The Great Salt Lake is not so great anymore. It is drying up. The summery of the linked article is that the lake contains just a little more than 1/4 the amount of water that it did in 1987, and it has lost nearly half its surface area from the historic average, exposing some 800 square miles of newly dry lakebed.
Why is this bad? From the article
Layers of earth that were formerly underwater have swirled into dust clouds laced with calcium, sulphur and arsenic, a naturally occurring element linked to cancer and birth defects. Exposed lakebed is also contaminated with residue from copper and silver mining.
This will create toxic dust clouds that will blow over Ogden and SLC in the future. The cause is climate change (drier winters) and growth. Utah has the highest personal water rater usage per capita than any state in the nation. The State of Utah acknowledges that fact, but tries to explain it away here. Bottom line is the lake is drying up, and grave consequences will follow if something is not done.
Could/Should the Mormon Church do something about it? I’m sure they will the first time a toxic cloud blows over downtown SLC, and several people die. Too bad somebody couldn’t see into the future and predict when this was coming. But to say something now, like asking the Church members to cut back on water usage, to stop migrating to Zion (they have done this in the past) and to do what they can to reverse climate change will not go over big in a red state. Whenever Pres Nelson says something the members agree with (build more temples) , he is “our Beloved Prophet”, when he says something they don’t like (get a COVID vaccine) he is speaking as a man. Being good stewards of the earth by reducing carbon emissions and water usage should be taught at every General Conference, but can’t be without alienating most Utah church members.
Just as the leaders are slow to make changes to church doctrine/policies to protect our older more intrenched members (which I wrote about here), they don’t have an easy path ahead. They can alienate the right wing of the church and speak to climate change, or they can say nothing until people are getting sick from toxic clouds, and General Conference has to go virtual again because travel to Salt Lake City is too dangerous.
Your thoughts?
Image by David Mark from Pixabay
Wheat & Tares 
Read this only this morning:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62225696
Looks like having them speak out on climate issues has been important for a long time. We have the Word of Wisdom apparently to protect us from the designs of evil men, or some such, but not apparently anything similar for good stewardship of the earth’s resources
What we learned from the First Presidency Covid letter was that the church is led by prophets and bureaucrats. The prophets can speak, but the bureaucrats and local leaders can balk and bring the wagon train to a stop.
Given that climate change denial is firmly rooted in the church, it is highly unlikely any effort will be made to save the GSL. Modern Israel doesn’t stone the prophets, they just cancel them for political purposes.
Perhaps they’ll call for a church wide fast for moisture in the Salt Lake Valley, but I think it would be prudent to encourage more drastic measures.
There was a discussion about this on The Daily as well, the podcast run by the New York Times.
Unfortunately, climate change and earth stewardship has been heavily politicized making it more difficult to make real progress.
Maybe off topic but I’ve always marveled at the difference between Boulder, Co and SLC in terms of how those areas are cared for. In Boulder you have growth and zoning restrictions that prevent the kind of massive building in every available square inch that you see in SLC now. Granted, that leads to housing scarcity and higher housing costs but what’s left is an attractive community. You can’t build anything above a certain elevation in Boulder County (if I’m remembering correctly) vs the SL Valley where they’ll build anywhere they can. Also, we are mining the mountains to death. Look at Point of the Mountain, the base of Big Cottonwood Canyon, the area between SL and Bountiful. Not to mention the copper mines to the west that I have to look at every day.
The hippies and granola eating libs in Boulder used to really amuse and irritate my family and friends when we lived in Boulder in the 70s. But I’ll give them this: they know how to take care of their land. The LDS dominated legislature in Utah doesn’t seem to give a crap.
I bet if there was a great salt lake near Boulder they’d at least be trying
This terrifies me, but they CAN do something. Will they?
In California something similar happened and the state has installed a massive sprinkler system to keep the ground wet to avoid dust storms when the wind picks up. Not ideal, but at least it keeps people safe.
