water shortage in the us is a joke we just need to spend$ on a cannel in stead of bombs?

Question

a pipeline.make the deserts,a forest.this wood also jump start part of the economey with jobs and pay 4 its self with farmers and resorts,fishing.and also help fight poultion.add more o2 to the atmospear.we as a nation of havers need to lead the rest of the world in the fact is we have the ablity to change are envorment.with wind mills and dams.we as a country are teachers and have pulled the world along now lets teach bye showing how to make this country the garden of eaden

Answer 1

Are you saying we should disrupt nature's balance? I live in the desert (Phoenix) and sure I don't like the heat, but more water would wipe out some of our plants and animals that thrive off of our dry climate. Saguaro Cacti are only found in the Sonoran desert and believe it or not, down here they are huge in the economy. We have rich people who move to Scottsdale all the time, and getting a full grown saguaro costs thousands of dollars. Our landscape is our only form of tourism. We are not called the Grand Canyon State for nothing! People also pay much more for getting a house with a basement. This is because our dirt is rock hard. If it was softer, then construction companies would lose a lot of buisness.
Also, if our land was more firtile, then we would lose history. There are many legends here, especially around the Superstition Mountains, of burried treasure and lost artifacts. Softer ground, means more chances of finding these and completely losing the sense of wonder and mystery.
We would also put the Gila Monster on the endangered species list if our climate were to change, along with many other animals.
Phoenix is in the Valley of the Sun. This is where solar reasearch takes place to help save money. Your idea will just make us lose millions of dollars.
Do some reasearch and learn English before you post things like this.

Answer 2

and where would this water magically come from? the ocean? the arctic? saskatchewan? (we got enough water we could share). plus if you make the deserts a forest that might affect the biology of the area killing out many species and causing unforeseen consequences.

by the way its canal, not cannel, unless you meant channel. and your grammar is atrocious. if you want to do any leading then maybe you should pick up a grammar book at some point.

the fact is that there isn't some magical source of water for people to use. we could possibly use ocean water, but then we would need huge plants to take the salt out, and then what would you do with all of that salt? the artcic ice caps is melting and i think the area around the ice cap needs it more than the US does. there is ice in antarctica but do you want to hull up huge icebergs so that some richy in california can water his lawn?

interesting idea but ultimately flawed.

Answer 3

I believe the major military expense at present is funding subcontracting, but that's another story ...

What has been suggested is something the Chineese are attempting to do. They are planning on pumping water from one area of the continent to a drier area. Not quite a canal on Mars, but nearly as big a project.

Of course the first question to ask when attempting such an endeavor is "where" and "how much". Where is the water comming from? How much is available? The Chineese are planning to irrigate a plateau, which is rather flat. Water from a major river can just be rechanneled, at least in theory.

America is divided by the mississippi river. The eastern half is sea level and has an abundant source of moisture. In fact, it is the most productive land on earth. West of the mississippi however, the land starts to rise and the rainfall diminishes. The rocky mountains cast a rain shadow across much of the western US. This, and the elevation, tends to make the great plains too dry to suppost agriculture, although it is still moist enough to support ranching.

The Mississippi river, not to mention the great lakes, are enormous reservoirs of fresh water. However, to try and build a western canal would be impossible. The major problem is the elevation.

For example, to run water directly from lake michigan to Denver means it would have to travel 1 mile straight up. If it reached Aspen, it would have to travel two miles up. Due to the weight of water, it is mechanically impossible to push a column of water any further than 30 feet straight up a pipe. To get it up a building it has to be pumped into cisterns which are then pumped in turn to other cisterns. Of course a series of reservoirs every 100 miles might solve the height problem, but there is still the weight problem. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. It requires 1 HP to push just 7 gallons of it up 1 foot in 1 second. Imagine the amount of energy it would take to push a billion gallons of water 1 mile up.

Of course this happens every couple minutes when the sun evaporates water into the atmosphere.

However, humans know as much about solar power as chimpansees know about gas turbine engines. Humans can stand in awe of the massive forces they control, but even atomic blasts are miniscule in comparison to the amount of energy nature handles routinely. To make matters worse, humans can easily disreguard the fact we are still basically weak and stupid. This leads us to think our feeble technology can solve any problems we create. The result is usually just a larger problem.

Case in point is the fact the west does have an abundant source of water. It is a lake which covers most of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, the Dakotas and west to Utah. This lake can't be seen because it is underground. A broad but shallow limestone deposit was buried and subsequently saturated during the last ice age. There it sat like crue oil until humans discovered it. We are now draining it at a freocious rate to raise corn and alfalfa. These fatten cattle congested into expansive feed lots, the equivalent of a shopping mall for livestock. The cattle pay with their lives, but Americans are paying with their livliehood.

Why waste so much water to feed cattle when we could be eating corn instead of cows? The Chineese were shocked to find Americans raised soybeans to feed pigs instead of people. At least let us find a protien source which is more efficient at turning biomass into hamburgers. I find it curious that westerners adore shrimp but would never think of eating a cockroach. However, shrimp are just aquatic roaches and eat garbage - it's just underwater. Again, the Chineese eat many sorts of (more palitable) insects regurarly, since the avergae bug is dozens of times more efficient turning its feed into our food. I doubt live crickets will ever be a popular snack food, but insect protien could be used to supplement more costly animal protien and might even taste better than steak in the first place.

Answer 4

Google
ussr "water diversion" 67,800 hits

Was there any water diversion project that was not an expensive disaster?

Answer 5

And hopefully you can earn enough money to get spelling lessons. Yours is awful.

Answer 6

who said the US has a water shortage anyway?