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Guest Post: 30 Facts On The Coming Water Crisis That Will Change Everything
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
The world is rapidly running out of clean water. Some of the largest lakes and rivers on the globe are being depleted at a very frightening pace, and many of the most important underground aquifers that we depend on to irrigate our crops will soon be gone. At this point, approximately 40 percent of the entire population of the planet has little or no access to clean water, and it is being projected that by 2025 two-thirds of humanity will live in "water-stressed" areas. But most Americans are not too concerned about all of this because they assume that North America has more fresh water than anyone else does. And actually they would be right about that, but the truth is that even North America is rapidly running out of water and it is going to change all of our lives. Today, the most important underground water source in America, the Ogallala Aquifer, is rapidly running dry. The most important lake in the western United States, Lake Mead, is rapidly running dry. The most important river in the western United States, the Colorado River, is rapidly running dry. Putting our heads in the sand and pretending that we are not on the verge of an absolutely horrific water crisis is not going to make it go away. Without water, you cannot grow crops, you cannot raise livestock and you cannot support modern cities. As this global water crisis gets worse, it is going to affect every single man, woman and child on the planet. I encourage you to keep reading and learn more.
The U.S. intelligence community understands what is happening. According to one shocking government report that was released last year, the global need for water will exceed the global supply of water by 40 percent by the year 2030...
This sobering message emerges from the first U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water Security. The document predicts that by 2030 humanity's "annual global water requirements" will exceed "current sustainable water supplies" by forty percent.
Oh, but our scientists will find a solution to our problems long before then, won't they?
But what if they don't?
Most Americans tend to think of a "water crisis" as something that happens in very dry places such as Africa or the Middle East, but the truth is that almost the entire western half of the United States is historically a very dry place. The western U.S. has been hit very hard by drought in recent years, and many communities are on the verge of having to make some very hard decisions. For example, just look at what is happening to Lake Mead. Scientists are projecting that Lake Mead has a 50 percent chance of running dry by the year 2025. If that happens, it will mean the end of Las Vegas as we know it. But the problems will not be limited just to Las Vegas. The truth is that if Lake Mead runs dry, it will be a major disaster for that entire region of the country. This was explained in a recent article by Alex Daley...
Way before people run out of drinking water, something else happens: When Lake Mead falls below 1,050 feet, the Hoover Dam's turbines shut down – less than four years from now, if the current trend holds – and in Vegas the lights start going out.
Ominously, these water woes are not confined to Las Vegas. Under contracts signed by President Obama in December 2011, Nevada gets only 23.37% of the electricity generated by the Hoover Dam. The other top recipients: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (28.53%); state of Arizona (18.95%); city of Los Angeles (15.42%); and Southern California Edison (5.54%).
You can always build more power plants, but you can't build more rivers, and the mighty Colorado carries the lifeblood of the Southwest. It services the water needs of an area the size of France, in which live 40 million people. In its natural state, the river poured 15.7 million acre-feet of water into the Gulf of California each year. Today, twelve years of drought have reduced the flow to about 12 million acre-feet, and human demand siphons off every bit of it; at its mouth, the riverbed is nothing but dust.
Nor is the decline in the water supply important only to the citizens of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. It's critical to the whole country. The Colorado is the sole source of water for southeastern California's Imperial Valley, which has been made into one of the most productive agricultural areas in the US despite receiving an average of three inches of rain per year.
Are you starting to get an idea of just how serious this all is?
But it is not just our lakes and our rivers that are going dry.
We are also depleting our groundwater at a very frightening pace as a recent Science Daily article discussed...
Three results of the new study are particularly striking: First, during the most recent drought in California's Central Valley, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south depleted enough groundwater to fill the nation's largest human-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas -- a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates.
Second, a third of the groundwater depletion in the High Plains occurs in just 4% of the land area. And third, the researchers project that if current trends continue some parts of the southern High Plains that currently support irrigated agriculture, mostly in the Texas Panhandle and western Kansas, will be unable to do so within a few decades.
In the United States we have massive underground aquifers that have allowed our nation to be the breadbasket of the world. But once the water from those aquifers is gone, it is gone for good. That is why what is happening to the Ogallala Aquifer is so alarming. The Ogallala Aquifer is one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world, and U.S. farmers use water from it to irrigate more than 15 million acres of crops each year. The Ogallala Aquifer covers more than 100,000 square miles and it sits underneath the states of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. Most Americans have never even heard of it, but it is absolutely crucial to our way of life. Sadly, it is being drained at a rate that is almost unimaginable.
The following are some facts about the Ogallala Aquifer and the growing water crisis that we are facing in the United States. A number of these facts were taken from one of my previous articles. I think that you will agree that many of these facts are quite alarming...