Yet another reason I’m glad I don’t live there.
I live in Utah, and the Church has agreed to stop watering its lawns so often due to the drought. KSL reported the story. I live close to a Church and I can verify that its lawn is much browner than I have ever seen it before. I was relieved that the Church agreed to cut back on watering because of the drought, rather than promising people that the drought would end if they would pay tithing (thinking of that story about St. George and President Smith’s promise that if they would pay tithing, it would rain, and then 8 months later, sure enough!, it rained).
Sometimes the legislators say something that makes me hope they’ll take action, but nothing really happens because the legislators won’t move against big business and that’s what it would take. A few brown lawns at the churches won’t make up for the way the government is constrained by business interests.
I wish the Church considered environmental issues to be “moral issues” and would start speaking out about them the same way they address civil rights and family issues. We could save the Great Salt Lake, but it will require really clear leadership from the Republicans, since they dominate the state, and I’m just not sure that’s a strong priority for enough of them (it is for some).
There is no universal climate change. There is no universal climate change and it’s a Chinese hoax. There is climate change but it is not universal and humans had nothing to do with it. There is climate change, and humans had something to do with it, but it’s localized. There is universal climate change and humans may have something to do with it. There is universal climate change but it’s too late to do anything about it. OMG! I want gas prices to go down NOW!
Air pollution in SLC has always been a nasty problem: there are many days you literally can’t see the mountains. Provo finally rid itself of the Geneva steelworks but I don’t know if SLC has shut down refineries. Money money money! – this is what Utah culture is all about and damn the torpedoes. The Brethren have not rocked this boat and suddenly presto they’ve got $100B in the bank. Meanwhile I’ve heard from MDs that breathing SLC air is the equivalent of smoking X number cigarettes per day. You do the math.
I can’t seem to comment anymore without signing into WordPress.com which I don’t have and don’t want. Has this comment policy changed at wheat and tares? Thanks for your help! Kathy Mitchell
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The Church doesn’t think long term because it thinks that Jesus is coming to save the earth and that the earth going to pot is part of the preparation for the second coming.
Millenarianism in the LDS and other churches has many bad outcomes, especially environmental ones.
kmitch1126, it seems some comments get stuck in a moderation cue. There seems to be no rhyme or reason which posts get stuck there. I myself always get stuck in the BCC comment cue, which they never clear up, so I stopped commenting over there. I try to clear the cue several times a day after I post something.
Not just a Salt Lake problem.
The Southwest has been in a drought condition for 22 years. Some lakes along the Colorado River are in danger of becoming “dead pool.”
Dead pool occurs when water in a reservoir drops so low that it cannot flow downstream from the dam. The biggest concerns are Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border, and Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border. These two reservoirs, the largest in the U.S., provide water for drinking and irrigation and hydroelectricity to millions of people in Nevada, Arizona and California. Plenty of YouTube videos are available documenting this problem.
Water conservation is everyone’s responsibility including governments, churches, businesses, agriculture and individuals.
Sincere question here: the previous record low level was in 1963. Then a record high in 1984, now it’s back to a record low that is only slightly below the 1963 level. But in 1963, Deer Creek and Jordanelle didn’t exist. Other reservoirs, like Smith & Morehouse and Rockport, were smaller in 1963 versus today. If we compare apples to apples and include this “extra” water that is in Jordanelle, Deer Creek, Rockport and Smith & Morehouse to the water that is in Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake, would it still be a new record low level? In other words, is this climate change, or is the same amount of water just in a different area?
I think it is time to pump the Mississippi River, the watershed of which is an area of the US that is likely to get too much rain from climate change, and refill Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and the Great Salt Lake. Water conservation is very important, but it will only go so far. Actions to counter climate change are extremely important in the US, but just as important in China, India, and other places throughout the world. Strong measures in the US (which have been made difficult by a radicalized Supreme Court and a radicalized Republican Party) wouldn’t be enough to counter climate change. It is global effort. The future looks very bleak. We have to act fast. A water pipeline pumping the Mississippi is but a small cost for the Western states to save it from catastrophic future costs.
