Have they heard about climate change?

It's day 2 in my 40 day blogathon and I found myself contemplating earlier today whilst I went about my daily trawl of the job pages (unemployment sucks!) what should I blog about today? Luckily a post lunch jaunt onto facebook sorted that out.

I've recently been on holiday to fabulous Las Vegas and such is my inability to be smug about where I'd been sunning myself the last few weeks I'd posted up a selection ( 600+ is a little much to handle, no?) of pics from my trip. One of my nearest and dearest had spotted this particular photo below and decided to leave me a little note. How lovely you say and yes it was. Their comment read:

"have they heard about climate change?" my response was of course witty but it got me thinking.

I've seen numerous news reports about the 8 year drought that Vegas has been suffering (although quite how you're meant to have a drought in a desert I'm not sure). I went on trips over and to the Hoover Dam and saw the chalk lines that marked where the water should be. A quick Google search tells me the water line is apparently 102ft (31m) lower than it should be. Rather amusing was the comment made by  Patricia Mulroy who is the General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. She said that "[Las Vegas] is realising... that they need to adapt to the desert" Common sense says that if you build your house on a great big sandy barren piece of land then the chances of you being able to grown pine trees and lots of lovely greenery on it and tap it for it's water supplies are slim love!

Homes and businesses all over Vegas are being made to dig up their grass and put down astro turf or make 'desert gardens' (a jazzed up way of saying turn it into a nature garden by letting the local weeds populate it), builders have stopped putting swimming pools into new properties and only the big hotels have been able to keep their fountains. Fountains which to Vegas' usual standard are breathtakingly huge. I bet you could get a fare few baths and showers out of the amount of water the Bellagio's fountains use.

As if Nevada's population didn't feel harassed enough into ensuring their water usage is kept to a respectable level they now have water police patrolling the street investigating every dribble, drip and puddle which looks suspicious. If I was a water policewoman I'd be speaking to those people who own stores that blow out water mist at you. Utterly pointless. The wind is never blowing in the right direction and they never cool you down (not to mention I'm too short for them to reach me).

Whilst they're all having a flap about how much water they're using haven't they stopped to take any consideration of the other resources that they're wasting? Everyone grumbles about the price of fuel (if the Americans think they have it bad they should take a trip to the U.K. to compare prices) but how much are we doing to conserve fuel. I bet 99% of people who have cars use them to make silly errands down the road for a loaf a bread when they could quite easily walk. And as my nearest and dearest pointed upon gazing at the photo of the gigantic video billboard that adorned the entrance to my hotel what about the huge amount of electricity we consume without thinking (you're using it right now to read this post). Will the electricity police be next? Following us around making sure we turn appliances off and don't leave lights on? If that's the case then I'd like to nominate my father to be chief inspector. He's remarkably good at turning lights off unfortunately he usually does it while people are still in the room and need their use!

Whilst Vegas is an amazing site to behold and experience it does serve as one huge example of how  the opulence of something could bring its downfall. If Nevada doesn't recover from its drought then Vegas will fast become a ghost town.