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Comment by vwoolf | Hacker News Reader

The desalination plant solutions a "let's do both." https://californiaglobe.com/articles/california-coastal-comm...

Charge market prices for water and build desalination. Create abundance.

If only people understood this concept. In my home town city council are bickering about whether to allow additional density to be build on already commercially zoned lots based on whether they force 10 or 12% if the units to be “affordable.”

They are bickering over whether 40 units of a building might have a net decreased rent of $200 a month and instead may get 0 units built instead of 400. The 400 units would likely reduce the rent in the area by more than $200.

Create abundance and then let the market set the price and be happy.

That’s another form of the “both sides” type of fallacy. Desalination is an extreme unnecessary compromise to deal with obscene waste in agriculture.

the largest desalination plant in the u. s. can serve 110,000 homes. we would need 30 of them to make a significant dent in just the LA area. we will all be long dead before 30 new desalination plants are operational in california

Desalination requires energy and creates waste. Perhaps we should live within our means instead.

> Desalination requires energy and creates waste.

This is true for basically every human endeavor.

Dams literally generate energy and provide water consistently.

Do dams provide water? Don't they use the water provided by a body of water?

By controlling and regulating water flow, dams make available more water than would be available from an unregulated water flow.

As noted by others, this isn't entirely cost-free, and there are ecological impacts. Still, on net, many dams do provide real benefits.

And lay waste to entire river ecosystems.

You are advocating for famine and war.

Or they're advocating for eating less water intensive things. If you for example grow wheat instead of grapes or almonds your likely reduce global famine a little bit.

Or growing water-intensive crops in water-plentiful regions of the world.

Aka deforestation.

That’s meat, it’s the most water intensive. How much do you want to get that she/he eats meat everyday? What about you?

I eat meat whenever my local supermarket has a piece of organic meat on sale because it would otherwise get thrown away. That's once or twice a week. Less meat consumption in general would probably be good not only for the environment but also for public health.

Awesome. I’ve been a vegetarian for 25+ years, my 6+ year old car has less than 35k miles, I’ll bet my carbon footprint is lower than nearly every American commenting on this thread.

Having said that, merely hoping that people will make significant changes in their lifestyle for indirect and abstract benefits is simply burying one’s head in the sand with a rationalization that makes them feel good. The population is growing, and we will either innovate our way out of this, or it’s famine/war/etc.

Edit: go into /r/environment on Reddit and suggest people eat a lot less meat and see how quickly it’s downvoted into oblivion. And those are the people who actively care!

> I eat meat whenever my local supermarket has a piece of organic meat on sale because it would otherwise get thrown away.

I don't think that really works any more than the "look I'm killing the cows" argument. If they have to throw away packages each week, they'll buy less in the future, which in turn leads to lower production.

I agree, but I enjoy meat a lot and these silly restrictions I put on myself help to keep my consumption at reasonably low levels.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Limiting to twice a week is good.

You assume the alternative is buying more. What if the alternative is buying twice a week but based on a different metric? Or buying less?

In general it's better to be accurate about cause and effect and then choose what to do. That way you can make sure the way you're measuring "good" is real.

If you charge both the agricultural and residential users the same price, the agricultural ones go out of business. That may well be necessary, but they're politically well connected.

Who pays for it though? Market price is way below desalination price.

Idea I've had, solar power a desalination plant, pumping the water into a pumped storage reservoir, then water crops from it at night to reduce evaporation and produce energy when the sun isn't shining.

Is there an issue with trying to locate solar (often in flat areas) alongside pumped storage (would that be in a mountainous or at least hilly area)?

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