwest
semiconductor manufacturing is water positive. Yes, fabs use a ton of water, but that's offset and recycled at really high rates. Intel is actually water positive because they fund so many recycling programs and offset programs(not the dumb kind).
@@rjdverbeekIt’s everything. Yuma is one of the greatest suppliers of salad greens in the country thanks to all the extra sun essentially providing a third growing season. They also use flood irrigation to supply those thousands of thirsty acres, one of the least efficient methods. Over a quarter of the water is lost to evaporation. There has to be a better way.
@@CRneuwater positive is a myth. its the same as those carbon offset schemes theyre just fluff and buzzwords that try to offload the issue to someone else
Even if the water remained at the same rate, I think a lot of farmers are willing to try water conservation efforts or drought-resistant crop growth if they could do so without having to give up their water rights permanently.
Building those water intensive Processing Chip Manufacturing Plants in the Phoenix area is a great move. They're definitely going to help fix the problem.
You gotta ask for tho. Start a letter to the editors campaign, to your political party, to the agriculture minister, no need to go strong, just get them talking.
We live in the largest community in Australia without reticulated water. We rely on rain water and bores. Our water is harvested by Coca Ccola, Mt. Franklin and Neverfail and trucked off our mountain many times a day. (The trucks are a whole issue in themselves as we are on a mountain and the roads were never built for heavy constant traffic). One of our primary schools has asked that children bring water from home as the bore is under significant pressure for the first time since the school as built. People who have lived here all their lives have had their bores either run dry or significantly reduced. Ironically many of us now have to pay to have water trucked to our tanks many times a year in dry seasons. We are fortunate to have a bore and share with our neighbours but many are not so lucky. You may have guessed that this is a serious bone of contention. Thanks for your video and the great information.
Very much the same issue in Australia. We are obviously known for our water shortages and droughts, but then we also sell insane water rights to mining companies, and beverage companies like Coke and Nestle and these all end up draining one of the most scarce and valuable resources we have, for pennies on the dollar. It is criminal, it is evil, it is barbaric and backwards.
Yep this is all true. Australia has some serious problems with water and tangled political fights about usage (Murray Darling basin and great artisan basin especially) Except for the cattle - our situation there is slightly different, because we have way more grass-fed cattle and tend to use breeds that need less water. USA has some pretty stupid cattle farmers (maybe because the feed is so much cheaper because their water is free?) The cattle industry in the US could learn from Australia on that issue… cause I can’t imagine US going vegan any time soon…
In Australia it's not even mostly rivers though, it's ancient aquifers, especially the Great Artesian basin. Modern theories also suggest that cattle and sheep stations had a catastrophic impact on Queensland's climate. It used to be flooded a lot, but overgrazing and logging meant two things. One, the water wouldn't "stick around" and would disappear too quickly in big channels and rivers, promoting erosion, worsening the state of the plants. Two, fewer trees and vegetation meant less evaporation, which is how most of the rain on Earth is formed... by clouds from trees and plants perspiration. Only 40% of rain on Earth is formed by ocean evaporation. Today they are trying to keep that water in the Queensland outback by building ground swells all around, to flood the area, grow trees and bushes, so it's back to what it used to be.
I feel like a lot of government can be described as 1. Government commissions a study 2. Experts in the field put a lot of work into finding good solutions 3. Government ignores it
Did you hear about the fact that the first large-scale studies about the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions to the climate was done by the oil industry and then immediately ignored and buried deep to not let the information hurt their profit margins?
3. The couple thousand wealthiest people in the country say "no" and tell the managers they've put in charge of the country (aka the government) to implement solutions which will increase their wealth at everyone else's expense regardless of expert advice.
@@D0praise glad to see someone mentioning that. A MASSIVE decision a lot of people don't grasp the danger of. The supreme Court basically decided they are the only experts that matter anymore, which is terrifying because you should NEVER trust someone who has the confidence to think they know that much about everything.
I’m a La Paz county native - water has been a big issue because of the two sovereign nations butting heads (County & Tribes) and their respective politicians getting caught laundering money/selling water behind others’ backs. It’s a clown show and I’m glad to have left, but I’m still concerned for my family and friends in the area.
Fun Fact the idea of, as you put it “dibs”, came to be was not to settle disputes between farmers but miners. Small streams in the Rocky Mountains where used in small claim mining operations. Occasionally someone would make a claim above another claim, divert the stream, and leave the first miner without enough water to run a sluice box. This lead to some frontier justice that government officials did not want. The laws made to manage this came in response to the Colorado gold rush that started in 1859 with the laws following shortly thereafter. These laws are referred to as the Colorado Doctrine. They are now the basis of the prior appropriation system to this day. So our water laws were made to stop fighting between gold miners in the mid 19th century long before any serious agricultural operations were happening in the Colorado River water shed.
Wow -- considering how gold was the reason a lot of Native peoples were forced off their lands as well, I imagine all of that was happening at the same time.
@@crypticmedicine the history of water usage in the western United States is fascinating. I suggest reading the book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner if you find all this interesting.
My partner ran across the house in excitement that you had another video out and we threw it on the tv and really enjoyed it. Wanted to let you know that you brought joy to my household today.
As a child in the 50's / 60's i read an article in The National Geographic magazine predicting this very outcome. Labeling water as becoming more valuable than anything else on the planet.
I'm from the Mexican side of the Colorado River, or what it used to be a river, and it was really frustating watching the river dry up over the years and there was nothing we could do about it.
@klisterklister2367 Honestly how dare they ask us to conserve water year after year after year when they've been following these archaic ass backwards laws from 100 years ago based not on science but instead on literally "finders keepers losers weepers" and use it to grow grass we can't even eat. Worse yet, it's grass to feed overseas cattle. We can conserve water until we're sick from dehydration, but it won't ever compare to what farmers could conserve if they were given the incentive to use less water.
There's a town nearby in southwestern colorado that has special water rights, older than anyone else's. They are SO paranoid that people "are coming for their water." It's kind of embarrassing, tbh. All they did was inherit the rights, but they act like they dug the damn resevoir themselves. The amount of pride these people have in their great-greatgrandfathers settling this land 100 years ago for free is really astounding. They didn't work for any of their land or their water rights. It's all inherited wealth.
One of the most toxic traits I see in America are people who are obsessed with how long their ancestors have been on this continent. I think they're compensating for something missing inside of their souls.
@@kubakielbasa5987 You support an expensive government-enforced diversion of natural rainwater (falling mostly on public land) into the hands of a few families, as a libertarian? We're talking an arcane water rights scheme that only applies to the Colorado basin. Not our property rights. Those water "rights" are based on a flawed & mismanaged document from 100 years ago that didn't even include all the people who actually live on the river. Does that make sense, or should water users far away from the river pay for the public resources they consume? (referring to Imperial Valley in Cali, not a random town in Colorado, but the premise should be the same: rainwater collection should be allowed, and you keep what you catch from the rain.)
You missed a supreme opportunity to film this in a noir style as a nod to Chinatown, which is a beautiful film LITERALLY about finding who was taking LA's water supply.
I have lived in Southern Alberta for about a year, and here are a few things I've learned. 1. Water from the reservoirs is allocated on a year to year basis, meaning that there is rarely much overuse. 2. Water irrigation is often done without much care for efficiency, many farmers will irrigate at the hottest part of the day, when the irrigated water evaporates the most. 3. Irrigated water causes the soil to become quite saline if the soil is over irrigated without an inch or two of flushing water after the crops are harvested. This can create salt flats, which are stretches of unusable land. (Incidentally, alfalfa is one of the few crops that can be grown in saline soil, and, if done right, can bring the soil back to being usable again.)
@@baronvonslambert But there's some uptake of some minerals by the plants, and southern Alberta should have an annual snowmelt flush... ordinarily accumulation would take a very long time. Road salt can build up to very unnatural levels in groundwater without affecting the root zone to speak of...
@@hummingcloud9889 regarding point 2: irrigation is not done as inefficiently as you make it seem. If you are depending on water budget and allocations, the last thing you want to do is open the tap for no good reason. I sincerely doubt that farmers in your region waste the water on purpose. Theyve been farming longer than you have. Also. If water evaporates, where does it go? Does it suddenly leave our planet and flies to the moon or something? No, it goes back into the climate system to precipitate somewhere else. Stop pretending farmers make water "dissappear". Regarding comment 3: this is a complete fabrication. Utter nonsensical. You are not going to create salts out of thin air. Theyd have to be there first, and unless you irrigate with seawater or a high EC fertilizer mix, you are never going to get that soil to go more saline. In fact, during crop growth THE OPPOSITE HAPPENS as crops absorb the nutrientsalt. Come on man. Read a book. -Agronomist out
@@baronvonslambertThis here is an explanation lots of people should learn about watering plants in containers, especially if they have hard water. You have to water deeply to runoff to avoid that type of buildup in the soil or eventually it becomes inhospitable
@@Flyingdutchy33groundwater is high in minerals because of the fact it has to flow through a lot of it to reach the water table. Ask anyone with well water how hard their water is. Now pour that same water over the same soil over and over and those minerals build up faster than they are flushed out by rainwater since the areas are irritating because of little rainwater. Common sense bud before you come in with your "agronomist out" silliness.
I've been removing lawns to plant water wise gardens for a few years now and now I'm feeling like that's a drop in the ocean 😢 Every little bit though. Lawns for no purpose other than curb appeal and societal expectations are ridiculous.
Honestly after seeing this video and that your contributions are literally a drop in the ocean, what I find ridiculous is there is no regulation on water pumpage and that the US prefers to sell its "water" to China and Japan so that a handful of companies can get filthy rich while the rest of the country dies of thirst, yet they still urge the citizens to replace their lawns.
Here is what viewers can really do: Have at most 2 kids. Save us from lower our standards just because you feel we have to share these lower standards with more people.
yeah like ditch their ex-gfs giving them the silent treatment at their Arizona swimming pool in their bikinis. ... Because it's all gonna die from abrupt global warming!
