Why don't we use awnings anymore (2022)

The American Southwest, especially the Sonoran Desert, was once a refuge for those who suffered respiratory ailments. Doctors would "prescribe" a change of scenery for allergies, asthma, tuberculosis, COPD, etc. People moved here because there was so little pollen in cleaner air, due to sparse population, as well as the lack of grass and other conventional foliage.

However we also have a little feature we lovingly call "Valley Fever" which is a fungus, spread mostly by dust storms. As more Midwestern folks immigrated here, and the Snowbirds set up shop, they all wanted traditional lawns, trees, and golf courses, just like "back home". So by the 1980s-1990s, Phoenix was barely differentiated from Chicago or Kansas in terms of front yards.

Now, those gardens definitely kept things cool in a local area. They needed things like flood-irrigation, so deep water often covers lawns. Deciduous or even evergreen trees can afford a lot of shade where you really, really need it. Unfortunately, monsoon microbursts often topple those kinds of trees, which have shallow roots in impoverished, sandy soils.

Ironically, due to lack of water, and Greta Thunberg, we're reverting to desert landscapes (called xeriscape) and so the new urban domestic hotness here is to install little "drip irrigation" tubes, palo verde, cactus, succulents, yucca, etc. Needless to say, they don't provide enough shade, and the humidity stays quite low.

Phoenicians today are clamoring for more artificial shelter and shade. Bus stops here are works of art with elaborate means of warding off the daytime heat. The city centers are still "heat islands" with murderous temperature increases during summertime ("summertime" in Phoenix lasts from March through October...)

The problem isn't activists, it's the climate. The Colorado River system has been in a drought for 20 years, and for all we know it'll be in a drought for 100 more. (It's not clear to me this is anthropogenic, my impression is that it's a natural cycle of drought exacerbated by global climate change, but it's beside the point.)

Read up on the Colorado River Compact. Where the Water Goes by David Owens is a very accessible primer. The tl;dr is that the water was portioned out to the Western states (including Arizona) during an unusually wet period, and we're now in a period of drought. They simply didn't understand this in 1922. With the advent of dendrochronology, we now understand that this river system is prone to droughts that can last hundreds of years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_me...

> They simply didn't understand this in 1922

The scientists (various disciplines did). They were explicitly ignored by the compact negotiators. John Fleck has written about this quite a bit at https://www.inkstain.net/fleck/

Apologies, I oversimplified while trying to summarize, what I meant was that they didn't understand that it was an unusually wet period and that the Colorado was subject to megadroughts. It's my understanding that they also oversubscribed the river even given those inflated numbers, redoubling the problem.

I haven't read Science be Damned, I'll add it to my TBR, but I'm guessing that's what it's about?

They absolutely did understand that it had been an unusually wet period. They may not have understand the picture we now have of historical megadroughts. The scientists apparently urged the compact negotiators to not use the numbers they did, and were ignored.

I haven't read any of Fleck's books, but I read his blog regularly. He's commented quite often on the way the science gets ignored in favor of political/social and sometimes business goals.