This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
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?
»
- 64081 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
I'm on the blower with Poland spring bitchez as we speak.
Have no fear...!!!!...."Dyno Storm" is here......
"Dyno Drought" too,if you need it.
Kid you not....
Google it on up,or whatever search engine you use.
The coming World War will remedy this.....problem...
what war? we already have one world guvment the next war will be civil here then new world order to the rescue
I can see the Homeland security stations telling people where to go for assistance , there will be nice accomadatio s at a fema camp for everyone and not so nice camps for some who make trouble
so just line up shut up and put up copish
"9. Experts tell us that U.S. water bills are likely to soar in the coming years"
I Stopped reading at that point...
No wonder the population is being "dumbed down" its so they will continue to pay the so called "Experts" for astounding insights such as this...
Lotta fresh water in Patagonia. Chinese are buying land up hand over fist.
Lots of Chinese and lots of USDs to convert to hard assets while the opportunity exists
Billions in fact...
Maybe if the USAF/Red China/Zionists/Elite Shit Bags quit drying everything out with aluminium oxide 24/7/365 the natural weather would do the fixing. or maybe "they" could quit fracking gas in to the Ogallala or quit letting Red China fill tankers out of the Great Lakes and take it to Red China? They are making it a problem to control your children and grand children (if they're aloud to live). Problem-Reaction-Solution. Fuck'em they dont own the water they just fuck it up for everyone then the experts will ration it out to you poor stupid people because you is to stupid to know what water is. That'll be $400. for the gallon (that'll control your drinking problem and your being alive).
Where's Cackmeister? This is right up his alley!
Jesus, not this shit again.
The amount of water on this planet DOESN'T CHANGE! The only thing that changes is the location of it.
The ammount might not change. The issue at hand here is DRINKING WATER. Fresh, unpolluted water. That ammount DOES change...
....And fortunately there's already a million and one solutions,
https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+still&num=100&hl=en&source=lnms&tb...
That's great, if you want to make a quart to get you through until the rescue chopper arrives, but we use water for one hell of a lot more than drinking.
Are you claiming that solar stills will provide enough fresh water to irrigate crops for 6 billion? How about 9 billion?
Clues: ya need em.
Please Mad Scientist do not throw logic at the blatantly scientifically illogical Frankenweenie. He knows not what he does. I believe that even in a desert that Frankenweenie can magically conjure up all the necessary technology and water to provide for the 6 billion you speak of. To suggest otherwise is pure folly, fantasy, and not caring to join on the magical mystery tour bus.
I did not receive my standard issue blotter.
Yup
and if it is safely drinkable or not; You made need to take in some expensive delivery measures to get that clean water;
Water cartels are on the horizon-in this city many people do not pay for city water (cheap) but to large companies who lease the rights to supply an apt/building/home with costly water
"Live in fear!"
Our planet is mostly water.
What about water desalination plants? We already have them.
The problem is not the water, the problem is who runs the show, as always.
Desalinization costs huge amounts of energy...
Cold Fusion
Eat mushrooms and watch Zeitgeist: Moving Forward if you think peak everything isn't bursting at the seams.
Yeah, technofascism, just what's needed...
Listen, I subscribe to a lot of the general ideas and truths presented in Zeitgeist.
Technofacism or regular old facism requires force of arms and that isn't what Zeitgeist is about.
No, it's about being subjected to the rule of technology rather than people. After all people can be dumbed down to accept anything. Humans are extremely adaptable, specially when the computer "makes it easy" for them. The power of the pen, to say so, is more powerful than the sword.
Koko Hekmatyar told Jonah clearly: "the next war will not be about oil, but about water". But Americans don't get it. After all, to them water is that thing in the toilet. IT HAS NO ELECTROLYTES??
Quantum of Solace ??There are a lot of ostriches out there. Good tactic I suppose as there will be much more sand for you all.
Solar Stills? Melting ice caps? The earth is 2/3 water? These aren't solutions, they're excuses. Shaddup.
The key phrase here is 'FRESH' water. Yes, yes, I mean toilet water. There isn't enough of it to waste 6-8 litres of clean, potable water every time you void your bladder, but you do it anyway don't you?