@@Flyingdutchy33 Surely this video taught you how little of an impact we as individuals have vs big farms/coporations? Don't see how having only 2 kids even across the board has any meaningful impact. This 'overpopulation' bs is literally decades old in a world where developing countries biggest demographic issue is a lack of births lol. Did you miss out the example of Vegas in this video growing like 28% 2000-2020 & still using less water than they did 20 years ago??
@@d.b.cooper1 Hold up. Birthrate in western countries is around 2. Birthrate in developing countries exceeds 4 The whole reason they use less water is because it is scarce. I doubt any of us would like to observe their water bill. Vegas is next to LA a typical example of building a large city in the exact wrong location.
@@dmytrokostiuchenko3145 I was curious/worried when France moved far-right whether there was more going on than just immigration, but I've been too lazy/burned out to delve into another country's internal conflicts when my own country is still in dangerous straights.
@@tappydani9378 can we stop calling every political belief "far"? Every single thing is either "far left" or "far right" last time I checked france hasn't turned into a fascist ethnostate so no, it's not "far-right"
@@NihongoWakannai It is literally calling them what they are. Our political world is becoming increasingly radicalized and most parties turn to either of the two extremes. When both sides want to impose draconian rules that are unacceptable for ordinary people then is it any wonder they are being called "far"? In my country we used to not care who was in power because major parties on both sides of the spectrum were close to the center. The issues they focused on were important however going one way or the other didn't cause enormous repercussions on the citizen and were far from the end of the world. Nowadays you can only vote for a party that wants to take over the country and steal as much money as they can while doing it, or vote for a party that wants to sell the entire country to foreign powers and steal as much money as they can while doing it. Those are the "moderate" right and left wing parties respectively. The extremists? The left wants to go full on communist (this time it will definitely work) and the right wing extremists want the return of monarchy (with their leader as the new king). I am not going to mention what country I am talking about however similar trends can be seen all around the world.
I'm a Utahn who currently works researching how much water certain plants on the Paria River use (a tributary to the Colorado). It sucks to drive and hike in the area and just see thousands of alfalfa farms. Thanks for covering this!
"Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner is probably one of the best books of all time on this issue! Written almost 40 years ago now and remains frighteningly prescient.
It's the middle book in the stack of books on the table whenever he's doing the shots at the computer! That orange binding is hard to miss. But yes, a reference to that one would also be great.
Indeed, but broader than that, whatever economic/political system is used, greed and corruption are still the actual problem. This is why every system throughout history has just ended up merely used to control people by a corrupt elite who seize power in various ways. If the majority of human beings were raised to see the world and others as the same as themselves, as a collective, then even capitalism could be operated with proper regulations, with understanding and care for each other and our environment. This would of course mean more socialist-style policies too, with strict caps on personal wealth (half a billion dollars seems more than enough reward for anyone for anything, frankly) but they are not mutually exclusive as most voters seem to have been conditioned to believe.
Short term profits are usually not incentivized by capitalism intrinsically, thats more so a human-error in the way we think about money and profit etc
@@AhzealionAll profits are incentivized under capitalism, The basis for production under capitalism is producing commodities for profit, It's a systemic issue, not one of individuals having the wrong mindset.
it’s almost like government over-regulation of water rights created the incentives for farmers to waste water, when a fair market-driven system would incentivize them not to….
I'm actually so mad. I remember being a kid listening to my teacher stress and tell us how important it was to save water. It really resonated with me, and I went all out. I took timed 5-minute showers, replaced my showerhead with a more efficient one, and would only run water after brushing my teeth. Heck, I even used to flush the toilet only once per day, assuming I had only gone number 1. I literally created so much unnecessary and truly imaginary stress when I was only 14 years old. I only learned later in university that the vast majority of water is used by big corporations like Nestlé that literally bottle our water for next to nothing and sell it back to us (not sure why he didn't include that). I also learned how most of the water is used for livestock, but at least that feels more justifiable. Anyway, the lesson is to never stress and feel like your individual action is paramount.
Your intentions and dicipline where at the right place, you were just taught the wrong methods. Personal responsibility has never been as relevant and important as right now. For example, you alone could save literal metric tons of water by simply choosing not to eat cows or drink their milk. It's not your fault you were mislead, but it would be your fault if the resulting bitterness would keep you from taking further actions. It's up to you, who you want to be, and how you want society to change.
@@Aaron.Thomas No the lesson is that not eating cows is not going to force agriculture to implement better water practices. And that personal responsibility isnt consumer practices but engaging in civics to push for water conservation efforts on a grand scale.
Incredible video. This has taken random pieces of information I've garnered through articles and made it comprehensive. I look forward to every video y'all put out.
I work at a company in AZ and we build dry wells that are designed to drain storm water just above the highest water table. It's not much but it is an effort to replenish our aquifers around the valley.
I live in Colorado and serve on my City's Water Commission and we're aiming to recycling all of it in the next 30 years. We already recycle 30 percent to extinction. Eventually those downstream may have to recycle theirs that way too.
This guy is so good I lost track of the message and just concentrated on the writing and production that is literally off the chain. But I think it had something to do with water..
The world is changing so fast. I’m just starting my career as an environmentalist in Manitoba (which is in Canada for the Americans out there) and our water situation has changed so much. I’m lucky enough to live near an Ojibwe reserve and hear the ancestral stories of what it used to be like here (a hell of a lot more water). A lot of what I’m seeing now in the environment has me in a bit of a panic. Our rivers are so low and the weather is just not restoring it, to the extent that some people are saying the drought levels are worse than the Great Depression - we just use more ground water now. I just can’t believe how screwed over my generation will be when we run out. Thanks for the video, it’s good to see people talking about these issues.
"Which is Canada" for the Americans I have to look down on and snub at any opportunity because my entire Canadian identity consists of being "not American" and a general inferiority complex towards the US.
Yeah, I'm in Manitoba too, and just by my own observations things have changed so much. I grew up in Winnipeg but spent a lot of time on the east side of Lake Winnipeg and in Westman growing up. I have lived full-time in Westman for nearly 20 years now. Everything is different now. Things are drier, hotter, and some things I simply don't plant anymore because of it (they were staple things my grandparents grew growing up). Bird migration is noticeably different. The time certain insects emerge has changed. I'm only 47, and so many things have changed in the environment.
If you can't parse the jokes from the serious information and the reality of the situation it delivers well, you aren't really worth considering. You need actual education.
@@DoesNotGiveAF Dude, I've known about the reality of the situation years before the video was released. Just helping to boost the views with a comment.
Love the videos. It feels like you'vr really settling into the right mix of sarcasm/wit and deep informative dives. Especially like how you toe the line of personal autonomy without insulting anyone. That's the kind of stuff that can make these topics feel partisan to some. Keep it up. Great stuff.
Since Rollie asked so politely, I gotta mention the much needed research into the effect chupacabras have on farming and agriculture, especially in relation to climate change.
I do not understand why we are not at the point where farmers are required (and helped through subsidies) to have drip irrigation in water-shortage states. There is SO much waste that is unnecessary.
Why subsidies? Just force them to pay per gallon of water like everyone else. Sure give them a lower price, but pay-per-use is by far the most effective way to drive conservation, because there are lots and lots of ways to reduce water use on farms. Let the farmers choose which ones to use.
Why should the state pay them for not wasting all the water? What type of backwards thinking is that? The state should punish bullies, not reward them.
@@thelastdankbender4353If you want this to actually happen, you need to not piss off all the farmers , especially since smaller farmers could have trouble actually implementing it.
@@thelastdankbender4353 Because whether you like it or not, the government made an agreement and now has to honor it. At best the government could eminent domain it all back and pay the farmers "fair market rate" but who knows what fair market rate would be defined as here.
This is EXACTLY the video I wanted, thank you so much! It's exhausting explaining this over and over to people, who all look at you like you're a conspiracy theorist because what government in it's right mind would allow this to happen. Meanwhile where I live in San Diego I pay hundreds of dollars a month for water, and the rates are constantly going up while beef is still impossibly cheap (aka absurdly subsidized). And like all climate issues, the only thing we ever hear about is how our 1.8 GPM shower heads are draining us dry, and how we can't fix climate change because we didn't junk our 6 year old 4-banger and buy a Cybertruck. It's infuriating misdirection that ensures we'll never address the real problems. Beef shouldn't be as cheap as it is. Full stop.
Let's remember Hoover was the guy who thought the great depression, and industrialists having all the wealth was AOK, and while the people living in cardboard and paint-can shelters and eating flour paste were wondering about Lenin's big Siberian project, Hoover's buds were finding the Austrian Gentleman exciting. So we're still going based on what Hoover thunk was a spiffy idea?
@@Themrine2013 it was always badlands/dessert, it was never farmland. It doesn't help that the time settlers came in was one of the wettest and coolest periods it had ever been in as far as we know.
No, that's not it. The real problem is the way the water is distributed and hence wasted. You would have known that if you had watched the video before commenting.
High Cholesterol made me severely reduce my beef and general red meat consumption. Water conservation is what helped me embrace the change. It's not as hard as you would think once you start and keep a few recipes as staples to keep you on the path.
Sad thing is the trend is now towards red meat. It's booming amongst the so called 'alpha males' and gym bro's. We truly are doomed. It's now become political & people blast the red meat medical studies. We're raising entire generations who are easily brainwashed, defy decades of human medical progress & generally engage more in culture wars than policy.
Ever since the beginning of climate town Rollie has really been crushing my childhood belief that things were recorded and measured in the past. I hope we more holistically measure water usage in the united states moving forward. Unrelated but; I can't wait to move all the answers from my notebook into an officially branded climate town notebook.
This is one of the reasons I'm vegan. There are so many bad things happening to the environment, and it's hard to know where to start when it comes to making a positive change. It's overwhelming. But refusing to eat or use animal products is one simple thing that I can do daily to make an impact (supply and demand). And by combining that with other lifestyle changes that can almost be summed up as "don't buy into consumerism, be frugal," my positive impact gradually grows. And in some ways, being "frugal" makes life simpler and gives me more mental energy to do other forms of "environmental activism," like reaching out to state and local governments. Great video :)
As a vegan myself, I also started to incorporating intermittent fasting into my diet. I have been doing one day a week of not consuming any food and drinking only water. One day while I was fasting I was considering the economic impact of it. Especially if let's say half the people in the United States did the regularly. In a consumer driven society, not consuming anything must be seen as revolutionary act. With every other diet fad there is something to purchase: a book, a plan, a meal, a program, a seminar, a gym membership. With fasting there is literally nothing to be sold. Nothing to purchase.
