As long as its not public, it does not bother me. Some people fry fish at work in the office kitchen! Now that is more offensive, I think. Still I wouldn't call them sick.
Both can be true, but if you subject water pricing to market forces the problem can help correct itself. That won't happen for ag pricing (strong lobby) but would get rid of the relatively minuscule residential wastefulness.
Why should society let market forces decide how we treat a resource necessary for human life? I would rather trust a democratic society more than I'd ever trust any of these anti-humans that currently lead big tech. These people have shown the open disdain they have towards humanity, we are under no obligation to give them whatever they want if they just pay for it. Money is not the issue for them, they do not like being told no.
Society should, and is, openly reject such disdain and contempt toward humanity.
That's incredibly solvable: subsidize every household with a baseline of essential water, and charge above-market rates for everything else. Set the higher tier's price to fund an annual dividend for every citizen to offset the average food cost difference. Waste would go way down, and practices would shift to water-efficient practices.
I believe this makes a lot of sense. Hopefully we also have a smart meter one could use to get quick feedback on water use, so homeowners can see how changing their behavior reduces water use in the same way that a smart meter for electricity gives us the same feedback for reducing energy use.
Even without the economic incentive, I've turned off the lawn irrigation installed by previous owners, use soaker or drip irrigation in my berry and vegetable gardens, and water ornamental plants only when they're really in distress during our summertime droughts. It's amazing how soil can go from moist and wonderful in the spring to desiccated powder in a summer drought.
Coming soon, we'll be replacing the front yards with creeping thyme and maybe wild strawberries. I do need to see if wild strawberries, though, are a groundhog buffet. I hate those little fuckers.
I'm specifically talking about local elected governments managing a municipal resource that needs to respond to market supply and demand realities over the course of time where availability of said resource fluctuates. These municipalities are run by democratically elected representatives that should be acting in the best interests of their constituents -- and if not they can be replaced.
So provide tiered pricing for these larger consumers that would offset the additional pressure on existing infrastructure. If the infrastructure doesn't exist -- allow these datacenter companies to invest and build out the infrastructure that would also benefit other customers in that water district.
When industry is negotiating with local government to open a facility, often one of the stipulations is that the facility will pay no more than local residents for access to utilities (in fact, the industry may even demand a lower, privileged rate). If the local government did what you suggested, the industry would just go elsewhere. Modern industries are overall not very interested in paying more in order to build out infrastructure to benefit the community beyond their own site.
What is the issue here? Local populations don't want to use their communities to satiate the greed of a multi trillion dollar corporation.
They can afford to pay whatever the rates, they just want the public to give them more corporate welfare so they can get greedier while inflicting a surveillance state upon the masses.
The issue is that even if one community puts up resistance, the corporation will eventually find some other local government that plays ball. In the end, someone or another still gets screwed.
> Tapping into public drinking water is both easier and cheaper than paying the cost of treatment themselves. That means data centers end up competing with communities over their potable water supply.
My city has tiered pricing for water consumption based on gallons consumed per-household. Instead of the vague pearl clutching here, why can't municipalities provide preferred pricing to residential customers and have the data center consumers subsidize ongoing water treatment and infrastructure build out to support the extra capacity. Seems like a win-win.
I remember Portland. Sadly it burnt to the ground. No one lives there now, because there are no buildings.
Wait, I'm hearing reports. Reports that literally no city has been burnt to the ground due to protests? None at all? And this HN account is just out of touch?
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