Side note: In February Pres Nelson had a fireside broadcast for CA essentially asking Californians to not move to Utah, and to stay where they are. I don’t think climate change was mentioned, more along the lines of : we are losing lots of congregations to this exodus of Church members. I certainly wouldn’t say “mass exodus”, as I’ve only known 4-5 families who moved there, but I guess it was important enough that he needed to say something? Where I live (Brea), 3 stakes were recently combined into 2 – and yet a temple is being built here – go figure…
#Question, you pose an interesting question. Climate is always and has always changed and will continue to change in the future. But the growing chorus of climate scientists warning about the effects of climate change over the past 40 years have had their predictions overwhelming proven correct. So much so that the anthropogenic nature of climate change seems overwhelmingly clear. Plus it isn’t just the West that is experiencing drought. Drought conditions are increasing throughout much of the world. And this was predicted by climate scientists decades ago.
“A water pipeline pumping the Mississippi is but a small cost for the Western states to save it from catastrophic future costs.”
I can support the idea if the Western states pay for it themselves, which seems to be what John W is proposing.
ji—not to get into wars here. But westerners pay for coastal damages through their federal taxes so if that’s going to be a requirement then the whole system might need to be reworked. Do toxic dust clouds spread to other locations? Do other areas have incentives to keep toxic dust from spreading? The Salt Lake valley gets damaging smoke from wildfires in surrounding states. It’s hard to isolate issues and sometimes beneficial to work on solving them collectively.
John W,
It has been years… But I believe there was a proposal to build a pipeline from the Columbia River to the Great Basin and on to Arizona.
We have to get the GSL back, the economic costs of losing the ski industry and an even drier Wasatch Front should spark political action.
@Question,
I wasn’t familiar with those reservoirs, but I easily looked up deer creek reservoir and it has a capacity of 188 million cubic meters. According to Wikipedia in 2021 the great Salt lake has a surface area of 2460 km2. Now it is important to remember that a square kilometer is not a thousand square meters; it is a million square meters (1000 meters on each side of a square). I’m not going to be precise, so the let’s round the surface area of GSL down to an even 2 billion square meters and the reservoir capacity up to 200 million square meters. Then The entire capacity of Deer Creek reservoir would contribute less than one tenth of a meter, or 4 inches of water from The great salt lake. That’s more than I expected, but not much in comparison to how much the water level of the lake has gone down.
It is quite likely that by the time you get a pipeline built you will be having floods instead.
We just need to address climate change. In most countries even the political right accepts climate science, and are working to reduce fossil fuel usage and increase renewables.
In Australia we had drought and bushfires culminating in 2019.
This year we are having extreme rainfall events. Many parts of the east coast of Australia have had 4, one in 100 year floods, in the last 18 months. This year in July most places have passed the usual annual rainfall. I see that south america is also having floods.
Much of northern hemisphere is having exceptional drought, and heatwave, and fires.
The right of politics is associated with big business, and so follow their interests, so have often opposed climate action.
We have a GA, Jack Gerrard who made his millions undermining climate science as a lobbyist for miners, and big petrolium.
I can not see how climate change is not a moral question. It is reguarding the future habitability of the earth, and particularly the less wealthy will suffer most. I live on a hill in a super insulated house with heat pump heating and cooling, and solar pv to run it so I can cope with more extreme weather, but I have a moral responsibility to care for those less fortunate. The supply chain could be affected too.
I didn’t address Question’s main question:
“ In other words, is this climate change, or is the same amount of water just in a different area?”
To which I would say it is likely a combination of factors, and climate change is probably a significant contributing factor. The west is seeing many years of drought, to the point that some experts no longer want to use the term drought which implies that it is temporary. They prefer the term “aridification”, or a general drying out that could be permanent.