@@sonarun Yeah, I first became a vegetarian as a way to improve my health. But my choice to become vegan was more value driven. My concerns turned outwards. And I became vegan for the benefit of the animals, the environment as a whole. I honestly never gave much thought about how and where my food came from. It really was like living in the Matrix, the wool pulled over your eyes. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The for profit meat industry does a great job of concealing the real costs of living the lifestyle that they push onto the public.
Same. Started wfpb vegan for health, stayed for the animals but climate change is a huge driver for me too. The facts are undeniable: eating animals and their products is a large (1/3 to 1/2 depending on the source of info) of climate change. I can’t be part of it… I wish I’d gone vegan as a teen. Better late than never but we need more people to join. Even just cutting way back on frequency of eating them or amount per week would help a lot
Climate town video in a nutshell (about like 90% of the time?): - “Hello viewer! Listen to this thing that’s messed up” - Rollie introduces the topic - Rollie asks “now dear viewer, why do you think this is?” - Comedically short thinking time runs - “That’s right! It’s the government!” - Rollie goes into INCREDIBLE detail on why it’s all messed up - You hear at least the lyrics “It’s been one week-” from some song I can’t name at least once (happens throughout the above) - A cut or two to the editing bay (they MUST plan it there’s no way they forget every time) - Ad read - Puns and such throughout That’s it, and it’s glorious, I love climate town
It's sadly only growing as a trend. Red meat has had a huge cultural bounce back, largely driven by the so called 'alpha male' influencers. They consume insnae amounts.
@@uniquenewyork3325 Billionaires only exist at the pleasure of the public. If conditions get so dire that people can no longer meet their basic needs, billionaires stop existing. Aristocrats discovered the same truth.
I've known this for a few years now, but it still short-circuits my brain that companies are moving into a LITERAL DESERT to take unlimited water from it. And people have known about this for a few decades and still nothing is done. Also this video really emphasizes how important it is to eat less beef. I know its an oversimplification of the problem, but maybe that's because it really is that simple. We eat less beef, we waste less water.
The problem is not diet choice. For some illustrious reason its what the people want. Instead of lowering your standards just so you can share these lower standards with more other people is insane.
I know the legend myth of the medieval people just eating meat and drinking beer, but that really is a myth even for the wealthy. Most people ate a semi vegetarian diet since forever until mass industrial farming. Even the drinking of milk is pretty modern, milk was used for other products.
@@Flyingdutchy33 are you familiar with supply and demand? Every person makes an actual difference. If you think otherwise then I assume you also don’t vote for the same reason. Well, it makes a world of difference.
I did my senior statistics project on this exact issue! Thank you so much for shedding (lol) light on this topic. I really hope that more legislation is enacted to protect our water!
I did a report on the water situation in california's central valley. This was back in the mid 2010s during one of our droughts and we were supposed to get our 1.5 year supply of water to stretch to 2 years by offering water cuts in a fictional plan. I cut *everything*, massive cuts to industrial and residential use, with things up to 33% cut in areas. I was astounded to realize that beef is so wildly wasteful with water, that I proposed a tax that would cut consumption down by just 5%, knowing nobody would give up meat and that even this tiny cut would likely be wildly unpopular. It was 33% of all of the savings i needed.
I live in Northern Arizona where virtually all of our water comes from wells, artesian and deep water wells, and none from the Colorado River. Fortunately, we've had no issues yet, but as time moves on, we probably will. Arizona banned and stopped the Saudi Arabian company from pumping any more water in Southern Arizona, and the land is already turning back to desert.
All the Saudi's will do now is just buy the same stuff off the open market like other countries do. And they only make up 5% of exports. In the end nothing changed, supply from AZ was reduced, that only drives up prices & encourages land owners elsewhere to grow the same water hungry crop. What you need is real action. But that means standing up to the farmer lobby which no one has the ball to do. Until then, nothing changes.
I never really understood why the Netherlands decided to let the people vote on which political party becomes responsible for water regulations every 4 years, (I thought it was just our obsession with water) but now I'm grateful it's there.
In the end, it doesnt really matter. 2 years back when farmers were asked to stop irrigation using water from the Maas because of low water levels, the river level was so high it nearly washed over the highway at Luik.
I went vegan for the environment 15 years ago. Since then I'm now vegan for the animals too, but I had to disinvest myself in order to see the picture clearly. Reducing your personal beef consumption is a good place to start. We can all see that the way things are isn't long-term sustainable. We're all going to need to do our part to make this world a better place. Consider kicking beef and dairy. They are among the most destructive possible food choices and they both have a wealth of alternatives available.
Regulation > individual consumer choice. Actually, more like regulation > a bunch of other things > individual consumer choice at the very bottom. Glad you're happy with your eating habits, but buying thing B instead of thing A is not really a proper start to making the world a better place. Don't mean to sound rude, but let's keep our focus on the goal here rather than what you have for lunch.
@@edumazieriwhen tens of millions are eating animals and their products for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and multiple snacks/drinks, what you eat makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE How you spend your money sends a message, and yes it works.
Doesn't matter in a world growing alpha males who are literally encouraged to eat red meat for breakfast, lunch & dinner for the gains for life. It's a growing trend that won't stop sadly, that's without the beef industries wider pr campaigns. Indivudal choice is great, but truth is the impact is minor compared to that of lobbyists/coporations & lack of government policy. Alas culture wars matter more than policy.
@@edumazieri It’s actually possible to advocate for regulation changes while at the same time eating more plant foods. I think we need both top down and bottom up approaches.
@@reason3581 No because humans are vain and stupid, we do small meaningless choice here and there and feel good about ourselves, start smelling our own farts and yapping about how our toothpaste is made from recycled soap or smth and all the while the world keeps going to the shitter at a steadily increasing rate. If advocating for individual action had any chance of working, it would have already. That's a reason why every big business wants you to believe it's your actions that matter, not theirs. Wanna feel good about your actions? Great. Want to yap about it? Save it for your dinner parties.
As a British farmer, I have this to say; Europe: Has plenty of rainwater for grass, crops and all the animal agriculture you could need. This, when done right, can be beneficial for soils, the environment, and for food production. Yes, we've been exploiting the soil since world war 2, but we're starting to turn a corner to more sustainable methods, working with the land and using natural systems, rather than working against them. The abundance of rainwater give us a great opportunity for this. Australia: Uses cattle breeds more suited to environments with sparse vegetation, as they do in Africa and most of the rest of the world. America: Shoehorns European style agriculture into the desert and wanders where all the water goes. Gives agriculture in the rest of the world a bad reputation. Not only will you use waayyy more water per tonne of food produced as more will evaporate due to the heat, you import cattle feed from farms created by cutting down the Amazon rainforest that only last a few years at best before the soil is destroyed. You have options that can work with your environment, rather than against it. Keep the European style agriculture to the grassy and wet landscapes that are suited for it. Your cows and the soil will thank you. Agriculture needs to work with the local climate and landscape. Crop production and animal agriculture can benefit one another and the environment, but we need to do this right. Stop exploiting the land and natural resources and, at the very least, put some organic matter back into the soil after you've harvested your crops... Rant over..
@@blakehelgoth5247 If it suits the landscape and provides a good food resource, why not? I gather they're a pain in the arse to work with, though. Maybe cows that can live off sparse vegetation instead?
@@dmsa12345the Buffalo aren't so much of a pain, but they need to roam in herds and that doesn't fit with modern life very well. Turns out, it's great for the ecosystem though.
As a West Texan, I feel like you could do an entire 40 minute video on the oil industry’s wasteful water practices. As an enjoyer of your content, I wouldn’t mind that.
I just love Climate Town. I'm so used to great videos, lectures and articles on climate change that are simply depressing, but Climate Town always adds humour and thereby also a spark of positivity. Thank you!
Always truly amazed at the amount of research that goes into yall's videos. It brings so many different ideas together and shows that everything is connected. Great piece and look forward to the next one after you climb out of the research mine you dig for it.
Climate Town Drinking Game: Take a drink every time one of the following happens (rules subject to change): 1) "Wasn't Me" piano cover 2) "Down with the Sickness" waa aaah aah ah noise 3) "September" played badly 4) the issue described in the video is the direct result of capitalism 5) the issue in the video is the direct result of laws written over a century ago 5b) the old laws are extremely racist 6) agribusiness or fossil fuel companies are involved; take 2 drinks if it's both 7) you feel intense dread over the future because of what you're learning Feel free to add more rules if you like. Sorry in advance to everyone's livers.
Thanks for watching the video! And big thanks to our sponsor Ground News. Compare news coverage from diverse sources around the world on a transparent platform driven by data. Try it today and get 40% off your subscription: ground.news/climatetown
Scam
I want to know how many sunscreen baby seals died for that video.
Groundwater does come back... And you can move the land in a way to encourage it to refill faster... Taken from the individuals participating in permaculture:
Research "swales"... Talk about a basic understanding of the flow of water! 😂😅
Wouldn't it be better if we used the army corps of engineers to encourage the rain to soak into the earth, rather than run right off the face of the land, into our oceans?... Such as we see in L.A. That isn't a river in L.A. - It's a concrete sealed floodwater diverter.
What about rice farms? Isn't Lundberg in California?
What’s worse, just like with recycling and emissions, they’re blaming us and telling us that we should conserve water at the tap.
I mean, thats still a good idea, even if its just for your own bills. But yeah, somehow they make it sound like its ONLY our fault :(
@@Mastordant pretty sure checking your whole house and water systems is better than checking if you're wasting 3 more seconds at the tap each day
Yepppppp
@@alazarbisrat1978 But... why not both? They are not mutually exclusive. If you do both you save even more.
Also, if you did a cost/benefit analysis then not running your tap during brushing your teeth (for example) is a low hanging fruit. Easiest to do with some results. Checking your whole house (for leakages I pressume?) is more effort, but bigger results.