1. The Ogallala Aquifer is being drained at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute.
2. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, "a volume equivalent to two-thirds of the water in Lake Erie" has been permanently drained from the Ogallala Aquifer since 1940.
3. Decades ago, the Ogallala Aquifer had an average depth of approximately 240 feet, but today the average depth is just 80 feet. In some areas of Texas, the water is gone completely.
4. Scientists are warning that nothing can be done to stop the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. The ominous words of David Brauer of the Ogallala Research Service should alarm us all...
"Our goal now is to engineer a soft landing. That's all we can do."
5. According to a recent National Geographic article, the average depletion rate of the Ogallala Aquifer is picking up speed....
Even more worrisome, the draining of the High Plains water account has picked up speed. The average annual depletion rate between 2000 and 2007 was more than twice that during the previous fifty years. The depletion is most severe in the southern portion of the aquifer, especially in Texas, where the water table beneath sizeable areas has dropped 100-150 feet; in smaller pockets, it has dropped more than 150 feet.
6. According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. interior west is now the driest that it has been in 500 years.
7. Wildfires have burned millions of acres of vegetation in the central part of the United States in recent years. For example, wildfires burned an astounding 3.6 million acres in the state of Texas alone during 2011. This helps set the stage for huge dust storms in the future.
8. Unfortunately, scientists tell us that it would be normal for extremely dry conditions to persist in parts of western North America for decades. The following is from an article in the Vancouver Sun...
But University of Regina paleoclimatologist Jeannine-Marie St. Jacques says that decade-long drought is nowhere near as bad as it can get.
St. Jacques and her colleagues have been studying tree ring data and, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Vancouver over the weekend, she explained the reality of droughts.
"What we're seeing in the climate records is these megadroughts, and they don't last a decade—they last 20 years, 30 years, maybe 60 years, and they'll be semi-continental in expanse," she told the Regina Leader-Post by phone from Vancouver.
"So it's like what we saw in the Dirty Thirties, but imagine the Dirty Thirties going on for 30 years. That's what scares those of us who are in the community studying this data pool."
9. Experts tell us that U.S. water bills are likely to soar in the coming years. It is being projected that repairing and expanding our decaying drinking water infrastructure will cost more than one trillion dollars over the next 25 years, and as a result our water bills will likely approximately triple over that time period.
10. Right now, the United States uses approximately 148 trillion gallons of fresh water a year, and there is no way that is sustainable in the long run.
11. According to a U.S. government report, 36 states are already facing water shortages or will be facing water shortages within the next few years.
12. Lake Mead supplies about 85 percent of the water to Las Vegas, and since 1998 the level of water in Lake Mead has dropped by about 5.6 trillion gallons.
13. It has been estimated that the state of California only has a 20 year supply of fresh water left.
14. It has been estimated that the state of New Mexico only has a 10 year supply of fresh water left.
15. Approximately 40 percent of all rivers in the United States and approximately 46 percent of all lakes in the United States have become so polluted that they are are no longer fit for human use.
The 1,450 mile long Colorado River is a good example of what we have done to our precious water supplies. It is probably the most important body of water in the southwestern United States, and it is rapidly dying.
The following is an excerpt from an outstanding article by Jonathan Waterman about how the once mighty Colorado River is rapidly drying up...
Fifty miles from the sea, 1.5 miles south of the Mexican border, I saw a river evaporate into a scum of phosphates and discarded water bottles. This dirty water sent me home with feet so badly infected that I couldn’t walk for a week. And a delta once renowned for its wildlife and wetlands is now all but part of the surrounding and parched Sonoran Desert. According to Mexican scientists whom I met with, the river has not flowed to the sea since 1998. If the Endangered Species Act had any teeth in Mexico, we might have a chance to save the giant sea bass (totoaba), clams, the Sea of Cortez shrimp fishery that depends upon freshwater returns, and dozens of bird species.
So let this stand as an open invitation to the former Secretary of the Interior and all water buffalos who insist upon telling us that there is no scarcity of water here or in the Mexican Delta. Leave the sprinklered green lawns outside the Aspen conferences, come with me, and I’ll show you a Colorado River running dry from its headwaters to the sea. It is polluted and compromised by industry and agriculture. It is overallocated, drought stricken, and soon to suffer greatly from population growth. If other leaders in our administration continue the whitewash, the scarcity of knowledge and lack of conservation measures will cripple a western civilization built upon water.
But of course North America is in far better shape when it comes to fresh water than the rest of the world is.
In fact, in many areas of the world today water has already become the most important issue.
The following are some incredible facts about the global water crisis that is getting even worse with each passing day...
