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And this sort of thing would also kill individual residents that aren't agriculture conglomerates with deep pockets. Agriculture water use must be separated from residential uses. They'll never recover enough water by squeezing residential use because 86% of the water in the West is used for crops.[1] Over 30% of all the water used is for growing crops to feed cows.

I don't agree with the solution advanced in the linked video of paying farmers not to grow alfalfa. I think we should reduce the cow population by 75% (bringing meat consumption in line with the rest of the world), raise the price of beef, and tax the hell out of it. We do it for tobacco, and meat eaters put the same kind of strain on the health system, so let them pay for their entitlement. And saving water isn't the only benefit of reducing the population of cows, which would include longer life spans and much, much less contribution to Climate Change.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gN1x6sVTc

⬐ hn_throwaway_99

> And this sort of thing would also kill individual residents that aren't agriculture conglomerates with deep pockets. Agriculture water use must be separated from residential uses.

That's pretty easy to do with graduated rates, where customers are charged a low rate for the first X gallons of water, but then higher rates for more usage.

The bigger issue, though, is water rights are completely fucked. In a lot of jurisdictions you are free to suck out any water you can with a well on your property. That means those with the "strongest pump" are essentially free to suck out all the water from their neighbors. Our system of water rights in the West needs a major overhaul that won't be easy due to entrenched, powerful interests and the difficulty of changing some of these laws.

⬐ Maursault

Residential water use is not the problem. Not even remotely. The penultimate problem is agriculture, and the singular ultimate problem is, seriously, cows. They can screw around with minor adjustments here and there, but the easiest and best solution is to adjust population diet, curb agricultural greed and entitlement, massively reduce the population of cows, raise the price of beef and tax it.

The average American eats 55lbs. of beef a year, 4.5lbs. a month, over a pound a week. I guess we can wait until they all have massive coronaries, but it would be better to just stop this madness and restrict these eaters to 3 quarters of a pound of beef a week.

⬐ hn_throwaway_99

> Residential water use is not the problem. Not even remotely. The penultimate problem is agriculture, and the singular ultimate problem is, seriously, cows.

I completely agree, which is why I said that graduated rates are a good solution - they would tax agricultural (and any heavy user) heavily while leaving residential use cheap.

However, I'm also not in favor of other solutions that are complete fantasies when it comes to our political system. You say "but the easiest and best solution is to adjust population diet, curb agricultural greed and entitlement, massively reduce the population of cows, raise the price of beef and tax it." Except that is a guaranteed political non-starter in essentially every country that has high beef consumption.

⬐ Maursault

> Except that is a guaranteed political non-starter in essentially every country that has high beef consumption.

50 years ago everyone smoked. What we need are Surgeon General reports linking eating red meat to cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and especially colon and rectal cancers, which shouldn't be too difficult because it's true. Then we need ad campaigns, "Mmmm meat! Tastes just like cancer!" Then all that is needed is for the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Diabetes Association to sue Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef, to find they lied to the American public about the deadly effects of their product, which they intentionally marketed to children - the meat food group was always bullshit. Then comes taxing red meat and the collapse of these industries, because unlike nicotine, red meat is not addictive. Viola! Suddenly there is more water in the West than they know what to do with. Ranchers, cowboys, cattlemen and meat processors are retrained to work at all the water parks and recreational reservoirs that could then exist throughout the West, drawing in fortunes in recreational boating and tourism.

⬐ jacobolus

> What we need are Surgeon General reports ...

There are observational studies demonstrating a correlation between red meat consumption and various health problems, but risks involved from eating red meat vs. smoking are not remotely comparable, nor is the scientific evidence anywhere near as convincing.

Nor does some people eating meat directly affect others’ health, the way smoking in enclosed indoor spaces does.

It would be better to give people truthful information about what risks are known and what our confidence is in those, rather than trying to scaremonger or force lifestyle changes based on exaggerated health claims.

Climate risks and environmental externalities are a much bigger problem with red meat than direct health effects. (And a better cause for ending subsidies / adding taxes.)

If you are just worried about health per se, it would make much more sense to start by targeting soda and alcohol, and follow up by targeting candy, cookies, chips, etc. Even in fast food restaurants, the fries and soda are a bigger health problem than the burgers.

⬐ Maursault

The claim that eating red meat is not as harmful as smoking is hedging and a fallacy of relative privation. Just because eating plutonium is more deadly than eating red meat doesn't make eating red meat any less harmful.

The World Health Organisation has classified cured and processed meats as Group I carcinogens because there is a causal link between consuming these meats and bowel cancer. Group I carcinogens also includes tobacco, alcohol, arsenic and asbestos, all known to cause certain cancers. WHO classified red meat as Group 2A carcinogens, indicating it most likely causes cancer.[1] Group 2A carcinogens includes alcohol, benzine, diesel exhaust, and formaldehyde.

And having that many cows around hurts everyone on the planet, vegans included. There's 94M cows in the US, or 1 for every 3 people. But it would take 4 people eating 55 pounds of beef a year to consume one 1400lb. dressed cow. On the face of it, there are, at the very least, 25.5M superfluous cows producing more than 5B pounds of methane every year while consuming 46.5B pounds of alfalfa requiring ~7.2B gallons of water to grow.

Say what you will about smoking, but no one ever tried to grow tobacco in a desert during a drought.

And I'm not sure soda consumption is a significant contributor to Global Warming. The health concern is the meat eaters' incentive to quit, while I'd like it to stop being so damn hot and killing everything for the sake of meat gluttons indulging themselves. Eating meat is not any kind of virtue, and it is certainly not more important than the biosphere. For the sake of life on Earth, I can live without people eating so much damn meat all the time.

[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/repo...

⬐ ahefner

If we're going to raise the cows anyway, I think what you're telling me is that I need to try harder to eat more beef.

⬐ Maursault

> I need to try harder to eat more beef.

Definitely. The less red meat eaters the better, so do your best to eat as much as you can.