@@Mastordant just saying there aren't many gallons lost doing those simple things so it shouldn't matter too much. although it really should be common sense to do some of those things, limiting shower times or something to the detriment of your comfort is rather unnecessary and doesn't have to be forced upon everyone when there're much bigger fish to fry
even tho Rollie is always walking towards me in every video, he'll never catch me
unless.....
The camera operator will though.
Neuralink will catch you.
Does this imply that we're all just slowly backing away from this person who came up to us on the street and started talking about water resources?
That IS the vibe, like “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to”
As a note on reducing beef and dairy consumption, just removing subsidies would go a long way. Without them, ground hamburger would cost about $30/lb. Also worth noting is that subsidies end up drastically reducing the impact of consumer choice to abstain. You’re buying beef via the IRS whether you like it or not.
Word!
Unfortunately those subsidies are unlikely to change until either public outlook changes on it and allow such policies in a democratic system. Think "they're coming for our hamburgers!!".
Or food production is disrupted in a way that sidesteps the current environmental problems with food production while still providing the same foods but cheaper. This might actually be a potential reality in the near future with the advent of precision fermentation. We just have to hope that existing industry doesn't attempt to quash it.
If you want my hamburgers you need to pry them out of my cold dead hands.
Ground beef only costs $7-9 with no subsidies. No where near the $30 you claim but that is still better than subsidies beef for $3
@@jklmnopq233if you remove the price fixing and absurd corporate profits non subsidized ground beef would cost about $2 a pound.... Maybe we should look into reasonable regulations all around.
I actually showed my parents your video on induction stoves a few weeks ago and just recently they moved to a much smaller house and requested an induction stove. They said they absolutely love the speed of it and their gas bill is non-existent now! Thanks for the perfect format to entertain and educate!
check the effects of EMF (look at scientifical material from Magda Havas for example). If you let your parents stick with it - at least recommend they don't "stand and stir" at the pot, but rather "set it and forget it". The best way to do this would be to move to another room when the induction stove is on.
@@Apollo440"scientifical"
That's so great!
Were they opposed to induction prior? Or indifferent?
@@akaviral5476 not from an English speaking country, so excuse the possible typos. But the science is strong on this one, although not mainstream, so it may not be your thing.
@@Apollo440 you're making an extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary evidence. theres nothing harmful with induction stoves
"Hey America, where should we put all these farms to feed our cows?"
"Desert?"
"Desert!"
its free land why not use it
@@t84t748748t6 Did you miss the entire video that just told you why that's a bad idea?
"desert? what is this "desert"? ..this normal beautiful back yard, what chou mean?" - saudi
Hey America, where should we put all these people that need to be fed?
"Desert where all the water rights are already spoken for?"
"Desert where all the water rights are already spoken for!"
*cough*
LA
*cough cough*
Las Vegas
*cough*
Phoenix
Ahem, excuse me.
In Texas, they planned acres and acres of Pecan trees that requires lots of water. So they control the water in the Rio Grande. Affecting animals that need water. It's a problem that is going to hit us soon.
Just woke up, put on my Climate Town t-shirt, sat down at the computer and BAM. New video.
We export goods grown with "free" water??? America explain!
Why are politicians worried about immigration when there are foreign companies litterally draining our natural resources dry? I mean I know the reason... political donations sources are usually public.
theyre not worried about immigration. it's just a token wealthy powerful people use to buy poor people's votes who wouldnt ever vote for them otherwise
Yep, the invisible hand of the market will regulate it all. And it's invisible because there's no market - it's just hit and the ground, grab the water and export whatever has been grown with it wherever you like. I bet you there was a lobbying group (aka what is called corruption in every other country) at work before this was approved.
Don't worry, it doesn't only happen in the US! Australia has the same problem with foreign and domestic companies, stealing water from the everyday citizen. It's a problem some governments are not looking at.
Okay well they're both highly important. We can agree on that right?
Because its much easier to blame immigrants (or other marginalized group) who lack a platfrom and ability to defend themselves for your nations problems than blame the politicians, corporations and billionaires who are the real problem.
As a Dutchman, this scares me. We have separate election for water management and was the whole basis for our democractic system. These days we have so much control over our ground water that a recent discussion between farmers and foristers was about lowering the levels so fields are not too muddy for tractors. This is a country that is basically a giant river delta and not an arid desert. Giving your water to the Saudis seems like the dumbest idea ever.
Funny thing is Saudi's only make up 5% of those crop exports. All Saudi's will do is what other countries do & simply buy the crops off the open market now. It's a legit big industry hence why no cares, farmers would kick up a fuss. Funny how fearmongering over foreign country owning land/resources is what is needed for this to be news...but now it's done, no one cares. Maybe activists should set up a Iranian/Chinese shell company & buy up land for water....you'll see change overnight cause politicians love a good headline story 😂 only way to beat the farmer lobby & their public support...guise of 'national security'
"Giving your water to the Saudis seems like the dumbest idea ever."
This is what happens when the people of said country have no real say in the policies which govern said country - let alone their local county or state. Pay off a few politicians, gentrify the term as "Lobbying" , and with chump change for a billionaire you get anything you want.
It depends on the American state, but certain states have that, too, but it's at the level of regional and county elections. For example, my regional fire district just had a special election for everyone to vote on whether more funds should be diverted to wildfire prevention, but other fire districts have never had a single election and just do whatever they want. There is no state-wide or national mandate that says counties and regions MUST have elections for these decisions.
Unregulated capitalism is a bitch, er, problem. It's all about the money.
@@GoddoDoggo You misunderstand. EACH watershed needs to have a separate independent governing body with its own elections and taxes.
It needs to be independent of counties, regions, states or national elections. It should only concern itself with managing the water.
That is how we've been doing it in the Netherlands for over 600 years and it works great for all kinds of water management.
I've been working for a Water District in Southern California for 16 years. Five years ago I went on my first Metropolitan Water District infrastructure tour. Five years ago I also started eating a mostly plant-based diet. I've been waiting years for this EXACT video! Thank you for all your dedication and hard work to produce this masterpiece and shed some light on something that regularly gets taken for granted! You guys ROCK!
...Internet is useless, so can any of my fellow Climate-Town-Fans who knows what they're talking abou give me a comprehensive list of the highest water-drainers among all Plants? Maybe with a little notee on it being 'worth i' or not?
Ah, yes, the good old "better things are not possible because any kind of agricultural regulation would mean instant, forever famine". There's a lot of that in Europe too
Indeed. We just had that in Germany, where politics tried to tax diesel fuel a bit more. Boy did they get an answer from the unhappy union of self-righteous farmers...
The video mentioned that restricting water to Farmers would make people starve but that's not true. Limiting water to crops that humans eat directly instead of alfalfa which we do not would make a big difference and no one would starve.
I could cite a study that found that ending animal agriculture would feed 4 billion more people. It would also go a long way to solving climate change and save a lot of water
@someguy2135 will you cite that study pls? I am super interested in reading that!
yep. In New Mexico, the part that uses the Rio not the Colorado, and discussing how it is wrong we have less water because there is less snow melt, because there is less snow pack, coupled with the fact that I am the one required to conserve water, and reduce the size of my personal vegetable garden, while Saudis can use as much water as they want to feed cows in the middle east, will have people acting like you are advocating banning all farming forever.
I live in Fresno it's 106° right now and everyone is watering the sidewalks with their sprinklers. God bless America
😧
😢
To be honest, still probably a fraction of the water getting wasted to feed cattle so those same folk can eat more cow.
@@Aaron.Thomas LOL, you are right. It takes somewhere around 600 gallons of water to produce 1/4 lb of beef.
HE LITERALLY ADDRESSES THIS IN THE VIDEO! HOW DUMB ARE YOU ALL!?
1:21
This poor use of water hits hard here in Brazil. But we use it for soy. And we feed foreign pork instead of cows.
Soy and cattle farming in brazil also! Cuz most soy is used to feed cattles also
I always hear how much water is need to produce soy milk, almond milk, etc. But they never compare it to how water is needed for real milk.
& not just water, but land too. Meat & dairy products only make up a small portion of our overall calories consumed, but they account for 80% of our agricultural land use -- & most of that 80% is just cows. We could comfortably feed the whole world on 1/5th the land we use now if we didn't eat meat.
@@dr.zoidberg8666 I can live without meat but I can drink a Gallon of milk in 2 days.
@@njdevilku1340 Not to worry, friend. Change won't happen thanks to us making personal consumption choices. & it won't happen until suffering is great enough that we're all happy to go without these particular treats to save ourselves.
Before then we may have minor reforms here & there, but they won't make much of a difference at all.
That's because the Meat Industry DESPERATELY wants to turn you against viable plant-based alternatives - the US government gives BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to them so they can artificially cheapen meat & spew propoganda.
Don't trust a word out of the Meat Industry's mouth. There is no such thing as sustainable meat farming for the masses. There is no such thing as "Grass fed, organic, free-range" meat on an industrial scale. There is no such thing as Ethical meat farming. #GoVegan
That's by design - they even made Michelle Obama stop talking about meat and dairy.
As a Californian who also lived in AZ with a lot of passion and rage for this topic, thank you so much for making this. I'm so sick and tired of ignorant people claiming it's almonds and golf courses. It's fucking alfafa for American and Middle Eastern/Chinese cows and paper water rights from the early 20th century! These water rights are in dire dire need of being torched. Of the many disgusting things going on in the environment, the wanton and casual destruction of the Colorado River and SW watershed by "eco-green leader" CA is so appalling it defies language. These mega farms have been caught many times wasting as much water as they can. Arrowhead even recently (finally!) got kicked out of CA after something like 90% of their water was found to be mysteriously disappearing-- probably being fucked dumped just so they could maintain their water allotments! It's not small farmers who are doing this shit. It's gigantic megafarmers who own an absolutely mind boggling amount of land and water and waste the vast majority of it. Just google the San Joaquin Valley sinking and see how much it has sunk from groundwater pumping.