1. Total global water use has quadrupled over the past 100 years, and it is now increasing faster than it ever has been before.
2. Today, there are 1.6 billion people that live in areas of the globe that are considered to be "water-stressed", and it is being projected that two-thirds of the entire population of the globe will be experiencing "water-stressed" conditions by the year 2025.
3. According to USAID, one-third of the people on earth will be facing "severe" or "chronic" water shortages by the year 2025.
4. Once upon a time, the Aral Sea was the 4th largest freshwater lake in the entire world. At this point, it less than 10 percent the size that it used to be, and it is being projected that it will dry up completely by the year 2020.
5. If you can believe it, the flow of water along the Jordan River is down to only 2 percent of its historic rate.
6. It is being projected that the demand for water in China will exceed the supply by 25 percent by the year 2030.
7. According to the United Nations, the world is going to need at least 30 percent more fresh water by the year 2030.
8. Sadly, it is estimated that approximately 40 percent of the children living in Africa and India have had their growth stunted due to unclean water and malnutrition.
9. Of the 60 million people added to the cities of the world each year, the vast majority of them live in deeply impoverished areas that have no sanitation facilities whatsoever.
10. It has been estimated that 75 percent of all surface water in India has been heavily contaminated by human or agricultural waste.
11. Sadly, according to one UN study on sanitation, far more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet.
12. Every 8 seconds, somewhere in the world a child dies from drinking dirty water.
13. Due to a lack of water, Saudi Arabia has given up on trying to grow wheat and will be 100 percent dependent on wheat imports by the year 2016.
14. Each year in northern China, the water table drops by an average of about one meter due to severe drought and overpumping, and the size of the desert increases by an area equivalent to the state of Rhode Island.
15. In China, 80 percent of the major rivers have become so horribly polluted that they do not support any aquatic life at all at this point.
So is there any hope that the coming global water crisis can be averted?
If not, what can we do to prepare?
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And the Ben Bernank says I'll print more $$$ to fix this too !
Rand Paul is speaking in an historic filibuster against DRONES>
what is this crap about water Tyler? Come clean with who owns you Durden or ban me == of course the later you chicken shit
http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/
If not, what can we do to prepare?
Buy land with water wells on it.
michigan knows this is all true but laughs at the water wasters like factory farms and citys built in deserts like vegas and los angles.
Don't worry...it'll all go up like so much dried kindling eventually...something Detroit knows all too well too.
chuck noris could fix this shit with one kick
Vegas has come a long way in the past 20 years. The water district spent a lot buying up turf and putting in 'drought tolerant' landscapes. Houses are NEVER built with grass.
The big gaudy fountains are still flowing but in the neighborhoods folks are pretty sensible. Lots of pools of course but these are usuall in custom homes. Small groups do permaculture and urban gardening and the awarewness of water issues has definitely entered the public consciousness.
We get 3 to4 inches of annual rainfall usually over a few March days. Drip irrigation is everywhere except the turf areas in parks and golf courses....like most places. I don't golf but it seems many of the nicer courses are done with lots of non turf finishes.
We B tryin...honest.
If you are under 50 years old Vegas will be essentially abandoned in your lifetime I predict.
It will be one of the most "exotic places to travel: the ruins of Vegas".
Also great for shooting zombies, like detroit.
There are 5,400 cubic miles of water in the Great Lakes.
Michigan used to have a factoid on its state maps about how you were never more than two miles from surface water and some of that surface water is keeping me from finding my lost gold.
How do you "waste water?" Where does it go, outerspace? I have been listening to this crap for 35 years. These Chicken Littles have been trying to scare people in order to control them. Our planet is covered in water. It literally falls from the sky.
Wow, you must be MDB's secret protege! I'll give you the benefit of the doubt before I invite you to drink a hearty sample of the 'water' that falls from the sky over Beijing, or the Mekong or Ganges 'water' that covers nearly two million sq km of our planet before it 'refreshes' our oceans.
Comprehension motherfucker, do you have it?
It's not a matter of the planet running out of water. It's a matter of humans not being able to use as much as they 'need' to.
We rely heavily on aquifers for our agriculture. Once those are gone, it's going to take a LONG time for them to refill. For our lifespan, once they're gone, they're gone.
This story isn't so much about 'running out of water' -- it's more about running out of easy to access clean water -- and our society not being ready to deal with that.
At $100 a foot to drill, you best have coin to hire a pro that can dig deep.
Water tables are down across all of North America.
Doesn't matter. We (Ben) have infinite liquidity.
Michael Snyder outing himself as a BS artist. Water cannot be lost from the planet except by a nuclear reaction. He also is pushing global warming BS nonsense.
forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate
infowars.com/arctic-sea-ice-area-highest-for-the-date-in-over-ten-years
Not true at all. Water, a molecule, is composed of hydrogen and oxygen which can combine with other atoms to form molecules that are not water.
