[tablarasa]

This is about water use, as opposed to land use. Land use matters, but let's try to stay focused for a second, esp. b/c some of the livestock are not local to the feed grows.

The Colorado River has barely touched the Gulf of California for years. There is inherent value as well as economic value in the ecosystem services that result from allowing natural systems to thrive... or even just function at all.

Here is a nice summary of the state and characters in Colorado River ecology: https://www.coloradocollege.edu/dotAsset/cbb78858-d078-4a7c-...

I hope we are not so cynical as to suggest that the over-extraction of the river and the destruction of the reliant ecosystems is an acceptable consequence of human success.

Even if you like hamburgers, is it worth the cost to continue to over-extract for their production from locations that cannot support it just because people have been doing it for a while and have a strong sense of private property rights? Why shouldn't we tell these farmers to pay up for the water or go somewhere to produce that food where it is more abundant?