21
votes
Utah's shrinking lake: a scientific asset and a crisis
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- Title
- I'm a space scientist. Utah is subsidizing my research with its health.
- Published
- May 16 2026
- Word count
- 897 words
I hate the framing here because while I agree that lawns and golf courses in a desert are wasteful, they clearly aren't the main problem. The dry western states simply have to stop exporting their water in the form of hay, which in this case makes up 57% of human-caused lake outflows. (source)
What do they use the hay for? I assume it cannot be easily stopped, or else it would already have been done.
The farmers use the hay for making money. It could be stopped, if they didn't want to make money.
Slightly longer answer: it feeds animals, supporting industrial-scale animal husbandry. Because animals are managed at a scale that cannot be supported by any possible rate of plant growth where the animals are and thus the feed has to be shipped in. So farmers elsewhere grow alfalfa hay as an input for producing meat and animal products.
So really, they could stop, but nothing short of legal action and regular enforcement will stop them.
I see. Perhaps this can be solved with vertical farming, which I have read about, in order to use water more efficiently. However, it seems very expensive.
While I would support moving the hay farming to a state with more water, the only government that could do that is the federal government. And I do not think Congress would do that, because it is made up of representatives of states, and none of the states want the federal government to interfere.
I think the only way people begin to care about this is when the lake completely disappears and their property values go away. However, even that, I doubt, because the Colorado River has disappeared in California and yet Los Angeles people do not mind the empty river.
Or some advocates are in favor of buying out alfalfa farmers. I remember reading that the hay/alfalfa farming is just 0.3% of Utah's GDP.
Sure, they could bail out corporations whose rapacious nature have consumed so much in the name of private profit that our shared resources are literally running out. Or the state could just restrict their water rights in order to restore the lake and be done with it. There's nothing sacred about those corporations aside from the cloak of "farmer" that they wear to try to protect themselves from criticism.
Per the US constitution,
They didn't say take the land, they said to restrict the water rights. The government could also regulate the use of the land in a way that limits the use of it for that kind of agriculture or do any number of things if it wanted.
I don't understand how what you quoted is related, can you explain?
Water rights are a type of property, and can't be taken without just compensation.
I personally live on the east coast where we have plenty of water, so I don't have personal experience with this area of the law, but my understanding is that water rights are just another form of property and have the same legal protections as any other property.
It depends a lot on state laws - if the water is being used for irrigation vs livestock drinking from it, etc. so it's all very complicated. States have an interest in ensuring the public has water, which can conflict with individual rights, and commercial ones are different from personal use too. If you're using water unreasonably, the state can revoke your rights. If you don't use your rights they could revoke them, etc. And all of that is a mess of laws, regulation, and litigation to the point that one would need to be an attorney to make a definitive statement. I'm not one, I just know states have some power and every state is different so it's not clearcut.
I see what you're saying now, but it ignores the myriad complexities of the law.
So what? I'm making a moral argument, not a legal argument. These people have ruined the environment for their own financial gain. They must stop. An unpredictable regulatory environment is bad for the economy, sure. You know what else is bad for the economy? The Great Salt Lake drying up and poisoning everything around it.
When the Constitution is there only as a cudgel to fight for corporate interests and defend the obscenely wealthy from consequences, the time has come for revision. I love the Constitution. I think it did good things. Its purpose is to defend the common good of the American people. Do you think that is what it's being used for anymore? If not, why should I hold it so holy such that a mere snippet from it defeats my moral argument for the public welfare? No. It is a tool, and a valuable tool, but it's not the end of the story. If defending the constitution and corporate interests means depriving millions of water and destroying the environment, it's pretty clear that the people on the side of the constitution and corporation aren't in the right.
This is the state with the governor that claimed God wouldn’t allow for an environmental disaster that harms his special people.
Goes hand in hand with
"God will never give you anything you can't handle". Which is some really common toxic framing that's great for internalizing the idea that everything bad is your fault and if you just tried harder everything would be fine.
Without being religious, I always saw the other side of that phrase: if this is the hand you've been dealt, then you can handle it. You're stronger than you assume, even if you don't want to be, even if it's not fair to be put on you. You will make it through, and be alright after
That said, I'm also positive to being just this side of delusional
Yeah, but what does that say about the people who fail? Those who buckle under the pressure or fail to show resilience in the face of trauma? God gave you something He knew you could handle, and you didn't.