Now, if water were an atom, then yes, it would take some nuclear reaction to destroy it.
Forget to take a basic science class in-between bong hits in high school?
Two words for this turd of an article: economically bankrupt. peak oil & peak water are total myths propagated by central planners with an agenda.
So you don't care if the water you drink comes from the neighbor's toilet then?
So the United States didn't hit peak crude oil production back in 1970?
Chart: http://i.imgur.com/zQeZqos.png
Source: EIA - http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_m.htm
WE'RE NEVER RUNNING OUT OF ANYTHING THINGS WILL JUST CONTINUE EXACTLY HOW THEY'VE BEEN AND WE DONT NEED TO CHANGE ANYTHING LALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU
You must be joking. It's component parts, hydrogen and oxygen, are not lost. You tell me how it is lost by using it.
Of course hydrogen and oxygen are not lost. Never said they were. That doesn't mean they will always remain water. They can get locked up in other forms that are not drinkable and unuseable for irrigation.
Regardless, there is hardly any fresh water on the planet.
Evaporation
About 3,100 cubic miles of water in earth's atmosphere.
i gots fresh water from the tap.
i call it first water. ice cold, year round....
i wash my car with it...
maybe i can trade it for something...
the car, not the water.
:)
on a seriuos note, my hunch is that one of the things future people will hate us most for is fracking, i.e. wasting water for oil.
Here...drink this H2SO4 and tell me how fresh it tastes.
Evaporation. You can take your concoction and seal it up. You could also take a bottle of water and seal it up. But you're just moving the constituents of water from one place to another. You are not losing it. Snyder said "But once the water from those aquifers is gone, it is gone for good."
Yes, but getting back into H20 form and potables requires energy...and groundwater recharge does not happen instantaneously, or even necessarily fast enough to replenish what's being sucked out by us.
Ever solved a PDE?
In that case he's speaking of the Ogallala aquifer which had most of its water deposited during the retreat of the glaciers during the end of the last Ice Age.
The water-permeated thickness of the Ogallala Formation ranges from a few feet to more than 1000 feet (300 m) and is generally greater in the northern plains.[4] The depth of the water below the surface of the land ranges from almost 400 feet (122 m) in parts of the north to between 100 to 200 feet (30 to 61 m) throughout much of the south. Present-day recharge of the aquifer with fresh water occurs at an exceedingly slow rate, suggesting that much of the water in its pore spaces is paleowater, dating back to the most recent ice age and probably earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer#General_characteristics
Johnny drank some H2O
He'll drink of that no more.
For what he thought was H20
Was really H2SO4.
This was taught in Junior High that you cannot lose water from the planet, except as I stated above and thought you could infer I would have to be implying its constituents.
No one is saying that you are losing the water from the planet. You're losing it from specific locations where there are significant population or agricultural centers. Or it is becoming polluted. Sanitizing the water requires technology and energy. Things that cost money and resources.
The point was not water per se, it was fresh water in places that are useful - like Lake Mead or the Ogalalla Aquifer.
I note one of the more difficult situations was ignored - Jordan River. Middle East fun times again.
NAWAPA XXI, a simple but extensive project, that could have been done fifty years ago, as Kennedy was going to do it before being killed, would solve both.
There are 2 aspects important for water supplies that were somewhat conflated in the article: quality and quantity. While some places are seeing water supplies diminish in quantity, in some places, quality is much more important. The Ganges River still flows but it's not drinkable. Dams impede the flow of the Colorado River resulting in it no longer reaching the Sea of Cortez. "We" knew about the Ogallala problem at least 50 years ago and still...
Some water probably escapes into space but yes, you're drinking dinosaur pee!
When will it end?
First horsemeat, then poo in food, now dinosaur pee?
Note the adjective 'clean', moron.
Note he said, "But once the water from those aquifers is gone, it is gone for good" moron.
And how, exactly, do you plan to refill an aquifer? Water takes many years to filter in and add to the aquifer.
I still agree with the comment you're not very smart.
Once the water is pumped out, the spongy layer of an aquifer that held the water between the sand and rocks is compressed. When and if the water comes back, it is no longer stored because the natural sponge has been flattened.
That doesn't come back until you have another glacier roll through and spread the sand and rocks again.
When the aquifer is gone, the sponge has been squeezed dry one final time. No do-overs.
That's kinda why i only buy land with water wells already on it.