Want solutions? Take a page from Australia, where water is scarce and relatively expensive already -
Standard toilets use 3-4L per flush, many people throw a brick or two in the cistern to lessen that further.
Water restrictions have been implemented which penalize excessive water use such as watering your grass during the day and washing your car with a hose - when these restrictions are lifted, people (shock/horror) still act conservatively.
Recognizing the problem and restoring polluted river systems, mandating maximum water allotments to farmers, and most importantly - Educating the people about the problem.
But, you know, whatever! As long as your taps keep running. The financial sideshow is easier to worry about.
Yeah! Water police!!!
I can make all the fresh drinking water I need.
Sorry to hear you're fucked.
Great. What the fuck are you gonna eat? After you do, where are you gonna shit? Maybe someday you'd like to have a shower?
Gotta love a jackhole who puts the word "scientist" in his handle. Oooooh you must be smart.
Again, I'll tell you Mr. "scientist," water is the most abundant substance on earth and EASY to purify.
Easy-peasy. Didn't they teach you how in scientist school?
You are officially elected as the supreme narcissist of this thread. Easy-peasy I don't recognize as a scientific term when I partook in science, perhaps you did. And great, all that water still requires not just desalination but also heavy removal of 1000's of foreign man made chemical additives not fit for human consumption, not to mention water for crop irrigation, cattle, chickens(you know "farm animals"). But not to worry you have it all figured out, and energy is even cheaper than water to make all of this happen.
Sounds like you're fucked too.
You forgot the grunt.
There is an ongoing, natural, simple solution (no pun intened) to all of this.
It is called RAIN.
It's not about how simple it is to purify...it's about how much you can purify per unit time and how much you use per unit time.
I guess they didn't have calculus in your high-school...or perhaps you just didn't get that far.
Frankenweenie your avatar after that statement suits you just perfectly. However, to make it even better you should add a few guttural grunts and yelling exclamations such as UGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Sitting here on the shores of Lake Superior, it is a peaceful, but cold scene. Why do I get the feeling that in a generation from now, the scene will no longer be peaceful. This lake is clean, deep, cold and fresh. My tap runs with this water, cold as ice, and a taste that makes me long for it whenever I travel and must drink the disgusting water that most place seem to have.
A few years back some smart guy got a tanker ship, cleaned it out, with steam of course, and sent it to Lake Superior and tried to fill it up and then journy down the sea way and on to the Middle East. He was quickly stopped when Canada got wind of this scheme. They were not amused, as these waters are subject to international agreement between the US and Canada, not to mention all the states and provinces that border the great lakes.
Soon enough people will be back for this water, they will need to bribe both governments to get it, but sooner or later outside forces will come for this water.
so you get with a somalian pirate to bone up on a remedy for that
I hate to poo poo this article but poo poo. I am an earth science major and can not be fooled about climate. We have just as much water on this earth as we did thousands of years ago. Yes it is being displaced by many means but still. Please no more with the "PEAK WATER" crap. Only makes a fool out of you!
Peak Water LIFESTYLE, that is what is going by the wayside. We can no longer be hogs at the trough and not give a damn.
Or we can just have that world war that is brewing and knock back the world population by three-fourths or so.
Our choice, (or not).
it's all about definitions (like everything else). You're not saying that we are not rapidly draining our aquifers right? You're not saying India does not have to drill deeper and deeper each year? "Peak water" is not about volume, it's about our unnatural systems: energy, agriculture & urban and our destruction of the "natural" systems that rapidly replenish fresh water (and maintain life). It's just as much about our rapid depletion of natural land systems and top soil depth and roots that allow the rain to soak into the land and replenish ground water. That's how it works. It's common sense if you give it a second
Start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A
Peak water is being referred to here as peak drinking water. Water for our consumption must be potable for us as humans and any other species on the planet or else unwanted effects like death occur. So mister earth science major, did this logical and factual evidence based phenomenon escape your perceptive grasp? Think so. I too studied the hydrological cycle in university amongst many other chemical and physical based sciences and keep up with the science available through multiple online sites including the wonderful resource known as google scholar. Think you know it all, think again. Just because you study something doesn't make one competent, it just means you have scratched the surface and require mass humility and persistent study to improve your awareness. So peak potable water is here especially the amounts required to drive the ecology and economies we have gotten used to.