Saudi Arabia needs to be kicked the fuck out of AZ, we need to stop feeding foreign cows, Americans need to eat less cows and dairy products, and entirely new water rights need to be drawn up. Full stop. This madness needs to end.
Agreed, the Meat Industry is a terrible one - From how they treat us, our water, our enviroment, down to how they abuse the animals consistently.
This and, "Fuck Wonderful"!
I cannot believe this shit is legal
I'm also a Californian living in AZ, and too have paid a lot of attention to water policy in the west. You beat me to it!
BTW: John Wesley Powell rocked.
One thing I liked about this video is that they aren't completely infected with the China bad mind virus. American allies and "enemies" both import tons of alfalfa. A lot of discussion on American water often makes it seem like it's a clear good vs evil type thing. But cutting off alfalfa exports would piss off more people than simply China or Saudi Arabia.
Fun fact: "use it or lose it" is also how the govt does discretionary budgets. That goes about as well for govt spending as it does for water conservation.
Yes, I can attest to that, and it's not unique to the US. I am in Canada and we always had overtime in my department when fiscal end was coming around, even if there wasn't enough work to sustain it.
*THANK YOU* for talking about the water-hogging elephant in the room: agriculture. I'm so sick and tired of arguing with misinformed Arizonans who think all the state's water is being wasted on chip factories and golf courses. It simply isn't -- in fact despite the Phoenix Valley's population more than tripling over the last 50 years, it actually consumes *LESS* overall water because urbanization took the place of thirsty farmland.
The Colorado River Basin's water problem is firstly a resource management problem. If farmers had to pay a real market rate for water, they'd surely innovate better conservation to stay in business. But nope, we're led to believe that taking shorter showers is going to save the Southwest
It's feed for livestock. Not agricultural in general.
semiconductor manufacturing is water positive. Yes, fabs use a ton of water, but that's offset and recycled at really high rates. Intel is actually water positive because they fund so many recycling programs and offset programs(not the dumb kind).
@@rjdverbeekIt’s everything. Yuma is one of the greatest suppliers of salad greens in the country thanks to all the extra sun essentially providing a third growing season. They also use flood irrigation to supply those thousands of thirsty acres, one of the least efficient methods. Over a quarter of the water is lost to evaporation. There has to be a better way.
@@CRneuwater positive is a myth. its the same as those carbon offset schemes theyre just fluff and buzzwords that try to offload the issue to someone else
Even if the water remained at the same rate, I think a lot of farmers are willing to try water conservation efforts or drought-resistant crop growth if they could do so without having to give up their water rights permanently.
As someone who lives in Arizona, I appreciate the spread of this information immensely. Policy around here has to change.
Building those water intensive Processing Chip Manufacturing Plants in the Phoenix area is a great move. They're definitely going to help fix the problem.
You gotta ask for tho. Start a letter to the editors campaign, to your political party, to the agriculture minister, no need to go strong, just get them talking.
@@duB420Grassthis is prolly part of that use it or lose it thing he was talking about. It’ll be using someone’s farm allowance.
We live in the largest community in Australia without reticulated water. We rely on rain water and bores. Our water is harvested by Coca Ccola, Mt. Franklin and Neverfail and trucked off our mountain many times a day. (The trucks are a whole issue in themselves as we are on a mountain and the roads were never built for heavy constant traffic). One of our primary schools has asked that children bring water from home as the bore is under significant pressure for the first time since the school as built. People who have lived here all their lives have had their bores either run dry or significantly reduced. Ironically many of us now have to pay to have water trucked to our tanks many times a year in dry seasons. We are fortunate to have a bore and share with our neighbours but many are not so lucky. You may have guessed that this is a serious bone of contention. Thanks for your video and the great information.
Coke is disgusting. They do this around the world. Stealing water from communities. Never a better time to boycott ALL their brands.
Very much the same issue in Australia. We are obviously known for our water shortages and droughts, but then we also sell insane water rights to mining companies, and beverage companies like Coke and Nestle and these all end up draining one of the most scarce and valuable resources we have, for pennies on the dollar. It is criminal, it is evil, it is barbaric and backwards.
Yep this is all true. Australia has some serious problems with water and tangled political fights about usage (Murray Darling basin and great artisan basin especially) Except for the cattle - our situation there is slightly different, because we have way more grass-fed cattle and tend to use breeds that need less water. USA has some pretty stupid cattle farmers (maybe because the feed is so much cheaper because their water is free?) The cattle industry in the US could learn from Australia on that issue… cause I can’t imagine US going vegan any time soon…
In Australia it's not even mostly rivers though, it's ancient aquifers, especially the Great Artesian basin. Modern theories also suggest that cattle and sheep stations had a catastrophic impact on Queensland's climate. It used to be flooded a lot, but overgrazing and logging meant two things. One, the water wouldn't "stick around" and would disappear too quickly in big channels and rivers, promoting erosion, worsening the state of the plants. Two, fewer trees and vegetation meant less evaporation, which is how most of the rain on Earth is formed... by clouds from trees and plants perspiration. Only 40% of rain on Earth is formed by ocean evaporation. Today they are trying to keep that water in the Queensland outback by building ground swells all around, to flood the area, grow trees and bushes, so it's back to what it used to be.
Dont forget about the Chinese cotton farms sucking water out of the Murray-Darling
I feel like a lot of government can be described as 1. Government commissions a study 2. Experts in the field put a lot of work into finding good solutions 3. Government ignores it
Why let a good and proper solution get in the way of a manufactured problem that can later be exploited for political gain?
SCOTUS says Chev-RON!
Did you hear about the fact that the first large-scale studies about the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions to the climate was done by the oil industry and then immediately ignored and buried deep to not let the information hurt their profit margins?
3. The couple thousand wealthiest people in the country say "no" and tell the managers they've put in charge of the country (aka the government) to implement solutions which will increase their wealth at everyone else's expense regardless of expert advice.
@@D0praise glad to see someone mentioning that. A MASSIVE decision a lot of people don't grasp the danger of. The supreme Court basically decided they are the only experts that matter anymore, which is terrifying because you should NEVER trust someone who has the confidence to think they know that much about everything.
I’m a La Paz county native - water has been a big issue because of the two sovereign nations butting heads (County & Tribes) and their respective politicians getting caught laundering money/selling water behind others’ backs. It’s a clown show and I’m glad to have left, but I’m still concerned for my family and friends in the area.
Fun Fact the idea of, as you put it “dibs”, came to be was not to settle disputes between farmers but miners. Small streams in the Rocky Mountains where used in small claim mining operations. Occasionally someone would make a claim above another claim, divert the stream, and leave the first miner without enough water to run a sluice box. This lead to some frontier justice that government officials did not want.
The laws made to manage this came in response to the Colorado gold rush that started in 1859 with the laws following shortly thereafter. These laws are referred to as the Colorado Doctrine. They are now the basis of the prior appropriation system to this day.
So our water laws were made to stop fighting between gold miners in the mid 19th century long before any serious agricultural operations were happening in the Colorado River water shed.
Wow -- considering how gold was the reason a lot of Native peoples were forced off their lands as well, I imagine all of that was happening at the same time.
@@crypticmedicine the history of water usage in the western United States is fascinating. I suggest reading the book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner if you find all this interesting.
@@JustinThorntonArt you also gota question the wisdom of starting a city in a place where 90% of the water rights are already spoken for.
@@Flyingdutchy33bUt GoLd
Thanks capitalism!
My partner ran across the house in excitement that you had another video out and we threw it on the tv and really enjoyed it. Wanted to let you know that you brought joy to my household today.
"Babe, wake up; new Climate Town just dropped!!"
@@MarcusLambright-o2xI actually say this to my friends
Man, vtubers suck so much
@@MarcusLambright-o2x 🏃🏃🏃♀️🏃♀️💨
Joy about how f***ed the situation is? 😅
As a child in the 50's / 60's i read an article in The National Geographic magazine predicting this very outcome.
Labeling water as becoming more valuable than anything else on the planet.
"Mysteriously killed and turned into beef" made me full on snort out loud. Bless you, Climate Town
I'm from the Mexican side of the Colorado River, or what it used to be a river, and it was really frustating watching the river dry up over the years and there was nothing we could do about it.
I can only imagine. I can’t believe this is legal!!! I hate it here
On the American side it's still extremely frustrating
There is something you can do about it. Don't have more than 2 kids.
@@Flyingdutchy33 ok? How does that help when your neighbour country hogs all the water you and your community rely on
@klisterklister2367 Honestly how dare they ask us to conserve water year after year after year when they've been following these archaic ass backwards laws from 100 years ago based not on science but instead on literally "finders keepers losers weepers" and use it to grow grass we can't even eat. Worse yet, it's grass to feed overseas cattle. We can conserve water until we're sick from dehydration, but it won't ever compare to what farmers could conserve if they were given the incentive to use less water.
There's a town nearby in southwestern colorado that has special water rights, older than anyone else's. They are SO paranoid that people "are coming for their water." It's kind of embarrassing, tbh. All they did was inherit the rights, but they act like they dug the damn resevoir themselves. The amount of pride these people have in their great-greatgrandfathers settling this land 100 years ago for free is really astounding. They didn't work for any of their land or their water rights. It's all inherited wealth.
One of the most toxic traits I see in America are people who are obsessed with how long their ancestors have been on this continent. I think they're compensating for something missing inside of their souls.
it's still their wealth and as a libertarian I agree with them
@@kubakielbasa5987 You support an expensive government-enforced diversion of natural rainwater (falling mostly on public land) into the hands of a few families, as a libertarian? We're talking an arcane water rights scheme that only applies to the Colorado basin. Not our property rights. Those water "rights" are based on a flawed & mismanaged document from 100 years ago that didn't even include all the people who actually live on the river. Does that make sense, or should water users far away from the river pay for the public resources they consume? (referring to Imperial Valley in Cali, not a random town in Colorado, but the premise should be the same: rainwater collection should be allowed, and you keep what you catch from the rain.)
Cope and seethe.
Nice, gottem
You missed a supreme opportunity to film this in a noir style as a nod to Chinatown, which is a beautiful film LITERALLY about finding who was taking LA's water supply.