We have a well on our property. I normally pump water with electricity but have the ability to move about 2 gallons a minute by hand. The cows drink 50 gallons of fresh water a day between them. This past summer was hot and brutally dry in the midwest so I had to water my orchard (25 trees X 10 gallons a tree = 250 gallons). Add in the water for berry bushes, gardens, other animals and finally (most importantly!) for my family’s personal use. We’re talking hundreds of gallons of water to operate a very small hobby farm. Without electricity, that’s a lot of the day spent moving water from the ground.
Recognizing the amount of water we’re pulling from our well we are trying a couple of methods to reduce our water usage. These include: 1) mulch/compost cover on all orchards/gardens/berry areas, 2) water cisterns hooked up to roofs, and 3) drip lines installed (under the mulch cover) for all square foot gardens.
The purpose of the mulch/compost cover (no till growing method) is to keep the soil from blowing away, reduce weed growth, promote water retention (when it rains, the water doesn’t drain away, the mulch works as a sponge to soak it up for later use), and keep the soil temperature cooler (reducing the rate that water is lost from the soil). Another benefit: over time, this layer will break down and form new soil.
The purpose of the cisterns is obvious: catch as much of the house and barn roof water to store for later use. Our largest cistern is 1550 gallons and should help alleviate some of the pumping we’ve needed to keep our orchard growing. This cistern will be hooked up to our barn and can go to the animals or the orchard as needed.
The drip lines are obvious, too: keep the water loss to a minimum by feeding the roots directly. No more spraying water from a sprinkler.
I am excited to test these methods out. If anybody cares, I’ll try to find a worthwhile article this fall and post my results in the comments.
The downside of these methods: they can be done at a small farm but are not as possible with modern large scale farms. For example, with the mulch cover, I moved 90 square yards last year onto my orchard preparing for this method. 90 yards equals a 53 foot semi truck, full to the top. It took several long days moving it by shovel and wheelbarrow. The energy / benefit works for me, not sure a large farm would be able to justify the expense/time/oil necessary to use equipment to move that much material around their plants simply to reduce water consumption. If it made sense, financially, I believe large scale farms would have adopted this method by now.
Like many of you, I love ZH and feel it has given me several important warnings about the way life could go. I’m in the process of reducing my personal consumption and improving my ability to sustain the lives of my family. I encourage each of you to read the risks and hedge accordingly.
Bravo! We've just started with the no till growing method. Look forward to reading your results this fall. I'll post mine as well.
Look into hugelkultur, too.
Appreciate it, looks quite interesting!
Could also learn what grows naturally and is edible. Bullrushes and Cattails are a good staple.
I saw a video about 'greening the desert' or something several years ago where people made sustainable communities by capturing the rainfall in areas experiencing less than 5" of rain per year. We are too dependent water being magically pumped to us. I live on 70 acres and pay $56/month for water. $50 in delivery fees and $6/month in water usage. If had 1 acre of water collection I could store 27,000 gallons per year. It all flows into the nearby completely polluted river unfortunately. If i didn't rent i'd be water self sufficient.
That was a piece by Geoff Lawton. Bill Mollison and his Global Gardener series was also very good. Sepp Holzer also has some really good stuff out there.
dupe
Cover crops are a great way to breed your own mulch, and fix nitrogen, prevent evaporation and so forth as well as encourage natura biodiversity to your improve pollination and resistance to disease. I've seen vineyard owners, albeit on a scale of 20-100ha, successfully use cover crops to achieve all this as well as prevent topsoil erosion. If there is too much rain they soak it up and grow, taking water away from the vines, or if there is too little they can be rolled or mulched/slashed to return water to the soil. Increasingly successful grapegrowers are moving away from monoculture and its litany of introduced problems, and moving towards integrated systems that are self-sustaining, and when implemented by people who understand what they are doing it can improve quality too.
The things you are doing sound terrific and a big step in the right direction. You should get in touch with some boutique grapegrowers and share ideas. In my experience the high value of their crop suggests they are far more aware of the techniques you describe than broad acre farmers who simpy want to sow and reap for tonnes.
Hobbyfarmer, we are also extremely cognizant about the water issue especially living in arid San Diego. Only 2% of us in our area are on wells and I am one of them. We live on a Mesa at 2000 feet above sea level. A Well driller told me our water is strictly rainfall caught in pockets, no underground lake. When most people turn on the spigot and water fails to flow they call the water company. The first thing I do when that happens is run down to our 10,000 gallon metal cistern and put my hand on it. If its cold I breathe a sigh of relief, it's a problem with our pressure pump. If its warm we may be truly fucked if the well is dry. Thank god when that has happened its been the well pump. The beauty of wells is that you have a modicum of safety greater than the population at large. The downside is you are at risk for unscrupulous neighbors over pumping and drying yours. It has happened in our area. One rich lady 3 miles away put in 4 acres of lush landscaping and dried all the areas wells. She didn't give a shit and drilled more and dropped the water table 400 feet. You can't have Kentucky blue grass in a desert, only idiot humans do such a stupid thing. We wanted to raise a few cattle on our land but gave it up realizing we could only support,water wise, smaller animals. We get 1 gallon/minute which is good for our area and we scale our life around that. It' sounds like you've thought out your usage well. Life really is different knowing that spigot youre staring at is not guaranteed!
