Reply #90: But those two things are not similar

[malakai2]

In one case, a conscious decision to live in an arid region is subsidized at the expense of another region. The resource flow is in one direction, to folks of the 'go ahead and stay near the Great Lakes and freeze to death in the dark' mindset. In the other case, water goes one way and food goes the other. Everybody gives up something to get something.

Not that arid land production is necessary or even desirable. Food crops were locally grown and seasonal less than a century ago, and as transportation becomes more expensive local production may become competitive again despite local climate issues. This still comes back around to the question of physical limitations. If water becomes truly limiting in western states, I'd expect increasingly severe restrictions on waste (green lawns, golf courses, fountains, swimming pools, etc.), a redrafting of water rights laws to favor human consumption over agriculture, real brakes on development and population growth, and a contraction of local agricultural production to what is necessary for regional consumption, maybe with a recalculation of average discharge rates using a larger data set. That we aren't to that point yet suggests to me that this is being driven by people who want both the temperatures and lack of cloudy, rainy days the desert provides, while not sacrificing the water a more temperate, northeastern climate provides, and that's just greedy.