Who’s Taking America’s Water? | Climate Town on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2024–2026.
explainer · dated
A Climate Town episode on who uses America's water, particularly Western water. It looks at agriculture such as alfalfa and animal feed, and at water-rights rules that discourage conservation.
HN points to it in Colorado River and water-use threads as an accessible explainer of why the Western water shortage keeps getting worse.
“Climate Town has a good explainer”
6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
For anyone interested in the background behind this clusterfuck, Climate Town has a good explainer: ▶ this video . It's not just drought, it's because many of the players involved are required to waste as much water as they can - the video has the details.
in “Lake Powell Water Critically Low; Wyoming Expects More Demand On Flaming Gorge” · View on HN
Climate Town did a great video breaking down where a lot of this ends up, worth the watch if you want some more detailed background on the agreements in place that are leading to this happening: ▶ this video
in “The Colorado River is running low. The picture looks even worse underground.” · View on HN
If you don't mind the presentation style, ▶ this video is great presents an even direr situation: because water rights are "use it or lose it", we are actively encouraging water misuse, beyond just "it's cheap enough to misuse it".
in “Why isn't Colorado's snowpack ending up in the Colorado River?” · View on HN
Plenty of alfalfa and corn aren't going to food production. And much of those the remaining are not efficient. ▶ this video
in “Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI” · View on HN
Arizona and California have outdated water management laws that basically mean that big agriculture gets free water. Until recently Saudi Arabia was using these laws to grow alfalfa in the desert. In California, water intensive crops like almond trees get free water. ▶ this video [link]
in “TSMC begins producing 4-nanometer chips in Arizona” · View on HN
Residential water use is tiny compared to water used to grow things mostly cattle feed, Primarily alfalfa ▶ this video The reason for the water shortages is not more people it’s a complete and utter mismanagement of the watershed
in “Why isn't Colorado's snowpack ending up in the Colorado River?” · View on HN