Miffed;-)
I looked into a well and pump a while ago but the water table is too far down & would be too expensive for me right now.
One interesting pump I came across was an Australian well pump that uses compressed air instead of electricity, and is fairly cheap. With an air-hose, you could use grid electricity to run an electric air pump, but also a gas powered air pump or even a hand pump to pull the water up (much more slowly, of course) - sounded like a really cool and very robust device
Can't find the URL for this right now unfortunately...
You're on crack if you think Canada has a fresh water shortage, they have so much of the stuff they turn it into steam and inject it back into the gorund, the shits everywhere.
Yup. That's why I'm moving to Quebec.
They couldn't grow apples this past summer or corn. Quebec is in bad shape as well.
Look before you leap.
The Ogalala is the underground water supply they spoke of in this article. It's drying up too from farmers. I am ON this water supply so that's a little troublesome. But I suppose I could store water in underground water tanks and hope that I never need them.
ZH already posted a news story about it. Paul is not going to change shit-just like his daddy.
If Rand doing this gets a few people asking questions it was worth it, and it should be supported.
Duck Rand !! He sold out
Oh puleeese. You want water in the Midwest? Dig a hole, at most 30 feet deep, and you will have all the fucking water you can pump. 40 inches of rain a year, floods almost every spring. The problem is not raising a crop. It's getting into the damn fields.
If you live in a desert, you planned poorly. If you live in a city, i.e. ghetto , get out while you can.
There is a large healthy continent between the Blue Ridge and the High Sierra, and the family owns a little land on the wrong side.., trying like hell to sell.
You fucking commie urbanites need to get out of town now and then. This is embarrassing to the species.
"If you live in a desert, you planned poorly."
Los Angeles. Las Vegas and Israel to name 3.
One solution might be to melt the icecaps to release more water for the planet.
Send some drones to shoot rockets at the north pole :-)
That should melt a few liters. And make some $$$ for the military i dustrial complex.
I guess its ok to kill civilians with drones, just not us citizens ? Americans are crazy.
Nuclear Power for desalinization, lots of it--or leave the desert areas. Your choice.
For desert areas near the sea, solar (particularly as it gets more efficient) desalinazation makes a lot more sense...
In ever understood the logic of the greenest golf courses being in Vegas, Palm Springs, and Pah-honix
Um, no, they didn't plan poorly. The people NOW are planning poorly. But not THOSE people, the people that think that living in a desert is a bad idea.
Water management is easy, it just takes brains, something that this country is in serious shortage of. We've been dumbed down, so instead of undertake NAWAPA XXI to more than double our water supply, we pretend as if it's the 'fault' of everyone living in 'desert areas' as 'they should've fucking known better'.
What fools people are to blame people living in perfectly good areas simply because of their mental sloth on the subject.
NAWAPA means there is no water shortage, just bad water management.
Transaqua for Africa.
Many more projects as well. It's just funny that people don't want to place blame at where it really rests, they just want a reason to let someone be fucked. Yet many of these same people don't want to be fucked by Helicopter Ben, and if Helicopter Ben succeeds in fucking everyone, those people that say fuck those in deserts, won't like being fucked by Ben. Either way it shows some serious lack of brains, compassion, and knowledge of the situation to say something as idiotic as 'don't live in a desert'.
Don't live in a desert. There's no water there, fucktard.
Why don't you just ban yourself, go away, and watch CNN?
Daddy Bernanke said he needed a large 3-D printer before he could fix the water problem for the world once he has fixed the financial mess.
He will just use it to reproduce a Velociraptor Nasal Cavity.
\
The Colorado River is running dry because of all the stupid liberals who run the state. They have all made God angry and he is going to throw down the hammer.
Alright I'm in let's link Rand to the top. Go get em Rand!
http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/
Fuck that poser idiot.
King Obama will get it fixed like he fixed the economy. By the way, isnt this Bushs fault too?
While we are at it, can we Bush charged with the Kennedy assassination, WWII, and TGD 1.0?
FDR.
Ain't no one coming near my well.
I have my high power .22LR and .22 mag that will take care of any zombies near my well.
F Las Vegas and Hairy Reid. Vegas is filled with scum and bagel boys.