But another huge factor is over development and water waste. In my community, citizens fight the city council over limitations on watering grass, making the argument that if they don’t use the water it just ends up in the dead salt lake anyway. I’m glad that news articles are making people a bit more aware of the potential consequences.
@elisa – yes! I am so tired of people, particularly Church members, throwing up their hands and saying Jesus needs to come now and fix things. They say it to justify their inaction and unwillingness to make sacrifices for society and future generations.
We need to stop referring to the water shortage as a “drought.” This is climate change and we will not return to the water levels and lower temperatures we historically enjoyed. We need to make permanent changes to our behaviors to adapt. Short-term adaptation to a drought won’t cut it.
I had a family member on the LDS earth stewardship leadership team. Most LDS members have no idea that such group even exists (nor did I).
Similar to the problem of not feeding malnourished children, aka Bountiful Children’s. The LDS earth stewardship group (https://ldsearthstewardship.org/) is sort of promoted by the church, while it is equally ignored by the church hierarchy. They have to go out and raise their own money, the church does not help out financially. The church uses them only when it is to their benefit for a press release. The church lets them borrow a female leader (Sister Eubanks) but stay away from sending men with authority. They want to say they are involved, while staying a mile away.
These environmental issues should be non-political, non-controversial topics. Lets clean the earth ! Lets recycle trash ! Lets promote nature ! LDS earth uses friendly speech and uses JS and prior Q15 quotes. But it falls on deaf ears of the Q15 leadership and to the regular member.
Imagine if missionaries spent 5-10 hours a week assisting in environmental causes in their communities, instead of endlessly bothering people and being bored. Or imagine if in 1983 the Prophet prophesying would have cued the puppet Utah legislature dig a deeper lake, or better yet a dam system instead of spending $71M ( $211 M in 2022 dollars), and heading toward a $2B + additional costs/losses.
Now with a major environmental time bomb outside of 50 East North Temple’s window, maybe they might pay attention.
Then again, I doubt it. The LDS church lawns are the greenest in the state of Utah. The Temples always have pristine lawns, except for in 2015 when they let the LA temple grass die and had positive press in SoCA.
The church has such an anti-environmental history, they can not easily reserve course and support a supposed liberal agenda. In a non-Jello belt Stake conference I attended 10 years ago, the entire 2 hour+ meeting never mentioned Jesus Christ, but only was about how Global warming is NOT real and we should not believe the “philosophies of men”.
If such a dire future is outside their own window, imagine if you have a tragedy in your own community, your own family, or your own life. The church talks a lot, stating false platitudes; but in the end deep down they really could care less. They are an elite small clique that protects only their own. The silent puns expressed from the Q15: dam to the rest of you, do not rock/stay in the boat, off the deep end, throw the baby out with the bath water, and still waters run deep are hard to apply when there is no water.
Welcome to the future water wars.
ji, of course Western states should bear some of the burden of the cost. The water would be for their usage. Plus, Western state have a lot of money, especially CA. But the federal government should also help foot the bill. It is in everyone’s interest to keep the West sustainably populated and not have massive outmigration from the Western states to Central and Eastern states due to increasing drought conditions. Increased water from the Colorado would be to the benefit of northern Mexico. And it is similarly in the US government’s interest to keep a sustainably populated northern Mexico. Mexico should help foot the bill as well.
Faith, that’s absolutely heartbreaking.
I’m currently visiting Utah right now (literally less than 2 miles from the GSL causeway) and it’s amazing to me the complete lack of understanding my family and friends have of this issue. “We just really need rain” or “We’re praying we have a wet winter,” is the rhetoric I keep hearing. Nothing about climate change and the suggestions of large scale lifestyle changes or environmental regulation are scoffed at. I see sprinklers running non-stop. There was a dust storm on Friday night in northwest Davis county that caused our outdoor party to have to be moved inside until it passed.
