• NateNate60@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Also, not mentioned is the fact that celebrities in Los Angeles were using thousands of cubic metres of water to keep their massive gardens green, decorative fountains flowing, and their swimming pools full during a drought, while ordinary people were only allowed to water their lawns three times a week.

    Water usage should be price exponentially so that each cubic metre costs double what the previous one did.

    • Wolf@lemmy.today
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      4 days ago

      People should not have lawns of grass in areas where they have to water them to keep them green. Especially if there is a water shortage. Use Rocks, Use native plants, Get creative.

      Grass is the most basic ass way to keep your lawn. If you are playing a sport on it, fine- but if not it’s boring af anyway.

    • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 days ago

      while ordinary people were only allowed to water their lawns three times a week.

      that’s already too much imo. watering a lawn is a total waste of water, wether it’s being done by millionaires or not.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      Why shouldnt it be split per person? They can turn their fountains off if they want to save their portion for poop, dishes, and laundry like the rest of us. Or they can pay someone else to do it and run their stupid fucking fountain for 10 minutes a day.

      • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power uses lot sizes for this purpose, which is not without merit since it is easy to calculate, roughly correlates with the number of people living on that lot, and is hard to cheat, but I don’t think it’s actually a very good system. What I think would be better is to check with the Department of Motor Vehicles to see how many identification cards are registered at that address, then allow the rates double every N cubic metres, where N is the number of identification cards registered at that address.

        • Rooster326@programming.dev
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          4 days ago

          How to be a rich person 101:

          Subdivide your “lot” such that your 1400 sqft bathroom is one “lot” and the bedroom is another lot. Your garden fountain? You guessed it. Another lot…

          • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            That’s a lot more work than you think. You would need a new water meter and water connection installed on each lot and you would also need to file a bunch of legal paper work to do the subdivision, as well as wrangling with the Postal Service to get mailboxes installed for each lot, and so on…

            On top of that, you’re risking being found out and pictures of your mansion posted on the front page of Variety being accused of cheating the water rates, which is very bad for someone whose career probably depends on their public perception. Don’t make yourself into the next Amber Heard. On top of that, public outcry means the Council might even intervene to put a stop to your plan by amending the Water Rates Ordinance to penalise you for your obvious attempt to abuse the system.

      • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I think weekly, and the number of cubic metres you get at each price point should depend on the number of identification cards registered at your address.

        If we use a model rate of $3 per cubic metre as a baseline, and you, your spouse, and two children all consume the average amount of water per day (225 L), the household would consume 6.3 m³ of water per week. You would be billed $3 per m³ for the first 4 m³. Then you would be billed $6 per m² for the next 2.3 m³. This totals $25.80 for the week.

        If we consider a two-person household, just you and your spouse, water usage would be 3.15 m³ for the week and you would be billed $3 per m³ for the first 2 m³ and $6 per m³ for the last 1.15 m³. That totals $12.90 per week.

        Under the current system, you would be billed $4.287 per m³ which comes out to $27.00 for the 4-person household and $13.50 for the two-person household per week, so my system results in roughly the same water bill for average consumers.

        On the other hand, if you’re a Hollywood actor living in a mansion with your spouse and each using 5 times the average water usage in order to water a huge garden and run a water fountain, your water usage would be 15.75 m³ per week, for which you would be billed $1,434 for that week.

        If you use another 12 m³ to top up your swimming pool because the Kardashians or some other trashy celebrities are coming over for a party hosted at your mansion, your water bill for using 27.75 m³ that week would shoot up to $92,147.

        In comparison, even if you are being penalised by the Department of Water and Power for excessive usage today, you’re still only charged a maximum of $5.414 per m³, so that actor would be charged only $85.27 at most for the normal week and $150.24 for the pool week.

      • Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it
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        5 days ago

        Ideally every 12 hours since we consume a lot of water, thought this is NOT the way, it’s stupid since it harm poor peoe, just tax more the rich and the big companies

        • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          How about we seize all their assets and nationalize the companies so that the wealth is owned collectively and benefits everyone instead?

        • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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          4 days ago

          A cubic meter is a thousand liters, Which seems to be a lot of water to use in a 12 hour period, statistics I found point at an average water consumption of 100 to 130 liters per day, so a regular consumer would never even get close to the point where it doubles, and therefore would be unaffected. So why do you think this would hurt poor people?

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    This is fully going to be our future. Big programs to “conserve consumer water usage” by limiting residential water pressure and jacking up residential water prices ahem “Via The Free Market”, while we dump entire aquifers through some toxic treadmill of Meta coolant machines.

    The struggle sessions between people “abusing their water privileges” and the ultra-orthodox “I only use a tablespoon of water a day” terminally online consumer-conservationists (or, at least, their AI-enhanced personas) will be legendary. Enormous threads of people screaming “You’re Killing The Planet!” because they posted a picture of boiled potatoes or steamed rice, enhanced and distorted and virally marketed by the Manhattan-Island sized propaganda machines of the future.

  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    Why aren’t these tech bros using coolant cycling in a closed system? Imagine if we cooled cars like this?

    • toddestan@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Because evaporative cooling is incredibly effective and works really well if you have a large supply of water.

      Needing to carry a large supply of water is why we don’t use it in cars.

  • Wolf@lemmy.today
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    4 days ago

    “If you’re thirsty, they’re thirsty.”

    Doesn’t this mean that if I’m not thirsty, they’re not thirsty? So I should drink enough water to make sure I’m not thirsty.