this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
276 points (99.6% liked)

News

23259 readers
3316 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Environmental and community groups have sued Utah officials over failures to save its iconic Great Salt Lake from irreversible collapse.

The largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere has been steadily shrinking, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns. A megadrought across the US south-west, accelerated by global heating, has hastened the lake’s demise.

Unless dire action is taken, the lake could decline beyond recognition within five years, a report published early this year warned, exposing a dusty lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxic substances. The resulting toxic dustbowl would be “one of the worst environmental disasters in modern US history”, the ecologist Ben Abbott of Brigham Young University told the Guardian earlier this year.

top 27 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Went through UT earlier this summer and was amazed to see that unlike here in Seattle, all of their lawns were a deep green. In a desert.

[–] Ryumast3r@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lawns aren't really the issue for utah. Agriculture uses something like 70+% of the water, and a lot of that is flood irrigation or other inefficient irrigation. The water is mostly used for crops like alfalfa that get exported to places like China.

The governor, unsurprisingly, is heavily invested in alfalfa farming, so do the math.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Utah uses an astronomical amount of water when compared to other states. Residential water use is the single greatest non agricultural use of water in the state. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the green lawns might be a contributing factor.

Agricultural water use is a problem, sure. In a state that has very little water maybe growing plants that need a lot of it is a bad idea. Why wouldn't this apply to grass as well?

[–] renownedballoonthief@lemmygrad.ml -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Alfalfa exports are a small portion compared to domestic livestock consumption. The answer now, as always, is that people should go vegan.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

should rename the state's capital to Salt City

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Arsenic Dust City has a ring to it though

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Come to Arsenic Dust City where the girls are coughing and the men are coughing and oh my god is that blood”

[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Just arsenic!

C'mon down!

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 11 points 1 year ago

Salt Flake City

[–] jray4559@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but who's going to stop the music of growth? Certainly not any politician that wants to keep being elected.

The average person doesn't really care about sustainable living, they just wanna be able to keep their golf courses and SUV's and everything else wasteful. If the lake dies, they'll just take water from further north. Thus, nothing will change, and we lose more and more of our limited freshwater.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The lake bed will stop it soon enough.

[–] jray4559@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 1 year ago

I'd hope for that, but there's also probably at least a 50/50 chance that Utah strong-arms the federal government into letting them have water from Wyoming and Montana up north. Or, god forbid, they get a Great Lakes pipeline.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can't believe the woke mormon university is once again trying to defame small business agricorps yet again for just hosing down their hogs. /s

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

They should just pray for more rain like the governor suggested.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago
[–] Copythis@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Just become republican!

All of a sudden, everything bad is a hoax.

Problem solved.