It says God gave you failure that he knew you could handle.
I don't believe that myself, and am not religious and god is nothing but a 3 letter word to me, but I could easily see someone taking it that route.
It means you were meant to fail that portion of the test. The next portion of your struggle is something to build you as a person, to help you learn and practice empathy, or to help you practice strength and patience.
Failure of one portion is not failure of the whole, and learning to accept that is part of life.
It's literal survivorship bias though. Most people make it through, but far too high a number don't - same as the "I smoked for 50 years / didn't vaccinate / didn't wear a seatbelt / etc. etc. and I was fine" argument. You're only looking at the people who managed to find a way to keep going, and even then I'd say that more than a few end up breaking in a fundamental way rather than building as a person.
Through a religious lens, you can play the afterlife card to kinda sorta still make the thinking work. I don't like that as a fallback, but within the internal logic of religion it does hold together. Through a secular lens I don't personally see it.
But what about… all of the people that die? Young? From struggles they couldn’t handle?
Preordained. Their passing is a challenge for those that remain on Earth. They'll be waiting in heaven.
This is a common Christian view.
Praise be. Truly an answer to everything.
I think this is very peculiar interpretation and phrasing. Do you have sources that say this is the messaging that Christians in general are receiving? Or maybe you're referring to some very specific group(s).
Not OP, but it's not peculiar at all to me - I'd say even without there being explicit messaging it seems like a fairly understandable conclusion to draw by following the logic. I'm not saying it's the only conclusion that makes sense, but it's certainly one that's come to my mind when I hear phrases like that.
For a related, and depressingly influential take that is explicitly stated in some fairly powerful denominations of American Christianity, just look at prosperity gospel. Some stop short and leave the implication of that one hanging, others are explicit in saying that those who aren't being materially rewarded are sinners or aren't strong enough in their faith.
I've heard from Indian friends that concepts like karma and reincarnation have also been (mis)used to justify hierarchy and discrimination on the basis that those at the bottom of the heap are there rightfully, thanks to transgressions either in this life or before.
Any just world hypothesis - and I'd say "God will never give you anything you can't handle" fits as a variant of that - will ultimately carry an implication that seemingly unjust outcomes are either the result of personal fault, or are opportunities in disguise, otherwise they'd necessarily be truly unjust and that doesn't fit the worldview. Which means if you put the worldview first, you end up in some very uncomfortable logical pits like the one @Omnicrola pointed out.
I hate living in a state run by genuinely delusional crazy people who believe total nonsense like this
So... Could we use this to argue that Utah, at least, is no longer God's "special people"? Can we twist it to point out their bigotry and hatred must be turning God against them and have earned punishment?
Probably not, but I've always wanted a chance to turn that "God is punishing us for X" BS back on people.
Clearly, God is punishing them for failing to be proper stewards of his gift to them.
Coincidentally and for no particular reason when disasters happen, it's usually the immorality of others to blame in this particular mindset.
Alternatively, they're being tested the way steel is hammered in the fire to become stronger, or some such.
No, we can't do that. Apparently it's "intolerant" when you point out the intolerance of religious people. I don't get it either. This state is run by morally bankrupt crackpots.
I didn't realise ~enviro was twinned with r/atheistcirclejerk.
The reasoning that lets environmentally damaging policies pass is pretty important to environmental topics more broadly, no? I’d expect it to come up whether that’s political, religious, or (in the case of the US in general and Utah in particular) a blend of both.
I’ll accept there’s a bit of snark in some replies, and I’m also biased as all hell on the topic, but I can’t really find it in myself to be that bothered by snark in the face of blinding hypocrisy. I think the broad point around “can we trust the environmental stewardship of people on record saying that God will fix it” is a crucially important one in a way you wouldn’t be hearing if it were, say, a Jesuit leader on record saying their faith-based position is that we should steward the planet to the best of our ability using the tools and knowledge at our disposal.
Speaking of, RIP Pope Francis
Laudato si' (24 May 2015)
You can label the comments as off topic. Honestly there isn't much of a point in comments complaining about other comments. Lots of folks use the "active" sort and so they just bump the topic back up the list for more people to see (and comment)