Drought

Governor Cox recently asked for a weekend of prayer to end the Utah drought.

Here are some facts:

The commercial industry uses 8% of the water.

6% of the water goes to residential lawns and another 4% is used for indoor purposes at residences.

The rest?

82% of Utah’s water goes to the agriculture industry.

So, asking Utah residents to be water consciousness, is simply not enough. Even if every resident went to a xeriscape type of lawn, you are not going to turn this drought around.

Regardless, of how you feel about the power of the divine–go ahead and pray. We need faith. And at the same time, demand systematic change. Because if everyone does their part it would not be enough until we demand the agriculture industry to change.

Difficult choices need to be made. Some of those choices may not be popular for a re-election run. Some of those might mean we can’t support the cattle industry or the alfalfa industry (which is then shipped to China). The system that we have built is not enough to curve the effects of climate change.

The consequences are coming.

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Update:

It hard pill to swallow to ask residents to keep cutting back when there are clear conflicts of interests happening. Read about Governor Cox’s alfalfa farm here.

These machines are so sophisticated and expensive to start an alfalfa farm most millionaires would look at other safer investment opportunities (crypto or real estate). So, I suspect, many of these farm owners had them handed down to them. Why we protect the few while the many suffer still beguiles me.