Frieddie
mmmm sounds like gopher tonight, fire up the barbee
90% of Vegas is comprised of do-nothing's with low IQs, looking for a quick buck. No one goes there to succeed.
Nothing the upcoming ice age won't take care of.
If our ocean waters are rising ..why not just create the excess into drinking water. Problem solved. Do I get a Noble prize?
The excess is already in potable water, Ice.
Michigan Bitchez!
Regarding #7 at the top. Historically wildfires happened with a regularity of +/- 20 years on average and are a good thing from a land management perspective.
In my area, for instance, the wildfire takes out the Ashe juniper that uses more water than does the native grasses it overtakes in a man-managed "fires-are-bad" society.
Regarding the "800 gallons a minute" withdrawal from the Ogallala...that would be on an individual well basis, not a reservoir-wide basis. 800 gallons a minute over the vastness of the reservoir is (pardon the pun) a drop in the bucket
>>>>>800 gallons a minute over the vastness of the reservoir is (pardon the pun) a drop in the bucket
It's more than 1/2 gone. Major drought isn't helping. Where I live, people's water wells have been going dry in the northern part of the state.
I was in elementary school when a friend told me his brother was a fire fighter that would go out west to fight the wild fires every summer. This was in 1960. I said there could not be many, and he replied they would light the fires to make sure they got their $20 a day all summer long. Same stuff still goes on..., Oh wait, they caught a token female fire fighter they set up----everything is better now.
Is this anything like "The New Ice Age" we were entering in the 70s?
They're simply going to build huge canals and bring water down from Canada. They've got PLENTY.
NAWAPA
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/graphics/maps/no_amer_water.jpg
The North America Power and Water Alliance was killed in the 60's because the Canadians were not stupid enough to sign over their water for free. They still are not.
All the jockeying in the Arctic over the past decade between Russia, US and Canada is not just about shipping routes.
Long term, fresh water is more important than the gold and oil in the ground in Canada.
they actually did commit with NAFTA
nyet, water was off the table (pun intended)....
thought there was a "legal" debate about it and whether it's a "commodity."
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2008/04/03/protect_canadas_water_ottawa_urged.html
not that we would pull any legal "tricks" to get to another country's resource.
In the long term, America will take from Canada whatever it determines it needs, with a pimp slap, and Canada will spread like the whore that it is.
I think I'm having crisis fatigue!
Not me. I just naturally call bullshit on anyone resorting to fear, in order to sell me something.
Isn't that the truth!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111106151505.htm
Seems like so many things are coming together all at once. Perhaps the Mayans were correct, just the date was off.....
Why is anyone worried? We gots Brawndo, and it gots electrolytes!
This is nothing a new federal agency, a few trillion dollars and a LOT of laws cant fix.
You know, like every other fucking "problem" humanity faces.
Al Gore can beat the drum.
Rain also fixes the problem... And it is free....
North Carolina here, with well/septic/solar. Water table is at 40ft. Pump down at 450.
I have aware of this issue and the trends for over 25 years. I have lived in this area all my life and have seen a number of dry times before.
The records of the mega droughts are all in the geological record , as well as in the history of the Native Americans of the SW and the plains.
Good luck all you fools and your gold, I have water, lots of it. Deep wells in aquafers that will last past my great grandson life.
I have heard that George W Bush is a major holder of proterty in Chile.Paraquay. 70,000 acres of mountain valley setting over some of the largest and deepest water aquafers in the world.
I have a spring fed stream 3 feet by 2 feet deep that starts a mile from my house with great cold water that has not stopped running since I moved here 10 years ago. That is why I moved here.
Can I come over?
if i saw you at the front door....hmmm
wow....if the land "upstream" remains undeveloped....(woods) youve got it good, friend
I wish I could get my last 2 minutes back.
Global drying - oh, please. The Earth is like over 40% water, DUH. Get a brain, Morans.
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM1MDA0MDA4M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjExNzcxOA@@._V1._SX214_CR0,0,214,314_.jpg
Of which only like a 2% is drinkable...
I hope we make it long enough to have this crisis.
You don't care.
You don't give a shit.
Wind Turbine Extracts Water From The Air
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article...
Assuming suitable wind resources, the WMS1000 is capable of producing 350 litres of water a day in a desert area and up to 1,000 litres of water a day in coastal zones according to the company behind the unit, France-based Eole Water. Minimal wind speed required for water production is 7 metres per second and nominal is 10 m/s. The maximum wind speed the turbine can operate in is 50 m/s.
Don't worry. Global warming is coming, right?
If it gets warm enough, northern Canada will have plenty of fresh water.
