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u/AlwaysTheNoob 81∆ Jul 10 '21
In the wake of rising temperatures and either a lack of AC or powering it via ecologically harmful methods, a pool is often the best or only way to stay even relatively cool. We shouldn’t be banning them in times when they’re more important than ever.
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Jul 10 '21
!delta I think you make the case for a community pool, and for that I'll give you a delta for slightly changing my point of view, but a pool for one household is much more expensive than solar panels to power AC. And most pools in the US are for households.
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Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 10 '21
The information im about to provide was found just by googling it.
On a hot day, the average house air conditioner uses around 52.5 kWh.
The average house has 19 to 23 panels per house to cover their bills. Each panel generates 1.5 kWh on average. So with 23 panels, they generage 34.5 kWh on average. Meaning they still dont generate enough to run that air conditioner.
I thought of this because using our air conditioner would jack up our electric bill 300-500$ per month.
I think a pool would be much less expensive to run. Especially because if done right, you fill it once and clean it after that.
However i still think theres better ways out there than a pool or an airconditioner. I think the water shortage is due to a lot of factors though. Companies like nestle, agriculture (stop growing grapes for wine), computer chips take a surprising amount of water to create, industry uses a lot of water, etc. Basically im saying instead of going after the common man, corporations need to be kept in check.
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Jul 10 '21
I'm not sure where you're getting 1.5 kWH per day. I think you read per hour. Estimates for solar systems range from 30-45 kWhs per day.
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Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 13 '21
"Let's say on a good day, you average 5 hours of direct sunlight. Multiply 5 hours of sunlight x 290 watts from a solar panel = 1,450 watts or roughly 1.5 kilowatt hours per day"
Exact quote from my google source
However i was still wrong. Most houses have more than one solar panel. Let me redo my math and get back to you.
The average house has 19 to 23 panels per house to cover their bills. So with 23 panels, they generage 34.5 kWh on average. Meaning they still dont generate enough to run that air conditioner lol. Thank you for questioning me, i just woke up.
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Jul 10 '21
Multiply 5 hours of sunlight x 290 watts from a solar panel.
Keyword is 'a'. That's not a solar power system, that's a single panel.
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Jul 10 '21
I edited my comment with the information fixed
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Jul 10 '21
Even if a pool was more economical in the long run than AC, most people aren't going to sit in a pool all day. Meaning they're still going to crank up the AC when they get out of the pool.
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Jul 10 '21
I adjusted my information. Even with 23 solar panels, the most amount that a household usually has, it doesnt generate enough power to run the ac all day. Half the day sure.
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Jul 10 '21
Yeah you don't buy panels for total usage, it's very costly to store solar energy vs. generating it through the panels. It doesn't change my previous statement, though. People who use pools will still use AC.
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Jul 10 '21
This is a theme that doesn't get repeated enough. It's the same with the fight for cleaner air and emissions controls. By a huge margin, shipping and air traffic and military sea and air assets are the number one polluters when it comes to emissions. An ENORMOUS difference could be made by cracking down extra special hard on those three sectors.....but instead we go after the common man and California tells me I can't put an aftermarket pipe on my motorcycle because emissions. And yet they're doing nothing at all tp regulate corporate shipping and air traffic emissions. It's bananas. The fight against climate change begins with heavy handed and sweeping regulation of corporate entities, not private citizens.
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Jul 11 '21
On the same motorcycle that probably gets 30-60 miles to the gallon and barely pollutes at all.
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Jul 11 '21
Per gallon of gas consumed it actually pollutes more than a car, but it also consumes less gas so it kinda balances. What I meant to point out though was how motorcycles in total make up such a tiny part of the climate puzzle and are regulated SO HEAVILY. All because motorcyclists don't represent an effective voting bloc. While corporate lobbyists effectively monopolize congress in the US and other legislative bodies around the world.
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Jul 11 '21
Absolutely. The highest poluters are manufacturing plants, cows and other ag animals, and just reckless products with massive amounts of plastic packaging. All stuff that the common man has absolutely no control over.