Forget it, fuzzy. It's climate town.
@@TwisterTornado pretty sure he’s quoting the movie. “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
@@TwisterTornado tbh I’ve never seen it either, it’s just one of those movie quotes that gets repeated a lot lol
@@TwisterTornadoit's one of the greatest films ever, 8/10 would recommend
@@xIQ188xyou should watch it! 8/10 do recommend
Gonna admit, I was hoping he'd give that random office chair a try
lol the one basking in the river? 🪑
Right? I thought a joke was coming.
I absolutely knew I would not be the only one to fixate on it
Its all the LA latinx saying "nigga" every other sentence.
I came here looking for this comment. Congrats and thank you.
The Colorado river doesn’t even reach the sea anymore! That’s how bad it has gotten
Over 20yrs ago when I got my Geology Degree, we discussed these problems. Great to hear we still haven't solved it
It's actually worse than before!
I have lived in Southern Alberta for about a year, and here are a few things I've learned.
1. Water from the reservoirs is allocated on a year to year basis, meaning that there is rarely much overuse.
2. Water irrigation is often done without much care for efficiency, many farmers will irrigate at the hottest part of the day, when the irrigated water evaporates the most.
3. Irrigated water causes the soil to become quite saline if the soil is over irrigated without an inch or two of flushing water after the crops are harvested. This can create salt flats, which are stretches of unusable land. (Incidentally, alfalfa is one of the few crops that can be grown in saline soil, and, if done right, can bring the soil back to being usable again.)
#3 is because of the soil properties (like in Australia) or because of byproducts of fertilizer use?
@@baronvonslambert But there's some uptake of some minerals by the plants, and southern Alberta should have an annual snowmelt flush... ordinarily accumulation would take a very long time. Road salt can build up to very unnatural levels in groundwater without affecting the root zone to speak of...
@@hummingcloud9889 regarding point 2: irrigation is not done as inefficiently as you make it seem. If you are depending on water budget and allocations, the last thing you want to do is open the tap for no good reason. I sincerely doubt that farmers in your region waste the water on purpose. Theyve been farming longer than you have.
Also. If water evaporates, where does it go? Does it suddenly leave our planet and flies to the moon or something? No, it goes back into the climate system to precipitate somewhere else. Stop pretending farmers make water "dissappear".
Regarding comment 3: this is a complete fabrication. Utter nonsensical. You are not going to create salts out of thin air. Theyd have to be there first, and unless you irrigate with seawater or a high EC fertilizer mix, you are never going to get that soil to go more saline. In fact, during crop growth THE OPPOSITE HAPPENS as crops absorb the nutrientsalt. Come on man. Read a book.
-Agronomist out
@@baronvonslambertThis here is an explanation lots of people should learn about watering plants in containers, especially if they have hard water. You have to water deeply to runoff to avoid that type of buildup in the soil or eventually it becomes inhospitable
@@Flyingdutchy33groundwater is high in minerals because of the fact it has to flow through a lot of it to reach the water table. Ask anyone with well water how hard their water is. Now pour that same water over the same soil over and over and those minerals build up faster than they are flushed out by rainwater since the areas are irritating because of little rainwater. Common sense bud before you come in with your "agronomist out" silliness.
I've been removing lawns to plant water wise gardens for a few years now and now I'm feeling like that's a drop in the ocean 😢
Every little bit though. Lawns for no purpose other than curb appeal and societal expectations are ridiculous.
Honestly after seeing this video and that your contributions are literally a drop in the ocean, what I find ridiculous is there is no regulation on water pumpage and that the US prefers to sell its "water" to China and Japan so that a handful of companies can get filthy rich while the rest of the country dies of thirst, yet they still urge the citizens to replace their lawns.
I like how there's always a mention of what viewers can do at the end of these videos. Great stuff.
Here is what viewers can really do: Have at most 2 kids. Save us from lower our standards just because you feel we have to share these lower standards with more people.
yeah like ditch their ex-gfs giving them the silent treatment at their Arizona swimming pool in their bikinis. ... Because it's all gonna die from abrupt global warming!
@@Flyingdutchy33 Surely this video taught you how little of an impact we as individuals have vs big farms/coporations? Don't see how having only 2 kids even across the board has any meaningful impact. This 'overpopulation' bs is literally decades old in a world where developing countries biggest demographic issue is a lack of births lol. Did you miss out the example of Vegas in this video growing like 28% 2000-2020 & still using less water than they did 20 years ago??
@@d.b.cooper1 Hold up.
Birthrate in western countries is around 2.
Birthrate in developing countries exceeds 4
The whole reason they use less water is because it is scarce. I doubt any of us would like to observe their water bill. Vegas is next to LA a typical example of building a large city in the exact wrong location.
People in the EU complain about overregulation, but they just don't see how harmful maximum freedom for private companies is.
From my observation, usually, people from the US complain about overregulation in the EU. People from the EU, however, are mostly chill about it.
@@dmytrokostiuchenko3145 I was curious/worried when France moved far-right whether there was more going on than just immigration, but I've been too lazy/burned out to delve into another country's internal conflicts when my own country is still in dangerous straights.
regulation is what determines who is getting the water in this case? Its just regulation that is bad
@@tappydani9378 can we stop calling every political belief "far"? Every single thing is either "far left" or "far right" last time I checked france hasn't turned into a fascist ethnostate so no, it's not "far-right"
@@NihongoWakannai It is literally calling them what they are. Our political world is becoming increasingly radicalized and most parties turn to either of the two extremes. When both sides want to impose draconian rules that are unacceptable for ordinary people then is it any wonder they are being called "far"? In my country we used to not care who was in power because major parties on both sides of the spectrum were close to the center. The issues they focused on were important however going one way or the other didn't cause enormous repercussions on the citizen and were far from the end of the world.
Nowadays you can only vote for a party that wants to take over the country and steal as much money as they can while doing it, or vote for a party that wants to sell the entire country to foreign powers and steal as much money as they can while doing it. Those are the "moderate" right and left wing parties respectively. The extremists? The left wants to go full on communist (this time it will definitely work) and the right wing extremists want the return of monarchy (with their leader as the new king).
I am not going to mention what country I am talking about however similar trends can be seen all around the world.
Your channel is AAA entertainment and also immensely informative! Love from brazil!
I'm a Utahn who currently works researching how much water certain plants on the Paria River use (a tributary to the Colorado). It sucks to drive and hike in the area and just see thousands of alfalfa farms. Thanks for covering this!
Your work sounds really cool! I spent a lot of time around there growing up.
"Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner is probably one of the best books of all time on this issue! Written almost 40 years ago now and remains frighteningly prescient.
It's the middle book in the stack of books on the table whenever he's doing the shots at the computer! That orange binding is hard to miss.
But yes, a reference to that one would also be great.
I'm surprised I had so much fun watching a nearly 40 min. long video on water.
You know what, no I'm not, because this is CLIMATE TOWN!!
it's almost like the reckless pursuit of short-term profit incenvitized by capitalism is incapable of making any responsible decisions.
Indeed, but broader than that, whatever economic/political system is used, greed and corruption are still the actual problem. This is why every system throughout history has just ended up merely used to control people by a corrupt elite who seize power in various ways. If the majority of human beings were raised to see the world and others as the same as themselves, as a collective, then even capitalism could be operated with proper regulations, with understanding and care for each other and our environment. This would of course mean more socialist-style policies too, with strict caps on personal wealth (half a billion dollars seems more than enough reward for anyone for anything, frankly) but they are not mutually exclusive as most voters seem to have been conditioned to believe.
Says the person pushing socialism? That does the same fucking thing, but worse
Short term profits are usually not incentivized by capitalism intrinsically, thats more so a human-error in the way we think about money and profit etc
@@AhzealionAll profits are incentivized under capitalism, The basis for production under capitalism is producing commodities for profit, It's a systemic issue, not one of individuals having the wrong mindset.
it’s almost like government over-regulation of water rights created the incentives for farmers to waste water, when a fair market-driven system would incentivize them not to….
I'm actually so mad. I remember being a kid listening to my teacher stress and tell us how important it was to save water. It really resonated with me, and I went all out.
I took timed 5-minute showers, replaced my showerhead with a more efficient one, and would only run water after brushing my teeth. Heck, I even used to flush the toilet only once per day, assuming I had only gone number 1. I literally created so much unnecessary and truly imaginary stress when I was only 14 years old. I only learned later in university that the vast majority of water is used by big corporations like Nestlé that literally bottle our water for next to nothing and sell it back to us (not sure why he didn't include that). I also learned how most of the water is used for livestock, but at least that feels more justifiable.
Anyway, the lesson is to never stress and feel like your individual action is paramount.
Your intentions and dicipline where at the right place, you were just taught the wrong methods. Personal responsibility has never been as relevant and important as right now. For example, you alone could save literal metric tons of water by simply choosing not to eat cows or drink their milk.
It's not your fault you were mislead, but it would be your fault if the resulting bitterness would keep you from taking further actions. It's up to you, who you want to be, and how you want society to change.
@@thelastdankbender4353 This is a good response!
just wait until you learn about your "carbon footprint"
That's not the lesson... the lesson is that not eating cows saves more water than you could ever save by not flushing.
@@Aaron.Thomas No the lesson is that not eating cows is not going to force agriculture to implement better water practices. And that personal responsibility isnt consumer practices but engaging in civics to push for water conservation efforts on a grand scale.
27:46 Aspiring author here. That hit way too close to home.😭
Oh boy finally a new Episode. Can't wait to be shocked and entertained the same time 🍿
This one's gonna be rough. Fortify your sanity.
@@pandolingian will do my best 😁
This should be required viewing in every school in America.
It already is. That is the problem.
I don't think that's true, this video came out 17 hours ago. @@Flyingdutchy33
@@Flyingdutchy33the problem? Awareness of environmental issues is…a problem…
@@Flyingdutchy33 What schools are you going to?
@@Flyingdutchy33 Kudos to to all the teachers nationwide that updated the curriculum so quickly
Incredible video. This has taken random pieces of information I've garnered through articles and made it comprehensive. I look forward to every video y'all put out.