<sarc off>
Let`s privatize water. All the investment needed will flow
through global banksters interests and all will have a healthy return, every gallon of freshwater priced as evian
will make good on GDP too.
Scaremongering on water I take with a grain of salt just as
end-of-oil stories. My hills are prone to droughts but
I get billed for sewage from rainwater that never materializes and all my water goes untreated into the next stream.
Value added tax on water, rain and air are the least
we should be asked for to mitigate the crisis. No ,I score low on the sarcastometer and better not give them any more evil ideas, I used to make fun of these things 20 years ago
only to be left choking on those jokes becoming reality.
“Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?”
-Martin Luther King
Because drinking from the ocean leaves you with dehydration, blown out kidneys, and eventually, a coma.
The rumheads in my state voted for just that, privatization. Major depletion of lakes here. They look like lake mead now.
They're going to have a stroke once it's implemented.
What, no discussion of future wars for water? Didn't you get the memo?
One crisis at a time, please
Total fucking bullshit. Just like global warming. But wait, if we melt the glaciers we'll have more water right?
Where do we get these shittards?
Please drink all the saltwater you can get your hands on.
With so many crises on the plate already do we really have enough room for another?
I'm about crisised out myself and imagine everyone else is too..
ugh, oceans. this is how we battle whole cities being flooded from global warming. we drink that shit.
Of any resource that exist for Nationalization, water would be it.
So, how many of bottles of water I need just to be save.
A half-gallon a week...for life.
No plastic bottles either. And remember, water has a shelf life, so date each bottle and rotate. When you get that done, i'll send someone over to check for fluoridation.
The way to keep Lake Mead from running dry is simple. All they have to do is move more people into Las Vegas. I say that because the Las Vegas sewage dumps into Lake Mead.
Oh, did I mention that Las Vegas also gets its drinking water from Lake Mead and that their sewage dumps into Lake Mead about 5 miles upstream from the intake for their drinking water?
How's that for recycling?
Real men drink their own pee.
The sewerage is treated before it gets into the Wash. There is a big pipe under Lake Las Vegas so that tainted water doesn't make the golf courses smell. the treated waste is then dumped in with whatever water discharge there is coming from tha Lake.
We need more energy to solve this. Reverse osmosis will give us all the water we could ever need, but we need thorium fueled power plants to make it feasable on a massive scale.
So basically, governments need to die first.
Clean water? That will be for the elitist only, along with healthcare, retirement, fresh veggies, and cabana boys.
Will I still be able to get a Big Mac? Will I still be able to drive a one-ton pickup? Will Dancing with the Stars - or something very like it - still be on the tube?
If so, I don't care.
Not quite. We have one in Tampa Bay. Produces 25mgd out of some 160mgd of local usage. It was some 5 years behind schedule and $40Mn over budget. The original filtration broke down repeatedly and they had to replace them. Costs were reported to be exorbitant and still are apparently. There isn't going to be a magic bullet. We just have to stop treating it like there's an endless supply and stop watering the fucking golf courses and lawns, washing cars, and other stupid shit like that. Can't wait to see what effect fracking has on water resources.
tell a 5 year old the world is running out of water and they will laugh at you....bc they've seen a globe.
There is no crisis other than the one in your head.
Well, if we count penis size, that's two things you and a 5 year old have in common.
Buy gold! There is a shortage of gold; not water!
Don't listen to the "scientists"
This another scared tactic and shame on Michael Snyder for selling this horseshit. He's recycling a "problem" that was solved 130 years ago.
"Solar stills have been used for hundreds of years. The earliest known examples date to 1551 when Arab alchemists used such stills. In 1882 Charles Wilson invented the first modern conventional still — a massive solar still plant which was used to supply fresh water to a mining community in northern Chile. Today hundreds of solar still plants and thousands of individual solar stills have been built around the world."
Familiarize yourself with the water cycle and you won't need a "scientist" to save you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle
Or Google "water cone" and either pay the inventor $200 or make your own 20 times the size for $20.
Or die. In fact, if you're convinced that the world's running out of water, maybe it's better for everybody if you just do that.
Last time someone said "Don't listen to the scientists", it was the church... and the scientist was Galileo...
Notice the word scientists was in quotes. These are not people seeking truth, they are parasites seeking to obfuscate.
They're the new high priests in case you haven't noticed.
Water is the most abundant substance on earth and simple, inexpensive techniques to purify it were perfected long ago. Anyone who tells you otherwise is what I call a "scientist."
Problem?
Burn the Witches! Hang the scientists!
And what if you live in the middle of the country? This water cone idea is great, if you can find the necessary amount of ocean water to desalinate. Not so good if you have to travel miles to get your water.
"The drawback is that each individual still produces a relatively small amount of clean water"