Will Las Vegas dry up and wither away?
Researchers have now indicated that Lake Mead, fed by the mighty Colorado and water source to millions (and all of Las Vegas, Nevada), will possibly run dry by 2021. The lake is down dramatically and hydroelectric plants are already operating well below capacity due to reduced flow.
But here's the rub. They say,
That water is not being replenished, they noted, and human demand, evaporation and human-induced climate change are fueling the growing deficit.
The system is already at half capacity because of eight years of drought.
"When expected changes due to global warming are included as well, currently scheduled depletions are simply not sustainable," Barnett and Pierce write in the study.
The two analyzed federal records of past water demand as well as calculations of scheduled water allocations and climate conditions.
They've neatly tucked human demand and human-induced climate change into the model. Of course it's human demand...since the animal kingdom is short on opposable thumbs and still doesn't shower.
What exactly did they measure to find out how much humans have induced the climate change. Isn't it odd that in the same article we read,
This view of Lake Mead was taken last July 26, during the seventh straight year of drought that had caused the lake to drop more than 100 feet to its lowest level since the late 1960s.
Wow. So it did reach this level in the 60's huh? I guess Al Gore was only a kid then and hadn't yet invented the Internet, the Lock Box, and the farcical global warming panic we see just about daily in the news. I guess back then we called it "drought" and "!@#$% it's HOT this year".
Please. I think that Las Vegas has undertaken irresponsible development with regard to water resources and may be stressing the natural biorhythm of the ecosystem. But articles that support the notion that the blame for 8 years of drought can heaved onto the back of humanity make me ill. It's a bloomin' desert man!
When the lake reaches historic highs in 9 years...we'll just have to give give credit where credit is due...to President Obama's climate initiatives.
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