Besides, Jesus is coming in my lifetime so it’s not really that big of a deal.
Great comments. Several commenters have noted the “Jesus is coming soon” idea and I think that’s a pretty pervasive one in the church. It’s important to remember that many members interpret the unfortunate things happening around them as “signs of the times” (unfortunately NOT referring the the fantastic Prince album) that denote Jesus is coming soon. So actually, the lakes drying up, COVID, Monkey Pox, poverty, etc., are actually, in an odd way, positive signs for true believers, the idea being that “hey, if things are getting this bad, Jesus will be coming soon to save me and all my righteous friends.”
Which, sorry to any true believers out there, is absolutely insane. It’s a position that absolves one of taking any responsibility at all for anything beyond a kind of myopic, personal sense of righteousness: “Yes, the GSL is drying up, but hey, I paid my tithing!” A continued and continuing emphasis on personal morality and raising righteous children, etc., means that often, larger communal and worldwide issues do not get viewed through a lens of moral responsibility. This is in part what leads to ridiculous solutions, such as the one John Oliver mocked in this segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxew5XUVbQ, which features Utah Governor Spencer Cox asking people to pray for rain. As one commenter on the YouTube clip said: “The fact a leader of a state can go on TV and ask the entire state to pray a problem away so he doesn’t have to do his job is terrifying.” And that’s where we are, folks. This is what nearly 200 years of “true” religion gets us: a request to pray for rain while all other possible solutions are ignored.
—Old Man—
“What we learned from the First Presidency Covid letter was that the church is led by prophets and bureaucrats.”
———-
I saw, and see, the leadership of bureaucrats.
I don’t think we saw any leadership by prophets.
We heard “after-the-fact” pronouncements and “guidance” but nothing prophetic that caused us to take a lead in handling COVID. .
If local bureaucrats and leaders balked at or stalled whatever guidance they may have received from those in the tower, that may be evidence that they, too, don’t believe prophetic guidance was being handed down.
Could you provide some prophetic leadership examples that helped during COVID?
Thanks.
Brother Sky, you’re spot on. The “hey, if things are getting this bad, Jesus will be coming soon to save me and all my righteous friends” is not only happening and celebrated within the Latter Day Saint community but in evangelical spaces too. I’ve seen two popular [debunked] TikToks about the Euphrates drying up and how that’s connected to the book of Revelations (both Dan McClellan and The Bible for Normal People address one).
I wish we could change the narrative to “we have no idea when Jesus is coming so let’s take care of each other and the earth like he won’t be here for a 1000+ years.”
I smell a new category for Jeopardy: Major/Minor Mormon Miracles
@laura @brother sky – I lived overseas for a number of years and attended a branch with a current member of the Seventy (he was a mission president at the time). He frequently encouraged members of the branch to not to worry about wars, climate change, etc. He said these things were signs of the times and the scriptures make it clear that things will get worse. Instead we need to focus on personal righteousness and ordinances. Christ will change the world and we can’t. The fatalism was unbelievable.
Yes, Jesus is coming soon, and instead of looking at what a huge mess we have made of His earth, and being scared sh*tless because Jesus is going to be really really pissed, we think He is going to pat us on the head and clean up after us. No, I suspect he is going to hold us collectively accountable for the mess we have made and make us spend the millennium cleaning up our own mess. “Bad children! You are SO grounded! No cars, no airplanes until this carbon is cleaned up from my air. You can jolly well walk. No TV and no air conditioning until you clean up this mess!”
Yeah, can’t you just picture Jesus in angry Mom mode.
The Church owns a substantial amount of agricultural land, across the country, some non-profit, more for profit.
I know second hand, someone involved in managing it said that there are problems with not enough water in some areas and too much water in other areas.