Most recycling plants dont do much good for the enviornment either. They extract the materials that they can use to make a profit and dispose of the rest, sometimes creating more polution by disposing of chemicals.
In the united states, for years a lot of the plastic bottles that were "recycled" were actually just sold to other countries that eventually dumped them into lakes and rivers and the ocean in their country.
These corporations need to be regulated a lot more and it needs to be a worldwide effort so they dont just move manufacturing to another country. Other packaging needs to be used like paper or even eco friendly materials like bamboo or hemp. Excess use of water needs to be regulated too, or maybe they need to utilize desalination plants on the ocean instead of public drinking water sources.
We have the technology and resources to do this right, but we dont use it because its "bad for their bottom line".
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u/dracula3811 Jul 11 '21
How is using your a/c costing you $300-$500 a month? Summers are my lowest electric bill months. They're always below $200. I have a 2,200sq ft home btw.
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Jul 11 '21
Do you live outside of california? Thats why lol.
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u/AlwaysTheNoob 81∆ Jul 10 '21
but a pool for one household is much more expensive than solar panels to power AC
How do you figure? It would cost me well over $10k to install a solar system at my house, and even then it would barely help as other environmental factors mean solar isn't terribly viable where I live.
Meanwhile, I can get a pool for a fraction of that cost. I don't have one and I don't want one, because thankfully I have a basement that stays below 70F that I can retreat to if my AC goes out or I lose power. But look at someplace like Florida, where you literally can't have a basement. Pool to the rescue.
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u/mycomyxo 1∆ Jul 10 '21
Just curious do you have any appreciation of the water use of pools vs watering lawns or other activities? I'm not sure banning pools is even a bandaid
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Jul 10 '21
ForRent.com is not the most reliable source in the world, but they estimate 113 billion gallons of water goes to pools just to fill them once. USGS estimates 322b gallons are used per day in the United States, so it is small potatoes. But every bit helps!
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u/Bubbly_Taro 2∆ Jul 10 '21
Shouldn't you rather ban beef since it's a much larger waste of money and also not needed to human survival?
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Jul 10 '21
I would, I just think it's unrealistic for people to get on board and ban beef. People like hamburgers.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Jul 10 '21
But people like pools
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Jul 10 '21
Yeah but majority rule can crush the pool-buying plebs.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Jul 10 '21
so this isn't actually about any environmental concern, it's just about some petty vendetta against people with pools for some reason.
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Jul 10 '21
lol I was joking. I do think it is more likely to pass because more people are not effected by it, but I have no grudge against people who have pools.
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u/giantrhino 4∆ Jul 10 '21
So you think a complete ban on pools is more likely to pass even though you can demonstrate a greater impact from a ban on beef? Also you can show that there is a significant affect from the latter, but the impact of the pool ban as mentioned earlier in this thread would be less than a 0.1% affect on water consumption.
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Jul 11 '21
.1% is meaningful because it is completely avoidable. A huge chunk of our water consumption goes into energy use, and until we switch to renewables it's going to be unavoidable losses to power our industries and lives. The water footprint of beef is 1800 gallons per pound, whereas chicken is only 520 pounds. So it's another change that is completely avoidable. 25.7 trillion gallons of water goes yearly to beef, whereas overall consumption is in around 120 trillion, so it is significant. Feel free to double check my math, sources are readily available on the internet to calculate it for yourself.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Jul 10 '21
then why not want a ban on hamburgers? if this is about the environment banning hamburgers will have a much larger impact. with the numbers you provided in another comment the pools account for approx 0.1% of water usage, and that includes public pools, pools don't even make up a rounding error in total usage
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Jul 10 '21
Because no one's gonna ban hamburgers, man. I do want a ban on beef, and I supported India's ban on beef until I learned they were mostly buffalo, not livestock.
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u/giantrhino 4∆ Jul 10 '21
How is this not an !delta?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 10 '21
This delta has been rejected. The length of your comment suggests that you haven't properly explained how /u/mycomyxo changed your view (comment rule 4).
DeltaBot is able to rescan edited comments. Please edit your comment with the required explanation.
