Why would we practice conservation when we can spend $30-50B in capex amortized over 50 years via marginally higher taxes on the populace with minimal opex to solve the problem permanently?
Thats why they are economically illiterate. The obvious and more cost effective choice will win in the end, and it doesn’t involve austerity and suffering and repentance for high water use
Because it wouldn't solve the problem permanently.
The folks who wrote the Colorado River Compact thought they were solving the problem of dividing the river's water permanently, too. They made it worse.
I don't disagree that economics are a critical part of this conversation. But I don't understand how you're making the argument that enabling more water use, not less, is cost effective.
Even amortized across 50 years, $30B is more than the $0B required if we just use less water.
None of this even comes anywhere near discussing the potential deleterious ecological (and economic!) impacts of draining water-rich ecosystems by piping their water elsewhere. Look to the phase-out of leaded gasoline as a great example of how externalities matter.
Generally speaking, substantial alterations to hydrological regimes can cause deleterious cascading ecological effects. Just look toward the literature on the hydrological (and consequential ecological) effects of dams (necessary to divert water) for examples.
One of particular interest is dams' tendency to reduce the frequency and severity of flooding events, which are characteristically necessary for much of the functioning of floodplain ecosystems such as those you're describing.
Such reductions can wreak havoc on biodiversity in these regions.
I only meant that the region which has an abundance of water which largely goes to waste can sell their excess via pipelines to the lower 48 wherever there is a dire need.
Thats why they are economically illiterate. The obvious and more cost effective choice will win in the end, and it doesn’t involve austerity and suffering and repentance for high water use