Who's really using up the water in the American West?

Read about the Colorado river’s drought crisis: how bad can it get; what communities, lives, and species are at stake if the river keeps drying up; what’s within our power to change; and what innovations and adaptations are we embracing to save ourselves. bit.ly/3N4C8dV

I live in Colorado and 95% of my residential water bill goes towards watering my lawn, which is required by the HOA. It's ridiculous. There should be city regulations in place to make developers use native drought resistant landscaping and avoid this massive waste.

whoever's idea it was to do the little diorama pieces instead of an animation, and to whoever made them - excellent work

You forgot to mention that a field of alfalfa will consume more water than other crops and farmers are picking it specifically for that because in their water rights agreements if they use less water it means that next year their water allocation is reduced.

Well done. My take away is that rather than being held hostage by the evergreen growers, we need to regulate the market better and dis-incentivize the activity. Levy higher export tariffs, higher water costs, or ? It seems a strange thing, watering the desert, to grow a crop we don’t directly eat.

Wow it’s almost like they are growing crops that aren’t evolved to grow in the desert in the middle of a desert…

65% of the water in Utah goes to alfalfa. This makes up about 1% of the State's GDP. Center pivot uses 900gal/minute. Utah has not given up on the Lake Powell Pipeline. The State has only pushed back the Bear River Project which would lower the Great Salt Lake even more. Utah has the lowest water rates in the Nation. Utah is the 2nd driest State.

really frustrating when 80-90% of media coverage is on residential + commercial usage when 80-90% of the usage is agriculture. refreshing (ha!) to see a video which helps get to the core of the conservation issue.

Saudi Arabia: We're going to cut OPEC production so prices increase Also Saudi Arabia: We bought land in Kingman, AZ so we can grow alfalfa to export back to the Kingdom. To do this we will pump as much groundwater as we want since Arizona has no laws restricting the pumping of groundwater The United States: Ok no problem

People will look back at our times and shake their heads. Producing an excessive amount of meat from plants grown in the desert and thereby rendering entire regions uninhabitable during the accelalerating climate crisis is the perfect example of what's wrong with our way of doing things.

Paying for not using water seems so odd... Just regulate it properly. Some of the businesses are just not feasible anymore.

Wow, it's absolutely shocking how humans create convoluted strategies to problems when the simplest, most effective solution was glossed over in a few seconds in this video. I don't know when people are going to realise that we either have to make the tough decisions ourselves or the climate is going to make it for us. Nevermind, it's already doing that

It’s unfortunate they barely even mention how helpful it would be for everyone to reduce the amount of meat they consume. I stopped eating meat almost exactly one year ago after 42 years of eating meat daily. My diet now is diverse and delicious, I’ve lost 70 pounds and am now at my ideal weight, and have eliminated every health issue I had. I was scared to stop eating meat and thought it would be impossible. It took me months to even start trying. But it’s literally the best thing I’ve done for myself in my entire life, and I know it’s better for our planet too. Watch the documentary Forks Over Knives and if nothing else, consider making the change for your own benefit.

It's almost like it was a bad idea to turn the desert into a farm 🤔

The video mentions that alfalfa is a crop that humans don't eat, but the second largest water consumer, corn, also doesn't really feed humans. It's mostly for livestock feed and ethanol. A small percentage does feed humans in the form of high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, corn meal, corn starch, etc often found in junk foods. Quite the system we've created here.

"...but I like cheeseburgers... so here's some complicated economic solution that's not going to work instead" It's so weird how people shut their brains off when faced with insurmountable evidence that they need to change.

This was a BEAUTIFULLY shot video! Major compliments to the team who planned this :)

Oh no certain people might lose their jobs! Well if water runs out there are going to be a lot worse problems!

Very well constructed video. I believe every high school student should have a yearly class where they make these. They would improve their tech, communication, research, writing, speaking, art, and many other skills immensely!

I have to say, I love the diorama. Seeing things laid out in such a simple, straightforward way is so nice.