I'm just here for the Aaron Burr commercial replay. It lives rent free in my head.
Yes, In fact I'm showing it to my daughter she love Hamilton
Rollie knows what the people really want to watch.
"Water flows uphill towards money."
"Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fightin'."
Old maxims that are still true.
you guys are killing it. you just don't miss. 10/10. never stop. I guess I just talked myself into paying you directly.
2:41 “over 100 years ago”. It’s worse: more like 400 years ago, when the Spanish crown started the whole dibs system.
Yup...
imagine trying to dibs literally half of the planet
Colonizers literally screwed EVERYTHING up for EVERYONE.
Canadian here. Please fix your water use asap so you don't need to invade us. Thank uu
I was going to make a joke about water not being oil but... y'all have both.
lets be honest, american in the future is going to anex canada one day, might be a 100years from now but its gonna happen
It's okay, we buy their food. So many things grown in California are sold up here year round.
Don't worry, if that happens we will all burn in the retribution of nuclear fire according to the fallout timeline
@@ogjerslgnlsjdn we have, let's say, a few metric fck-tons of fresh water. And most importantly, there is so few of us!!
I work at a company in AZ and we build dry wells that are designed to drain storm water just above the highest water table. It's not much but it is an effort to replenish our aquifers around the valley.
Yesssssss Climate Town entering their animal ag exposé era??? It's been a long time coming!!!
I live in Colorado and serve on my City's Water Commission and we're aiming to recycling all of it in the next 30 years. We already recycle 30 percent to extinction. Eventually those downstream may have to recycle theirs that way too.
You can’t really recycle the alfalfa water though
Keep up the good knowledge!!! Semper Fi!!
Leaving this here to feed the algorithm so every human in the Western US sees this video but also everyone actually
I really hope this gets at least a million views soon, it's so important. Maybe teachers will show it in class
This guy is so good I lost track of the message and just concentrated on the writing and production that is literally off the chain. But I think it had something to do with water..
Guess you'll have to watch it again. It's pretty important. :)
#GoVegan basically ;)
Cattle and crappy meat industry farms are taking up all of our water.
Keep up that good stuff, Rollie! We need more people like you.
The world is changing so fast. I’m just starting my career as an environmentalist in Manitoba (which is in Canada for the Americans out there) and our water situation has changed so much. I’m lucky enough to live near an Ojibwe reserve and hear the ancestral stories of what it used to be like here (a hell of a lot more water). A lot of what I’m seeing now in the environment has me in a bit of a panic. Our rivers are so low and the weather is just not restoring it, to the extent that some people are saying the drought levels are worse than the Great Depression - we just use more ground water now.
I just can’t believe how screwed over my generation will be when we run out. Thanks for the video, it’s good to see people talking about these issues.
"Which is Canada" for the Americans I have to look down on and snub at any opportunity because my entire Canadian identity consists of being "not American" and a general inferiority complex towards the US.
@@chickenfishhybrid44 Your american skirt is showing
Yeah, I'm in Manitoba too, and just by my own observations things have changed so much. I grew up in Winnipeg but spent a lot of time on the east side of Lake Winnipeg and in Westman growing up. I have lived full-time in Westman for nearly 20 years now. Everything is different now. Things are drier, hotter, and some things I simply don't plant anymore because of it (they were staple things my grandparents grew growing up). Bird migration is noticeably different. The time certain insects emerge has changed. I'm only 47, and so many things have changed in the environment.
The jokes in this video really soften the blow of the terrible news it delivers. Could be the tagline for this whole channel actually...
Climate comedy, baby!
how else do you keep retention up?
sarcasm is like vigargra but for brainrotted attention spans
If you can't parse the jokes from the serious information and the reality of the situation it delivers well, you aren't really worth considering. You need actual education.
If it's only negative then it will breed doomism which just makes people feel helpless
@@DoesNotGiveAF Dude, I've known about the reality of the situation years before the video was released. Just helping to boost the views with a comment.
Love the videos. It feels like you'vr really settling into the right mix of sarcasm/wit and deep informative dives. Especially like how you toe the line of personal autonomy without insulting anyone. That's the kind of stuff that can make these topics feel partisan to some. Keep it up. Great stuff.
Since Rollie asked so politely, I gotta mention the much needed research into the effect chupacabras have on farming and agriculture, especially in relation to climate change.
Things drink water to make blood, and blood is mostly water, so who's drinking all the water? That's right: the bloodsuckers. Oh, and chupacabras.
Since he asked to nicely, I'm not going to call his phone unless I have something important to talk about.
I do not understand why we are not at the point where farmers are required (and helped through subsidies) to have drip irrigation in water-shortage states. There is SO much waste that is unnecessary.
Legislation? In our fractured, million-dollar corrupted congress? It's even less likely than you think.
Why subsidies? Just force them to pay per gallon of water like everyone else. Sure give them a lower price, but pay-per-use is by far the most effective way to drive conservation, because there are lots and lots of ways to reduce water use on farms. Let the farmers choose which ones to use.
Why should the state pay them for not wasting all the water? What type of backwards thinking is that? The state should punish bullies, not reward them.
@@thelastdankbender4353If you want this to actually happen, you need to not piss off all the farmers , especially since smaller farmers could have trouble actually implementing it.
@@thelastdankbender4353 Because whether you like it or not, the government made an agreement and now has to honor it.
At best the government could eminent domain it all back and pay the farmers "fair market rate" but who knows what fair market rate would be defined as here.
Commenting for the algorithm. Love the channel!
This is EXACTLY the video I wanted, thank you so much! It's exhausting explaining this over and over to people, who all look at you like you're a conspiracy theorist because what government in it's right mind would allow this to happen. Meanwhile where I live in San Diego I pay hundreds of dollars a month for water, and the rates are constantly going up while beef is still impossibly cheap (aka absurdly subsidized). And like all climate issues, the only thing we ever hear about is how our 1.8 GPM shower heads are draining us dry, and how we can't fix climate change because we didn't junk our 6 year old 4-banger and buy a Cybertruck. It's infuriating misdirection that ensures we'll never address the real problems. Beef shouldn't be as cheap as it is. Full stop.
Let's remember Hoover was the guy who thought the great depression, and industrialists having all the wealth was AOK, and while the people living in cardboard and paint-can shelters and eating flour paste were wondering about Lenin's big Siberian project, Hoover's buds were finding the Austrian Gentleman exciting.
So we're still going based on what Hoover thunk was a spiffy idea?
These are just genuinely the best videos on climate topics out there! Thanks for your work
growing shit in the desert probably doesn't help
Doing shit in the 🐪
It never used to be desert
@@Themrine2013 hah. HAHAHAHA
@@Themrine2013 it was always badlands/dessert, it was never farmland. It doesn't help that the time settlers came in was one of the wettest and coolest periods it had ever been in as far as we know.
No, that's not it. The real problem is the way the water is distributed and hence wasted. You would have known that if you had watched the video before commenting.
High Cholesterol made me severely reduce my beef and general red meat consumption. Water conservation is what helped me embrace the change. It's not as hard as you would think once you start and keep a few recipes as staples to keep you on the path.
I'm a Vegan #ForTheAnimals but the water reduction is yet another W I'll take
Sad thing is the trend is now towards red meat. It's booming amongst the so called 'alpha males' and gym bro's. We truly are doomed. It's now become political & people blast the red meat medical studies. We're raising entire generations who are easily brainwashed, defy decades of human medical progress & generally engage more in culture wars than policy.
Nine minutes in for the ad. That shows the waterfall inside the shopping mall in Dubai. The algorithm is having a laugh. 😂😂
Ever since the beginning of climate town Rollie has really been crushing my childhood belief that things were recorded and measured in the past. I hope we more holistically measure water usage in the united states moving forward. Unrelated but; I can't wait to move all the answers from my notebook into an officially branded climate town notebook.
This is one of the reasons I'm vegan. There are so many bad things happening to the environment, and it's hard to know where to start when it comes to making a positive change. It's overwhelming. But refusing to eat or use animal products is one simple thing that I can do daily to make an impact (supply and demand). And by combining that with other lifestyle changes that can almost be summed up as "don't buy into consumerism, be frugal," my positive impact gradually grows. And in some ways, being "frugal" makes life simpler and gives me more mental energy to do other forms of "environmental activism," like reaching out to state and local governments. Great video :)
As a vegan myself, I also started to incorporating intermittent fasting into my diet.
I have been doing one day a week of not consuming any food and drinking only water.
One day while I was fasting I was considering the economic impact of it.
Especially if let's say half the people in the United States did the regularly.
In a consumer driven society, not consuming anything must be seen as revolutionary act.
With every other diet fad there is something to purchase: a book, a plan, a meal, a program, a seminar, a gym membership.
With fasting there is literally nothing to be sold. Nothing to purchase.
Personally, I don’t understand how people can call themselves an “environmentalist” without a serious commitment to veganism.
@@sonarun Yeah, I first became a vegetarian as a way to improve my health.
But my choice to become vegan was more value driven. My concerns turned outwards. And I became vegan for the benefit of the animals, the environment as a whole.
I honestly never gave much thought about how and where my food came from.
It really was like living in the Matrix, the wool pulled over your eyes. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
The for profit meat industry does a great job of concealing the real costs of living the lifestyle that they push onto the public.
@@sonarun because Americans and some other countries have been tricked into believing you need to eat meat with every meal in order to survive
Same. Started wfpb vegan for health, stayed for the animals but climate change is a huge driver for me too. The facts are undeniable: eating animals and their products is a large (1/3 to 1/2 depending on the source of info) of climate change. I can’t be part of it… I wish I’d gone vegan as a teen. Better late than never but we need more people to join. Even just cutting way back on frequency of eating them or amount per week would help a lot
Another excellent video! Thank you!
Climate town video in a nutshell (about like 90% of the time?):
- “Hello viewer! Listen to this thing that’s messed up”
- Rollie introduces the topic
- Rollie asks “now dear viewer, why do you think this is?”
- Comedically short thinking time runs
- “That’s right! It’s the government!”
