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Comment by briga | Hacker News Reader

Just like we fight deforestation by planting trees maybe we should fight drought by re-watering our land. It's a massive logistical problem, to be sure, but it seems like humans already have a pretty good handle on draining water from the land.

They could start by banning lawns and golf courses in the desert. No reason someone living in Phoenix needs a verdant green lawn. Maybe place some limits on unsustainable agriculture in the desert. I imagine such bans would be a tough sell in most parts but it's hard to imagine how else the land can recover.

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The lawns and golf courses are a small fraction of use compared to farming.

Definitely, but highly wasteful nonetheless. Easier to tell someone to stop growing their lawn than telling a farmer to stop growing their crops

Depends on the definition of easier. Telling a multitude of voters they don't get to have their Normal Rockwell painting of a life, versus telling a handful (relatively) of farmers that their water usage is now restricted? Lawmakers will choose their interpretation based off of that.

Is it? Farming represents 3% of California's GDP, but 40% of the water. If California decided to simply sell that water to other states and then give the money to the farmers in exchange for not farming, the farmers would probably come out ahead. It's also a lot easier to enforce than making sure people don't grow lawns.

> It's also a lot easier to enforce than making sure people don't grow lawns.

It might be easier to convince people to not grow lawns if we'd do away with some of the stupid laws and ordinances that require people to have "well groomed" lawns in places where such grass is an unnatural imported occurrence.

Perhaps even offer some tax breaks or other incentives to "zeroscape" or landscape their yards using native plant life suited to the climate. A yard without a lush verdant lawn need not be an ugly yard. It can still have plants and look nice without grass, if we'd "normalize" more nature/planet friendly practices instead of punishing people for not being destructive to their environment.

I bring this point up because here in Utah many neighborhoods will actually fine you if you don't have a lush green lawn in your yard. (Unless of course you're rich, then somehow you magically get approval to go the zeroscape route if you so desire.)

I definitely support a statewide ban on requiring lawn watering. Luckily here in California, because of continuing drought, most cities have already made it legal to not water your lawn, and you can't require tenants to water a lawn.

I would definitely like to see it taken farther as you have suggested -- give tax breaks and subsidies for people xeriscaping or replacing lawns with synthetic turf.

In the last drought, California actually started fining agencies for over-using water. And our water provider established water allotments based upon our residence, and if we went over we would get fined.

And it definitely works. I knew a lot of people in HOAs that mandated residents eliminate a certain amount of lawn due to these fines.

Lawn is definitely wasteful. But residential water use in California is only around 10% of water used. This is a population that has already cut their per-person water use in about half over the past 30 years.

You could probably get another ~30% reduction in residential use by eliminating lawns. Depending upon how you go about it, trees are probably more important in that environment though as a cooling element. Our backyard patio increases heat by a good 5-10 degrees on sunny days.

But it's still not much water saved. The only reason to do it would be to sell it politically - "everyone has to sacrifice". Which I'm fine with. But if your goal is to make residents do this but tell farmers they can do whatever they want, it's kinda pointless.

Edit: I also think there's somewhat responsible ways to have lawn in California. Subsurface irrigation can reduce lawn water usage by 30-40%. And certain drought tolerant grasses require 60-80% less water. These setups seem very rare though.

Phoenix is a desert but it wasn't ever devoid of water like people think. Its more like a "green desert" of sorts. Its very existence is the result of the sheer amount of water naturally running through the area. Was once the alfalfla capital of the US due to the water and the number of growing seasons.

The only reason it started growing so quickly is because A/C became available. Prior to that they couldn't use swamp coolers mid summer due to the monsoon season making it too humid to work. Water, power, etc, all of that was already there.

A better example is someplace like Las Vegas.

But "Muh house!"

https://kinder.rice.edu/sites/default/files/files/2017/08/Sc...

Yeaaaaaah, if cities could stop doing that endless unsustainable sprawl thing that would be great

Yeaaaaah, if our whole society could stop doing that endless unsustainable growth thing that would be great.

The whole "unsustainable" part is what gets me. Why is "growth" so important that we must do it to a point where it becomes unsustainable and risks literally all life everywhere on Earth becoming extinct (or at least knocked back to pre-stone age levels)?

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

It's only necessary because people think deposits are sacred. The problem isn't some capitalist cabal. Every single individual is responsible.

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