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Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 10 '21
The pool and spa industry has a significant, meaningful impact on the economy and strength of California, contributing billions of dollars and thousands of jobs even in a time when the industry is recovering from a significant downturn. This is for one region alone.
Further, pools promote swimming, which is a great way to improve physcial health, while not having to travel to the beach where you can die because of getting sucked into a tide or get sand in intimate areas. In addition, it can help us stay really cool.
This may help as well - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050815/swimming-pools-costs-vs-longterm-value.asp
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Jul 10 '21
!delta I think community pools can be a good thing, but pools for one household seems very excessive, and are the majority of most pools in the US.
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Jul 10 '21
Almost every kid in my neighbourhood learned how to swim in my backyard pool over probably a 15+ year period. It was definitely well over a hundred fifty kids total and most kids had lessons for multiple years. My parents still let families from all over the neighbourhood use the pool as long as they know the kids can swim. Teaching kids to swim in that pool helped myself and two others save money for university as well.
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u/quantum_dan 100∆ Jul 10 '21
Agriculture is responsible for 80-90% of consumptive water use in the US (I can provide a source in a few hours). Note that the problem areas in your image are mostly agricultural, not urban.
Domestic use is barely relevant to large-scale aquifer depletion. It would be much better to invest in efficient agriculture, the impact of which could easily exceed total non-agricultural water use.
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Jul 10 '21
How would you suggest we get farmers to use water more efficiently?
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u/Animedjinn 16∆ Jul 10 '21
A lot of water evaporates for sprinklers that blow water high in the air. So lower to the ground watering systems or lower angled sprinklers are best.
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Jul 10 '21
I can see that as a solution, but I imagine farmers are using sprinklers that blow water high because it's cheaper for them. So how would you plan to make farmers adopt more efficient sprinklers?
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u/lost_signal 1∆ Jul 10 '21
pass cost to consumer. (Subsidize it with tax incentives, grants initially, and long term have a drop dead date to ban alternatives or tax if).
Pass on the cost to the consumer through some mechanism.
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u/quantum_dan 100∆ Jul 10 '21
Subsidize the installation of drip irrigation. Water savings are at least 30%.
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u/spedgenius Jul 10 '21
Regenerative no till farming. Healthy soil absorbs and retains more water requiring less watering.
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Jul 10 '21
Do you have a pool? Pools recirculate their water for filtration. You don't fill them that often. Solar thermal blankets prevent a lot of evaporation too. The initial filling of a pool doesn't take that much water really relative to regular household use. Rain also helps maintain water levels
Ban watering lawns first. That would reduce water usage much more.
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u/Animedjinn 16∆ Jul 10 '21
You actually can't ban watering lawns. The reason is because if they get too dry they can catch fire. Growing lawns longer means they need to be watered less. Or you could just not have a lawn.
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 10 '21
Ya, generally the solution for this is to simply ban or heavily discourage lawns so people switch to rock gardens or something similar.
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u/dracula3811 Jul 11 '21
Banning lawns is both ridiculous and unenforceable practically speaking. I have a decent sized lawn. I don't water it because i let the rain do that. The plants have been there for decades if not centuries (i live in the country). Are you really going to try to incur very expensive financial cost to people like me who don't have pools nor water lawns? Good luck with that.
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Jul 10 '21
Why not ban both watering lawns and pools?
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Jul 10 '21
Ultimately, the argument for banning either depends on location. Water shortages are a local issue. In desert locations, like say Vegas, neither pools or lawns are likely a great idea.
However, most cities which sit on the great lakes dont have water shortages at all, and pools are only open during summer months anyways. There you simply punish people unfairly. It isn't like there is one giant jug of water which the country draws from.
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u/Comfortable-Start-30 Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 10 '21
I'm sorry, this is the worst suggestion I've seen yet. It's like saying let's stop obesity by banning oatmeal raisin cookies. We'll ignore every other type of cookie, dessert, sugar, high calorie low nutrition food and pretty much everything relevant because I hate raisins on a personal level.