Brother Sky – “Governor Spencer Cox asking people to pray for rain. As one commenter on the YouTube clip said: “The fact a leader of a state can go on TV and ask the entire state to pray a problem away so he doesn’t have to do his job is terrifying.” And that’s where we are, folks. This is what nearly 200 years of “true” religion gets us: a request to pray for rain while all other possible solutions are ignored.”
I was curious if Cox (and the republican-led legislature) had done more than just ask people to pray for rain. A quick search revealed a few things:
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signs 67 bills, including some meant to save Great Salt Lake
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/3/22/22991087/utah-gov-spencer-cox-signs-67-bills-including-some-meant-to-save-great-salt-lake-water-drought
Gov. Cox announces $45 million proposal to help protect Great Salt Lake
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gov-cox-announces-45-million-proposal-to-help-protect-great-salt-lake/ar-AARzZ0J
It sounds like your YouTube commenter either spoke too soon, or didn’t do his homework. Cox admits that maybe we are a little late in getting started, but it’s definitely more than asking for prayers and “ignoring all other possible solutions.”
Anna – I love your comment! I would 10/10 support a GA saying that in Conference.
CaGuy, My anecdotal data sample shows that even more LDS families are moving to Idaho than Utah. The migration to both is very significant, leaving behind decimated wards and stakes in other states. Seems like people are reverting to an effective “Gathering to Zion” mode, even though Zion should be our stakes and homes wherever they may be.
To everyone… We have a solemn stewardship over our environment regardless of when Jesus may return. We have some tough decisions to make. Agriculture is a huge user of water resources. Letting farmland go fallow is a partial solution but will result in higher food prices. This is already happening in California. Maybe moratoriums on new housing developments are needed. But so many people earn a living from construction, and housing prices are already very high with increasing interest rates compounding the problem.
Pumping water across large distances to the Southwest is an intriguing idea. Salt Lake City is at an altitude of 4300 feet. The source of the Mississippi River is Lake Itasca, Minnesota (Wikipedia) with an altitude of 1475 feet. That is an uphill difference of 2825 feet not including intervening mountain ranges. The number of pumps required and the energy cost to run them would be enormous.
Another solution is “potable water reuse” where waste water is converted into potable water. This is already being done in some places including Orange County, California.
Of all the posts across the Bloggernacle I’ve read recently, this is the saddest, most damning one. Thank you for the stark reminder of where we stand in so many ways.
Echoing Anna, if you believe Jesus will return and fix everything you will behave very differently than if you believe that your job is to create a Zion society where Jesus will want to come.
Michael Austin over at BCC a few months ago made a compelling case that scripture should bias us towards the latter Zion-building approach, whereas the former worldview seems more prevalent in the church (https://bycommonconsent.com/2022/05/01/sunday-sermon-the-kingdom-of-god-is-within-you-some-assembly-required/).
I personally would welcome more calls from church leadership for working towards a Zion society. Unfortunately too many things have been politicized. This includes viewing Mother Earth as both a stewardship and an endowment. A stewardship because we care for it but don’t own it. An endowment because it’s a gift that yields perpetual “interest income”; due to greed we collectively far too often dig into the “principal” and as a result there will be less “interest income” in the future.
JonD
That’s an interesting metaphor, treating the earth as an endowment where we want to minimize dipping into the principal.
I agree totally that our job is to create a Zion society. I’ll look for the Michael Austin piece—his perspectives are generally very meaningful. Thanks.
It’s being asserted several places that a large majority of Utah’s water is being used for alfalfa farming, the majority of which is being exported to China. I first heard about it in the reader comments on the New York Times article about the Great Salt Lake, and have since found the assertion a few other places.
On Reddit, DeadSeaGulls posts a number of links to source information on this issue–a simple fix and a complicated fix all at the same time?
Does anyone know more about this?
This is such a complicated issue but I have to say it is somewhat ironic to hear about pumping water when I heard so often growing up in the inter mountain west how California wanted to take the water from Idaho to fuel their out of control growth and water hogging lifestyles. Karma?
