[HN Gopher] Learning from Las Vegas: Sustainable vs. Susceptible
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Learning from Las Vegas: Sustainable vs. Susceptible
Author : jeffreyrogers
Score : 51 points
Date : 2022-06-26 16:25 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.granolashotgun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.granolashotgun.com)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Plants don't provide "natural cooling". They naturally provide
| evaporator cooling. That is, they cool the surrounding area
| because they release water vapor. Drip irrigation is much better
| than other irrigation, but it doesn't change that growing trees
| and vines in the desert is wasteful.
| cassepipe wrote:
| But isn't the point of fighting desertifaction that since there
| is more shade, there's less evaporation and the little water
| that drops there accumulates in the soil supporting more
| vegetation and kicking off a virtuous cycle ? (I am no expert
| but that's what I assumed looking at counter-desertification
| projects)
| ianbicking wrote:
| Looking at all the parking lots, I can't help but wonder if there
| isn't a more appropriate form for this particular area?
|
| In lots of places asphalt at least has the advantages of
| suppressing plants, making it easier to plow snow, avoiding any
| car fluids from seeping into the groundwater, keeping it from
| getting muddy in the rain, and so on. There's still issues with
| washboarding, and there is at least a little rain, but it feels
| like you could skip a lot of this built landscape.
|
| I wonder how much the asphalt is, ultimately, aesthetic. It says
| "this is a built area" as opposed to "this is an empty lot".
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Now do the Bellagio fountains that evaporate 12 million gallons
| of ground water every year. I can't imagine that's being
| replenished at a sustainable rate.
| tekla wrote:
| https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11...
|
| According to this, the fountains uses negligible amounts of
| water versus the population + visitors.
|
| > Resort hotels' water use accounts for only seven percent of
| the water supplied in Las Vegas.187 The average guest at a
| resort hotel uses sixty-three gallons of water per day. In
| comparison, the amount of water used by a Las Vegas resident is
| nearly double that amount.
| hervature wrote:
| As someone who has lived in Las Vegas, this person seems to not
| give credit where credit is due. First, I don't know how they
| weren't able to find the cycling path from the store. You can
| actually see the store and its solar panels from the entrance
| [1]. Second, the exact thing they are a proponent for is actually
| the root cause of the water crisis in the southwest. Growing
| things in a desert. It takes water, a lot of water. The reason
| why you don't see much green in Las Vegas is because it is a huge
| water use. So, while the slightly cooler ground directly beneath
| the tree is nice, it really is the exact opposite of sustainable.
| Through initiatives like paying to rip up grass lawns, Las Vegas
| has actually been able to reduce water use by 30% while growing
| probably something close to 10% in the last 3 years. Point to
| anywhere else in the US that has actually reduced usage of
| anything in the last 3 years. This is all with the huge waste of
| water that is Lake Las Vegas and the golf courses. Which goes
| back to the main point, the water crisis in the southwest is
| purely a function of agricultural use in California and to a
| smaller extent Arizona. Of course Las Vegas relies on outside
| agriculture but there is going to have to be a shift in the
| coming decade for more sustainable farming practices in the
| southwest.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1210033,-115.3267191,3a,75y,...
| wazoox wrote:
| There's a huge difference between maintaining absurd grass
| lawns (about everywhere but in rainy England) and maintaining
| reasonable vegetation.
| oneplane wrote:
| There's also the difference between building stuff in a
| desert and building it in a more moderate location...
|
| I figure the only reason this stuff is being done at all is
| because somewhere there is some margin to be made. Sadly,
| that doesn't magically create more water, but money doesn't
| care about that.
| nine_k wrote:
| There is some well-known reasonable vegetation in arid
| climate: things that _naturally_ grow in such conditions. A
| cactus here, a baobab there, things like that. That would
| give a city an even more unique look.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Arizona (or at least the greater Phoenix metropolitan area) has
| been replacing agricultural land use with residential for 20+
| years.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| The entire state of Nevada is allocated 4% of the water from the
| Colorado. Almost every residential property, and recently the
| commercial ones as well, is xeriscaped with rock. Yeah there are
| a few golf courses and hotel fountains which do as much water
| recycling as they can and look out of place in the desert, but
| Las Vegas is not particularly significant to the South West's
| water problems really.
| criddell wrote:
| > Without modern machinery and a national network keeping this
| place supplied with essentials there's no way the current
| population of 2,200,000 people could survive in this environment.
| Las Vegas is basically a space colony.
|
| Isn't that true of every large city? Is there any city of
| millions of people where you could put a wall around it and it
| would be self-sustaining? All cities rely on having food trucked
| in, use electricity mostly generated elsewhere, rely on water
| that comes from outside the city, etc...
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think "survive in this environment" is meant to reflect the
| fact that human beings could not exist for nontrivial periods
| in the Nevada Desert. Contrast that with San Diego or New York,
| where the environment is not actively trying to kill you during
| most of the year.
|
| All cities import goods, because the economics favor it (space
| is at a premium). But most cities don't exist _in spite of_
| their physical environs; they're generally situated somewhere
| that's advantageous to ordinary economic conduct (along rivers,
| lakes, coasts, etc.)
| mgraczyk wrote:
| But even in San Diego, it seems there isn't enough freshwater
| to support a population nearly as large as the city has. From
| a quick search it looks like SD imports something like 80% of
| it's water.
|
| I think Las Vegas is not really unique in this way, just a
| bit more extreme.
| kortilla wrote:
| In New York the environment is most definitely trying to kill
| you. Spend a winter without heat to see what I mean.
|
| We've just solved the "how to keep your house warm" problem a
| lot earlier than "how to keep it cool" so you don't think of
| heating as spiting the environment, even though it is.
| downandout wrote:
| _" Contrast that with San Diego or New York, where the
| environment is not actively trying to kill you during most of
| the year"_
|
| Las Vegas is inordinately hot only 3 months of the year. The
| rest of the time the weather is relatively mild. That's
| hardly "actively trying to kill you during most of the year".
| Many people who visit Las Vegas only do so during the summer,
| so it seems like it's hot most of the time to them, but this
| is a myth.
|
| Having grown up in San Diego and currently living in Las
| Vegas, I'm not sure what special advantages you are implying
| it has that would enable it to be "advantageous to ordinary
| economic conduct" vs Las Vegas. It's next to an ocean full of
| water that you cannot drink (without expensive water
| treatment). Produce is grown in California (with water that
| it deprives Las Vegas of), but mostly not near San Diego, so
| it has to be transported in to support its massive
| population, just like it has to be to Las Vegas. In fact, the
| agricultural centers of California are approximately
| equidistant to both San Diego and Las Vegas, perhaps +/- 100
| miles.
|
| Even putting aside the other issues with California -
| overpopulation, insane politics, high crime rates, absurdly
| high state income tax, high cost of living etc., I don't see
| any serious advantage that Southern California in general has
| over Las Vegas. In fact, many Californians are starting to
| realize this, and are invading us.
| lom wrote:
| Yes, but with Las Vegas it probably mostly also comes out of
| state, and a different region altogether. Of course a New York
| doesn't sustain itself with regional farming. But basic produce
| probably won't come from a very far away plac,
| [deleted]
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