- Rollie goes into INCREDIBLE detail on why it’s all messed up
- You hear at least the lyrics “It’s been one week-” from some song I can’t name at least once (happens throughout the above)
- A cut or two to the editing bay (they MUST plan it there’s no way they forget every time)
- Ad read
- Puns and such throughout
That’s it, and it’s glorious, I love climate town
Formulaic stuff makes our pattern seeking brains happy. I do quite enjoy my predictable presentation styles.
Song is One Week by the BNL
Thank you for addressing animal agriculture. We’re not going to tackle climate change if everyone insists on eating meat several times a day.
It's sadly only growing as a trend. Red meat has had a huge cultural bounce back, largely driven by the so called 'alpha male' influencers. They consume insnae amounts.
We live in such an abundant society
Dear Climate Town team, you have outdone yourselves! Great cuts, excellent humor - and an important topic.
It'll stop. Guaranteed. All we get to decide is if it stops when there is no more water or before.
Billionaires will simply sell us the remaining drops
@@uniquenewyork3325 Billionaires only exist at the pleasure of the public. If conditions get so dire that people can no longer meet their basic needs, billionaires stop existing. Aristocrats discovered the same truth.
I have never been online for a premiere of a video... seems pretty cool. Thanks for being my first Climate Town ;)
Thank you so much for this.
Bless the algorithm and it's recommendations. Bless the comings and goings of it. May it's passage cleanse the feed and keep it for it's people
I've known this for a few years now, but it still short-circuits my brain that companies are moving into a LITERAL DESERT to take unlimited water from it. And people have known about this for a few decades and still nothing is done.
Also this video really emphasizes how important it is to eat less beef. I know its an oversimplification of the problem, but maybe that's because it really is that simple. We eat less beef, we waste less water.
The problem is not diet choice. For some illustrious reason its what the people want. Instead of lowering your standards just so you can share these lower standards with more other people is insane.
I know the legend myth of the medieval people just eating meat and drinking beer, but that really is a myth even for the wealthy.
Most people ate a semi vegetarian diet since forever until mass industrial farming.
Even the drinking of milk is pretty modern, milk was used for other products.
@@Flyingdutchy33 eating less beef is not lowering standards...
@@Yakovik-si8ut It is to people who like to eat beef...
@@Flyingdutchy33 are you familiar with supply and demand? Every person makes an actual difference.
If you think otherwise then I assume you also don’t vote for the same reason. Well, it makes a world of difference.
I did my senior statistics project on this exact issue! Thank you so much for shedding (lol) light on this topic. I really hope that more legislation is enacted to protect our water!
Praise to your camerman! I could never imagine being that good at walking backwards
I did a report on the water situation in california's central valley. This was back in the mid 2010s during one of our droughts and we were supposed to get our 1.5 year supply of water to stretch to 2 years by offering water cuts in a fictional plan. I cut *everything*, massive cuts to industrial and residential use, with things up to 33% cut in areas. I was astounded to realize that beef is so wildly wasteful with water, that I proposed a tax that would cut consumption down by just 5%, knowing nobody would give up meat and that even this tiny cut would likely be wildly unpopular. It was 33% of all of the savings i needed.
We dont need to have americans give up meat, we need to stop exporting all our crops/animal feed overseas
Yes! Thank you for doing an episode on animal agriculture.
I live in Northern Arizona where virtually all of our water comes from wells, artesian and deep water wells, and none from the Colorado River. Fortunately, we've had no issues yet, but as time moves on, we probably will. Arizona banned and stopped the Saudi Arabian company from pumping any more water in Southern Arizona, and the land is already turning back to desert.
All the Saudi's will do now is just buy the same stuff off the open market like other countries do. And they only make up 5% of exports. In the end nothing changed, supply from AZ was reduced, that only drives up prices & encourages land owners elsewhere to grow the same water hungry crop. What you need is real action. But that means standing up to the farmer lobby which no one has the ball to do. Until then, nothing changes.
I never really understood why the Netherlands decided to let the people vote on which political party becomes responsible for water regulations every 4 years, (I thought it was just our obsession with water) but now I'm grateful it's there.
In the end, it doesnt really matter. 2 years back when farmers were asked to stop irrigation using water from the Maas because of low water levels, the river level was so high it nearly washed over the highway at Luik.
We should ditch the idea of provinces and go with the waterschappen/hoogheemraadschappen instead. Just my opinion.
You're so cool and enlightened.
I love how funny you are as you cover these issues, the water issue is one we need to pay more attention too. "Watering a desert" such a great line!
I went vegan for the environment 15 years ago. Since then I'm now vegan for the animals too, but I had to disinvest myself in order to see the picture clearly.
Reducing your personal beef consumption is a good place to start. We can all see that the way things are isn't long-term sustainable. We're all going to need to do our part to make this world a better place. Consider kicking beef and dairy. They are among the most destructive possible food choices and they both have a wealth of alternatives available.
Regulation > individual consumer choice. Actually, more like regulation > a bunch of other things > individual consumer choice at the very bottom. Glad you're happy with your eating habits, but buying thing B instead of thing A is not really a proper start to making the world a better place. Don't mean to sound rude, but let's keep our focus on the goal here rather than what you have for lunch.
@@edumazieriwhen tens of millions are eating animals and their products for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and multiple snacks/drinks, what you eat makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE
How you spend your money sends a message, and yes it works.
Doesn't matter in a world growing alpha males who are literally encouraged to eat red meat for breakfast, lunch & dinner for the gains for life. It's a growing trend that won't stop sadly, that's without the beef industries wider pr campaigns. Indivudal choice is great, but truth is the impact is minor compared to that of lobbyists/coporations & lack of government policy. Alas culture wars matter more than policy.
@@edumazieri It’s actually possible to advocate for regulation changes while at the same time eating more plant foods. I think we need both top down and bottom up approaches.
@@reason3581 No because humans are vain and stupid, we do small meaningless choice here and there and feel good about ourselves, start smelling our own farts and yapping about how our toothpaste is made from recycled soap or smth and all the while the world keeps going to the shitter at a steadily increasing rate.
If advocating for individual action had any chance of working, it would have already.
That's a reason why every big business wants you to believe it's your actions that matter, not theirs.
Wanna feel good about your actions? Great. Want to yap about it? Save it for your dinner parties.
As a British farmer, I have this to say;
Europe: Has plenty of rainwater for grass, crops and all the animal agriculture you could need. This, when done right, can be beneficial for soils, the environment, and for food production.
Yes, we've been exploiting the soil since world war 2, but we're starting to turn a corner to more sustainable methods, working with the land and using natural systems, rather than working against them. The abundance of rainwater give us a great opportunity for this.
Australia: Uses cattle breeds more suited to environments with sparse vegetation, as they do in Africa and most of the rest of the world.
America: Shoehorns European style agriculture into the desert and wanders where all the water goes. Gives agriculture in the rest of the world a bad reputation. Not only will you use waayyy more water per tonne of food produced as more will evaporate due to the heat, you import cattle feed from farms created by cutting down the Amazon rainforest that only last a few years at best before the soil is destroyed.
You have options that can work with your environment, rather than against it.
Keep the European style agriculture to the grassy and wet landscapes that are suited for it. Your cows and the soil will thank you.
Agriculture needs to work with the local climate and landscape. Crop production and animal agriculture can benefit one another and the environment, but we need to do this right. Stop exploiting the land and natural resources and, at the very least, put some organic matter back into the soil after you've harvested your crops...
Rant over..
So, bring back the Buffalo is what you are saying.
@@blakehelgoth5247 If it suits the landscape and provides a good food resource, why not? I gather they're a pain in the arse to work with, though. Maybe cows that can live off sparse vegetation instead?
@@dmsa12345the Buffalo aren't so much of a pain, but they need to roam in herds and that doesn't fit with modern life very well. Turns out, it's great for the ecosystem though.
It's not the cow -- it's the how! Learn more from the documentary "Roots So Deep"
Amazing stuff as always. Thanks for highlighting solutions at the end ❤
Was thinking just yesterday that it’s been a while since the last Climate Deniers Playlist podcast. This is the next best thing!
As a West Texan, I feel like you could do an entire 40 minute video on the oil industry’s wasteful water practices.
As an enjoyer of your content, I wouldn’t mind that.
where in wtx?
Absolutely fantastic documentary, as always.
I just love Climate Town.
I'm so used to great videos, lectures and articles on climate change that are simply depressing, but Climate Town always adds humour and thereby also a spark of positivity. Thank you!
Always truly amazed at the amount of research that goes into yall's videos. It brings so many different ideas together and shows that everything is connected. Great piece and look forward to the next one after you climb out of the research mine you dig for it.
24:38 lol. The irony of Americans finally getting to understand what resource colonisation feels like... a tiny bit of karma at last.
Stunning and brave
Climate Town Drinking Game: Take a drink every time one of the following happens (rules subject to change):
1) "Wasn't Me" piano cover
2) "Down with the Sickness" waa aaah aah ah noise
3) "September" played badly
4) the issue described in the video is the direct result of capitalism
5) the issue in the video is the direct result of laws written over a century ago
5b) the old laws are extremely racist
6) agribusiness or fossil fuel companies are involved; take 2 drinks if it's both
7) you feel intense dread over the future because of what you're learning
Feel free to add more rules if you like. Sorry in advance to everyone's livers.
Drink every time a bald eagle screeches for FRRRREEEEDOM
8) Barenaked Ladies "One week"
How could you forget Trombone Hero My Heart Will Go On?
You're gonna kill people with this game.
instant alcohol poisoning lmfao
Congratulations on this viral video. Well done, edited etc.🙂357K in 4 days is remarkable.
In the 4 directions from my California abode lies a cattle ranch, an olive farm, a walnut farm, and a rice paddy. It hasn't rained in 2 months.
Very high chance the Cattle farm's water usage heavily outweighs the Olive farm, walnut farm, and rice paddy combined.
Rice? They're growing rice in the middle of a desert?
If one had to go the cattle farm being removed would most likely increase chances of rain
@@Laurabeck329not all of CA is actual desert, but yes, we do have farms in the desert. It's insane driving through imperial and El Centro.
@@Laurabeck329 all rice isn't grown in a flooded paddy