I believe strongly that dealing with climate change is absolutely everyone’s responsibility and especially those that have taken on themselves the name of Christ. Using religion to excuse our ignorance and poor behavior is not new but I feel like so many church members I know just plug their ears and don’t want to make changes or invest.
We were just in Utah and my son who is studying environmental engineering was appalled at both the attitude and behaviors he saw there. While the salt lake does fluctuate when you have sustained changes (eg climate change) that has been scientifically predicted snd shown it is a different story.
I don’t pretend to know the solutions but I do know that 1) the things the Utah and some other western states have done to address these issues are not enough and often too little too late. 2) the people claim to understand the urgency literally while watering their lawns and fighting government spending on anything or regulations 3) just moving water from one place to another without making changes is unlikely to be a solution and could easily cause additional problems – it does require change to dig ourselves even partially out of this hole 4) living in CA we saw the state promote personal and industrial changes through incentives, regulations and investment. It is not enough but at least they are doing something. The amount of water use per person in Utah is appalling.
The church absolutely should be more forceful in linking our own behavior in relation to climate change to our responsibility to help others. But all around they focus on “eternal consequences “ because they are not here to address the problems of today (per Bednar). I see this as such a cop out to do the hard things and face the hard realities
“They can alienate the right wing of the church and speak to climate change,” since the right wing of the church is the most orthodox demographic it has I doubt the Church will say anything. Of course trying reconcile Oak’s talk that through obedience members can use the holy ghost to protect themselves from being deceived against the backdrop of members constantly being deceived isn’t possible.
One other problem is the great reliance on hydroelectric power. With reduced water, the western power grid has huge upcoming issues.
Anon: I’ve seen similar numbers about Utah agriculture water use as well. One thing worth remembering is that Utah has a number of different drainage basins which are mostly not connected. The Great salt lake is filled by the Wasatch front, essentially. Shutting down an alfalfa farm in Fairview (just to pick a completely random Utah town) may free up some water, but that water isn’t going to end up in the great salt lake. (In this example, it might end up creating a mud puddle in Sevier Lake.) From what I understand, water usage in the great salt lake drainage basin (where most Utahns live) is less heavily tilted toward agriculture.
None of this is too say that reducing agriculture in Utah might not be a good idea, only that, as always, life is complicated.
I live in downtown SLC and we’re looking into making the move in the other direction–to California. I have no faith, not one ounce, that a Utah legislature would ever put restrictions on residents and businesses to the extent that the lake survives. So they took helicopter rides around the lake to see where there’s no longer water. Who cares. I agree wholeheartedly with the NY Times reporter on the Daily podcast who observed that the legislation passed thus far asks nothing in terms of sacrifice on the part of residents and businesses. Until the the exhausted birds no longer stop on their migratory journey and the first toxic cloud of dust blows into SLC, the legislature will continue to rearrange deck chairs, and then they’ll be shocked, shocked that the problem has gotten so bad when they’ve been warned about it for many years.
As George Carlin said, this isn’t about “saving the planet.” The planet will be just fine when we are all gone. This is about us killing ourselves off, not us killing Mother Earth. He put it more eloquently that mother earth is just shaking us off like fleas because our actions are creating these events. From a religious standpoint, when we frame it as our stewardship over the earth vs. our stewardship toward fellow humans, particularly the poor who bear the brunt of these changes, the latter feels like the higher law. However, within the Church it feels like both the higher and lower law are mostly being ignored, or the barest lip service being done to them, occasionally, and without financial backing or inconvenience. Utah is going to police every rape and incest victim, putting them on trial by police (the worst allies on the planet) if they become pregnant and seek to terminate that pregnancy, but it’s beyond our control if we are releasing toxins like arsenic into the air. This is, like everything in politics, a matter of priority, and as usual, ours are backwards. We simply don’t care about others as a church, and in this case, we don’t even care about our own people. Maybe this is a wake up call from God.