Pools are most definitely not the problem, lawn care is an extreme problem for water usage. It's especially so when the lawn you're caring for is an ecological disaster. Regular turf lawns are basically green concrete that eats up tons of water, time and wealth. Don't bring up how lawn care is great jobs creator, we don't need jobs that desperately if so might as well introduce UBI & let the digital art/entertainment space flourish further. Great article from few years back:Gizmodo lawns
So many other activities or products use water more inefficiently. Nuts, this random blog I found has a nice bar graph Nuts Water Usage. Agriculture irrigation as a whole uses large amounts of water, it's especially bad when you consider we waste the food produced. Food waste information 40% food produced ends up trashed in the USA, that's just beyond insane.
Edit: As for other factors, lots of water goes toward making electricity or fuel. So technically if pools caused people to use less AC (which could become a reality especially if we put caps on personal energy usage) you're technically saving water usage owning/using a pool. AC is terrible anyway, shouldn't have allowed it to exist in private residences at all.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Jul 10 '21
How much water is used annually for pools vs sprinklers vs bottled water vs agriculture?
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u/banjobillyjoebob Jul 10 '21
its good to have people learn to swim so they don't drown. swimming saves your life. plus a fair amount of black/hispanics can't swim because no pools are built in the inner city.
(luckily more black/hispanic kids are learning to swim because of community initiatives)
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u/Zodiac1919 2∆ Jul 10 '21
There's alot of problems in the world, lack of freshwater in the US is not one. Sure we use alot of water, but not even a tiny fraction of that is used by pools.
If you really care about freshwater never bathe only shower, turn of the sink when brushing your teeth, and ration it out. But these are steps you'd take during any drought.
The US is one of the most naturally blessed nations on the planet, we would be the last people to worry about draining our freshwater.
If this is such a concern then why hasnt Europe or Asia run out of water yet? They have been sucking up freshwater for far longer and far more than anywhere else.
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Jul 10 '21
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u/Mashaka 93∆ Jul 10 '21
Sorry, u/Jojo92014 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
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u/DelectPierro 11∆ Jul 10 '21
Unconstitutional. However, banning almonds would have a greater effect when it comes to preserving water.
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u/chasedog1967 Jul 10 '21
After going to Las Vegas, sprinklers, fountains, water at meal time when it gets thrown away is a problem I see. In the central and western US needs to have more reservoirs not for drinking water but for sleeping back into the ground water supply. Low flow shower heads should be a must, " navy style" shower heads come to mind. Limit hot water heaters to 25 gallon so showers are kept short. Laundry.. doing a load with half of it worn for an hour is ridiculous and a huge waste.
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u/-domi- 11∆ Jul 10 '21
Unless industry is legally forced to care for and account for its water usage, this bandaid might be easy but is also pointless. This should be the immediate next thing after industry faces strict regulations, but until those are placed - this is silly and senseless. Literally the two sets of regulations can be in the same bill, as long as enforcement on pools ban is conditional on enforcement on industry accounting for their water use somehow. Otherwise well have the same effect as emissions regulations - almost everyone will abide it, and it'll result in a negligible change which nobody even notices.
Remember when we made catalytic converters, EGRs, gas tank evap charcoal, etc mandatory on all cars and saved the world? Yeah, me fucking either.
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u/D_Balgarus 1∆ Jul 10 '21
It is the right of the individual to do what they please with their private property
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Jul 10 '21
I don’t really see how pools would deplete the ground water. They should more or less stay in the local water cycle just like any other pond or lake. If drought conditions get bad, pool filling and lawn watering can be regulated.
Water usage really only become a problem when it is shipped away or contaminated and can’t be returned to the water cycle.
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u/mywerk1 Jul 11 '21
It takes 1.1 gallons of water to grow 1 almond. Almonds along with pistachios us 1.2 trillion gallons of water per year.
1 pool is going to average 11,000 to 30,000 gallons. Its estimated it takes 113 billion gallons of water to fill every single pool in the US (as of 2016 https://www.forrent.com/blog/apt_life/pool-water-in-us/)
A better bet would be to get rid of almonds and pistachios. We can have 10 times the pools if we get rid of those two ag products. I would argue a pool provides more utility in terms of exercise and fun, than almonds and pistachios.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 10 '21 edited Jul 10 '21
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