Plight of Phoenix: how long can the worlds 'least sustainable' city survive?

[NNadir]

2. Phoenix is far from the sea, and desalination is energy intensive.

So is pumping water over mountains for hundreds of kilometers.

The closest outlet to the sea to Phoenix is in Mexico, in the Gulf of California, and I don't think pumping water under Trump's wall is going to be too popular in Mexico, and in any case, changing the Salinity of the Gulf of California, which has already been impacted by the fact that not a drop of water from the Colorado has flowed into it for decades, is going to be too popular with the Mexican people.

In any case, given that the fastest growing sources of energy on this planet are all fossil fuels, desalination is quite nearly literally pouring gasoline on the fire.