But a wake up call only seems to sound like encouragement for all the Mormons and Evangelicals who think the second coming is at hand. They have no investment in making anything better when they think the best is at hand.
I get depressed thinking about what kind of environment we’re leaving behind for our grandchildren and great grandchildren. All the careful and loving attention we give them but we can’t give them clean air and water unless we do it together.
I have been resisting but.
Water usage per person per day for Utah is 242 gallons per day. Or 167 gallons from other sources.
Water usage for California is 83 gallons per day.
Water usage for Queensland is 40 gallons per day.
Australia is the driest continent so we are very concious of water usage. The dual flush toilet was invented by an Australian and was required in all new work by 1990. Compared to a standard 3.5 gallon US toilet saves 12 gallons per person per day.
In our last drought ending 2019 the government encouraged; turning off the water while cleaning teeth, collecting cold water in a bucket while waiting for hot water in shower. Use a bucket (not a hose) when washing the car, and no watering the garden. In a previous house we had a grey water system to water the garden, this house has round gravel instead of grass.
Washing machines and dishwashers have water use labels.
I do not know how you use so much, 240/167 gallons of water a day?
There is no sacrifice to using 40 gallons a day.
It would be cheaper to reduce water consumption than import more water.
I did a little more digging and found this:
https://ksltv.com/493680/dont-blame-farms-for-drying-up-the-great-salt-lake-why-they-could-be-key-to-its-survival/amp/
The piece was produced as part of an effort by the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, “a group of 23 news, education and media organizations that have come together to better inform and engage the public about the crisis facing the Great Salt Lake — and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late.”
It looks like it’s going to be a better source of information than anonymous posters on Reddit;)
https://greatsaltlakenews.org/
I hope I didn’t inadvertently help spread developer propaganda by sharing the Reddit link up above. I do prefer to get my news from journalists who abide by a professionally developed code of ethics.
1) Water in Utah is too cheap. The price of water needs to reflect its scarcity.
2) There are people all throughout the Salt Lake Valley who still own “water rights” and take irrigation water turns (which inefficiently uses water) for free. My parents inherited water rights from my grandparents, etc. (This is in the middle of the valley – about 1800 East and 3000 South). Practices like this must be phased out.
3) The church is currently evaluating and adjusting water usage to reflect its scarcity. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/06/22/lds-church-highlights/
One of our 4 kids lives with his family in a SLC exurb. They want us to move there now that I’ve retired. I don’t want to move to Utah. I love the church, but I don’t fit in politically with the majority of members in the US and especially in Utah. I taught a college course in climate change. I think my views on climate change would not be welcome in Utah. My specialty is water resources. Utah has squandered and overspent its resources as have many states. After we serve overseas doing WASH (water, sanitation & hygiene) work, hopefully with LDS Humanitarian Services, we will probably move back to Michigan where climate change and droughts will be far less severe than in Utah and the western US. The impending environmental disaster of the Great Salt Lake becoming Owens Lake (look it up!) is not one I want to experience up close and personal. I don’t aspire to live in an atmosphere where I can’t respire, and where the majority of Utah church members would consider me to be anti-LDS because of my political and professional views. Even in Michigan, I have to be careful about what I say for fear of offending people in my ward.
Maybe I’ve got Utah all wrong–I’ve never lived there. But I’ve been LDS all my 69 years, and think I know something about people in the church. Am I wrong about Utah’s LDS population in the SLC area?
I can see why we wouldn’t want a massive outmigration from Western states. But we should also keep in mind that there’s a lot of infrastructure going to waste in the Rust Belt, Midwest, etc., that can be repurposed without the same environmental cost of creating entirely new infrastructures in the West. As for me and my house, can’t wait to save up enough money to get out of Utah and avoid skyrocketing housing prices and climate catastrophe. Living right next to the GSL brings these problems closer to home.