# Lake Mead at 36% of Capacity **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 17, 2021, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482 "2021-06-17T18:53:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/101 "2021-06-22T05:04:43Z")
Can you please stop calling it Global Warming? That term was outdated in the 90’s and is mostly used by deniers anymore. IMHO, we are at the tipping point. What we do now is critical because if things don’t change soon, it will be too late. I think that 10 years will be too late to make a difference. Happily for me, I don’t have a stake in the future. How about you? Got any kids to worry about? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/102 "2021-06-22T11:38:35Z")
> [@JaneDoe42](#): > > IMHO, we are at the tipping point. What we do now is critical because if things don’t change soon, it will be too late. I think that 10 years will be too late to make a difference. I think we’re already past that point. We’re going to see drastic changes in the future no matter what we do. Eventually things will swing back the other way, but far, far past our lifetimes. > [@JaneDoe42](#): > > Happily for me, I don’t have a stake in the future. How about you? Got any kids to worry about? Well, I’ve got the rest of my life to worry about. Maybe another half century if I’ve got some luck (whether that would be good or bad luck depends on your viewpoint and/or events). And while I don’t have kids of my own I do care about other people and their kids. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/103 "2021-06-22T12:32:10Z")
I thank you for that useful information. I think it all boils down to the fact that the sustainability of human civilization, barring some cosmic catastrophe, is in our own hands. We can solve our problems if we can unite unselfishly for the good of the planet, or we can destroy our civilization if we continue to make selfish decisions without regard to the dire consequences. Are we the final edition that will successfully survive and reach the stars, or are we yet another evolutionary dead-end like all the versions before us? Only time will tell. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/104 "2021-06-22T14:30:14Z")
I don’t know that I’d put it quite that apocalyptically. We may well shit the bed pretty thoroughly here, and reset civilization back to WAG year 0 CE. The subsequent climb to regain a technological society will be much harder in a geophysically crazier world. Doubly so in one where the folks of the 1700s-2000s have already strip-mined substantially all the nonrenewable and easy-to-access minerals and energy sources. If you (any you) define “evolutionary dead end” as existing on one planet / stellar system until the parent star’s evolution eventually kills it, then yes, humanity is almost certainly a dead end. But IMO: - That’s a very pessimistic definition. A species and society that persists in its home system for a billion years or more is no slouch at the evolutionary/survival game. Galaxies and universes have finite lifespans as well. If you populate an entire galaxy until it finally goes dark, are you really a dead-end? - Humanity, and perhaps almost every other technological species in every other system in the galaxy, were already a long shot just because interstellar travel is so hard, especially out here in the far suburban/rural areas of the galaxy. IOW, what we do or don’t do correctly in the next 200 years is probably not the make or break difference in humanity developing practical interstellar travel and hence an interstellar society or not. Heck, the real make or break on interstellar travel among all the life in the galaxy may be a lot more a function of lifespan than anything else. If humans routinely lived 1,000 years, building and flying ships to stars 10 LY distant would be practical at much lower max speeds = energy requirements, even before going fast enough to gain significant time dilation effects. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/105 "2021-06-22T14:48:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I don’t know that I’d put it quite that apocalyptically. You didn’t and, truth be told, I’m regarded as a pessimist by pretty much everyone I know. LOL ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/106 "2021-06-22T14:57:57Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I thank you for that useful information. I think it all boils down to the fact that the sustainability of human civilization, barring some cosmic catastrophe, is in our own hands. We can solve our problems if we can unite unselfishly for the good of the planet, or we can destroy our civilization if we continue to make selfish decisions without regard to the dire consequences. > > Are we the final edition that will successfully survive and reach the stars, or are we yet another evolutionary dead-end like all the versions before us? Only time will tell. Makes me think of Carl Sagan’s remarks after seeing the famous **[Pale Blue Dot image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot)** in 1990: > Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. > > The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. > > Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. **In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.** > > **The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.** > > It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/107 "2021-06-22T15:08:47Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > It’s good to live on a Great Lake. Not everyone has such a positive attitude about Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake! I commend you for your optimism! ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/108 "2021-06-22T15:16:05Z")
I hear they have enormous trout there. Port Radium is also said to be lovely at Xmas time. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/109 "2021-06-22T16:28:22Z")
This put a lump in my throat. So profound! ❤ ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/110 "2021-06-22T17:48:59Z")
Tourist slogan? “Go for the holidays. Stay for the isotopes.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/111 "2021-06-22T18:23:47Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I hear they have enormous trout there. Port Radium is also said to be lovely at Xmas time. When I lived in Las Vegas we had an in-joke about the Test Site Tortoises. The hatchlings were said to leave footprints about like a grown elephant. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/112 "2021-06-22T18:34:48Z")
[Great Bear Lake trout](https://static.fishingbooker.com/public/images/charters/13925/public/3e3092132fb7d52884174b73dbe0743b.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/113 "2021-06-22T18:48:23Z")
Oh Crap! Run away! Run away! [![](https://abergseyeview.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/turtlecrossing.jpg) ](https://abergseyeview.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/turtlecrossing.jpg) Seeking lunch more like. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/114 "2021-06-22T19:57:19Z")
[quote=“JaneDoe42, post:101, topic:944482”] IMHO, we are at the tipping point. What we do now is critical because if things don’t change soon, it will be too late. I think that 10 years will be too late to make a difference.[/quote] Yep. > [@JaneDoe42](#): > > Happily for me, I don’t have a stake in the future. How about you? Got any kids to worry about? Nope. Pessimism about the future of our future as a nation/species was part of our reason to remain childfree 52 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/115 "2021-06-22T20:34:40Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Makes me think of Carl Sagan’s remarks after seeing the famous **[Pale Blue Dot image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot)** in 1990: > > > Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. Somebody, help me with the chronology here: Which came first, the **Pale Blue Dot** photo, or the Total Perspective Vortex? Did the PBD inspire the TPV? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/116 "2021-08-17T05:06:01Z")
> **[First-ever water cuts declared for Colorado River in historic drought | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/us/lake-mead-colorado-river-water-shortage/index.html)** > > Additional cuts — each tier with worsening impact on agriculture and municipal water — are expected if Lake Mead continues to fall. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482/117 "2021-08-17T10:44:02Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Not an expert here, but isn’t this just kicking the can down the road? Certainly consolidating the depleted water into a single reservoir instead of two would improve Lake Mead’s levels, but it does nothing to address the impending shortage this signals. The advantage of sacrificing Glen Canyon Dam is that Lake Mead gets the water and maybe we can keep using Hoover Dam to generate electricity a bit longer. It doesn’t do squat to increase the total amount of water, just change (at least for awhile) how it can be used. On the other hand, I have zero notion about how difficult that might or might not be, whether or not it’s a good idea, or what else should or shouldn’t be done. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lake-mead-at-36-of-capacity/944482.md?page=5)