Desert Lettuce: Inefficient Water Use at Its Finest

Roseland speaks in Chapter Five about the environmental and economic impacts of the current water consumption habits in North America. Not only does overuse of the current water supply create a burden on a limited resource, but it only encourages further environmental disruption and economic strain through the building of new dams and energy sources to pump more water from less accessible locations.

Roseland took an optimistic route in this chapter by showing us examples of things local governments and grassroots organizations are doing to decrease water consumption and to more effectively clean water for reuse. All this talk about efficient water use, however, got me thinking about an example of the government enabling inefficient water use: the large-scale production of water-thirsty crops in the Southwest. We learned about this issue in Economics class last year, and it really has stuck with me.

Despite the water shortages in the cities of states such as California and Arizona, farmers are using obscene amounts of water to grow crops such as lettuce, rice, and cotton. Some of the crops even require the fields to be flooded (what genius thought desert rice paddies were a great idea?). Why would farmers engage in these activities when the hot sun and arid climate rapidly evaporate the water? It is all made possible by the government. Huge federal subsidies make water much, much cheaper to farmers than to residents of cities. The government defends this practice by saying that the farms create much-needed jobs and food.

According to a 2009 article in The Arizona Daily Star, agriculture in California uses 80% of their federally-controlled surface water each year, and the farmers pay less than half of what a city does. The same article states that over a two-year period, the government handed out $687 million in subsidies to hundreds of farmers in Arizona and California (article does not clarify whether the money was entirely for water subsidies). Roseland eludes to the fact that that this type of system would create irresponsible use of water since the farmers do not know the true value of what they use. He says (sourcing NRTEE and Pinkham & Davis) that studies show that raising the cost of water and imposing user pay rates encourages conservation.

The World Wildlife Fund campaigns against wasteful water use in agriculture. Their website states that "inefficient food production and harmful agriculture subsidies are causing deforestation, water shortages and pollution." They go on to say that agriculture wastes 60% the water used for the industry each year. They list the main causes as being:

• leaky irrigation systems
• wasteful field application methods
• pollution by agri-chemicals
• cultivation of thirsty crops not suited to the environment

The last one, of course, is what I am highlighting in this blog post. Roseland has stressed in several places in both this chapter and the previous one that it is very important to plant vegetation that is drought resistant and/or native to the ecosystem. The government should encourage farmers in desert areas to plant crops which will require much less water or to give up farming these lands all together (an option which may not be economically feasible). This would save the government money, save the citizens money, allow more of the water to be directed to cities (where water-saving programs should also be in place), and lessen the strain on the Earth's freshwater resources.

Desert lettuce has got to go.

Getting Hitched Eco-Style

So my project idea is quite personal: greening my wedding. There is no date set yet, and I am certainly not getting married this semester, so my project will not show the end result. Instead I am going to do a lot of research and a lot of planning. I want to see if I can figure out the average carbon footprint of a typical wedding and see if, at the end of the semester, I can come up with a way to determine what the carbon footprint of my proposed wedding would be based on my eco-friendly planning. I will break wedding stuff into categories throughout the course of my project (clothing one week, food the next, etc.) For each category I will describe traditional and common ways to do things and then come up with several options to make the wedding more green. I think it is important to describe several options because I am guessing there will always be much more eco-friendly options than what I ultimately decide to go with. So there you go. I am very open to suggestions!

Seattle and Sustainability

My fiance aspires to work as a concept designer for a video game company, so he gave me the following choice of where we will move after I graduate: Los Angeles or Seattle.

I have been to Los Angeles.

I chose Seattle.

Though I haven't yet had the chance to see Seattle, I have been hearing good things about it, including its reputation as being a green city. After reading in Roseland today (which, by the way, has to be the most interesting and most digestible book I have this semester), I was curious to find out what Seattle's city government does that makes it stand out among other cities and if those methods could be replicated in other cities.

To start my search I entered "the most sustainable cities in the U.S." into Google. The first site that came up names Seattle as the most sustainable city with Portland and San Francisco as runners-up. The second site puts Portland and San Francisco in the top two, but Seattle gets moved to 8th place. Based on the big difference, I checked a third which also places Portland and San Francisco in the top one and two, but gives Seattle 3rd place. (Another interesting research topic would be to compare grading criteria for sustainability assessments.) Even if Seattle's ranking jumps around a bit, I think it is pretty safe to conclude that it is, in fact, considered to be one of the greenest big cities in the United States.

So then I was on to www.seattle.gov to see what the government is doing to achieve this kind of status. The first thing that jumped out at me was that 90% of Seattle electricity comes from publicly-owned, renewable sources (mostly hydro sources). I know that 85% of the country's energy still comes from fossil fuels, so I am rather impressed by this number. Here are some other things the government is doing to make Seattle more sustainable:

• The Department of Planning and Development has a Green Building Team to promote a reduction in water and energy usage.
• Natural drainage systems manage stormwater.
• Projects are creating a more pedestrian-, bike- and public transportation-friendly city.
• Days are selected to close certain street to cars and make them open to bikes and pedestrians.
• Charging stations make electric vehicles a feasible option.
• City ordinance bans recyclable materials from garbage containers and recycling pick-up is a free service.
• Tree education programs and tree give-aways are among the strategies used to meet the city's goal of 30% tree cover.
• Cash incentives are given to commercial, institutional, and industrial entities who replace their water systems with efficient ones.
• Plenty of educational materials and information are available to the public.

I am very impressed with Seattle's initiatives. Its Office of Sustainability and Environment outlines many plans they have put into place with solid goals. I am also impressed with how easy it is to navigate their site and find information even for little things like where you can buy compostable bags. I believe many of the large cities could model programs after Seattle's to increase their sustainability. I am, however, struck by something even the government of Seattle admits: their programs have easily taken root and have been successful thanks to the mindset of the already eco-conscious citizens. So I wonder how the citizens of Seattle came to think that way in the first place. (It may have something to do with being the city with the highest percentage of college-educated residents in the country.) It could be that some of these programs would need to be implemented with a heavy dose of social marketing in other cities. Let's hope other city governments see the value in striving to be sustainable, because big changes are possible.