Uncle Sam's Cultural Dissonance 1 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Mar 10 2014

Location: 

Corvallis OR

Uncle Sam's Cultural Dissonance looks at the issues facing The United States, including Canada and Mexico. In countries like the United States, where some states are dotted with countless lakes and many people live within easy reach of an ocean, it may be easy to assume that drinking and recreational waters are limitless. This is absurd. This series focuses in on excessive overuse in by agricultural, residential, and industrial sectors.

Las Vegas has a special role in the series considering the recent droughts in the American West. The city of Las Vegas, Nevada, has grown from a small desert town to a city of over one million people in only about 60 years, and the population continues to skyrocket. As well, millions of people flock to the city every year for recreation. Water use in Las Vegas has increased to the point where nearby surface and underground sources of water strain to keep up with the demand. The amount of groundwater (freshwater in rock and soil layers beneath the surface) that has been removed has caused some areas of the land near Las Vegas to sink more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) in the past 100 years.

The series uses humor and sarcasm to confront a very terrifying issues, running out of water. Please feel free to share your thoughts, pro or con.

Posted by Justin Quinn on