This problem has already been solved. You can cheaply purchase purification tablets at your local sporting goods or outdoor recreational products stores or get them by mail order from Cabela's.
Then, dip your container into a stream or river, and -oila- drinking water.
For those of you fantasy types trying to boil the ocean, I say don't ever leave California...so you stay as far from me as possible.
There is a BIG difference between fresh water, which is potable, and readily accessible to population centers, and water in general. Think of the famous Mariner's Lament: "Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink."
Can't we all just drink whiskey?
Well..... you are obviously NOT a rocket science major .... here's a tip... how many people were on the earth thousands of years ago ... and how many are there now?
So who is the fool?
"We have just as much water on this earth as we did thousands of years ago."
Well mister "earth science major", how about quantifying the quoted statement with links to published studies. I seriously doubt the validity of that statement due to the dynamic nature of our planet. It could well be that our planet has more water than it did "thousands of years ago" (how vague), but I am pretty sure you are clueless.
The world is running out of clean water? WRONG, IGNORANT, STUPID, FEARMONGERING.
The world is finding that it costs more to have water of suitable quality in the quantity it desires. The oceans are still full. There is no shortage of water! Salt water can be converted to fresh water. It is only a matter of cost. If cost were no object I could ship a pallet load of bottled water from Fiji or Iceland to just about anyplace on the planet via FedEx, maybe even overnight. Sheesh, what morons.
The real issue is why so many people cannot afford the water they need.
It's a matter of energy and rate of conversion...and we can't print either one.
As if fucking planes don't use jetfuel, simpleton?
Solar still. Cost of operational energy = FREE
Fucktard
I really wish I could be around to watch you shit in a latrine and eat tree bark with your 4 pints of squeezings per day.
Me too, but you'll be long dead...
Ya it's free we stick you under the blazing sun for 12 hours and tap into the heat your roasted skin generates you fucking moron.
Solar AINT FREE. It is still more costly per kw hour than all mainstream energy sources
FUCKTARD
And you win a BAG of SOFT SHIT for stupidest comment of the day!!!!
How does someone who makes a dollar a day pay 'more' for water? See the documentary FLOW.
And in advanced countries if we charge more for water guess what happens? Same thing that is happening because CHEAP energy is over.
This acts as a MASSIVE drag on the economy killing growth.
It is not like a tax - because arguably taxes can be used to build infrastructure educate people etc... but when you make water and oil more expensive you get NOTHING - it saps the economy.
You got a bag? Here's your prize http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2686/4287284781_0a07b722d5_m.jpg
Re-read his post. You must have missed this statement:
"The real issue is why so many people cannot afford the water they need."
Truly beyond the pail that so many commentators on this thread, who regularly complain about the mis-allocation of fiat toilettes will ignore the fact that getting water cost more and more for those who want to get it.
edit: Hydration Inflation Bitchez !
This thread is a great example of how people who wish to be in control of others will fabricate a "crisis" that only they can rescue you from.
I've built solar stills. I assure you, they work great. If you want more water, you build a bigger one, that's all.
The people who tell you "there's more to it than that, you moron!" are after your wallets.
Do the research.
Here you go. http://www.practicalsurvivor.com/solarstill
2 glorious sips of water after only 24 hours! A solar still the size of Jupiter will produce enough water for a small drought tolerant vegetable garden. Well done sir!
Or you could do it right.....
4,459 square meteres (48k square feet)
20,000 liters of water per day.
one liter of water per 2.5 square feet. And that was 140 years ago.
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNABC961.pdf
Good luck on the Jupiter project! I won't be funding it.
don't worry one second about water..worry about where you choose to live, the pueblo indians learned that the hard way. got rain?
How big does a solar still need to be to supply New York? What about 5,000 acres of soybeans? How can people like you, with such huge blinders on, even find a bathroom unassisted? Inquiring minds want to know.
If they can reduce the world's population accordingly, all those resource problems will quietly fade away.
"The planet will be fine" - George Carlin
I see the planet giving itself a good shake, just like a dog getting rid of too much water on itself.
"If they can reduce the world's population accordingly, all those resource problems will quietly fade away."
Precisely. The only realistic way to save this planet is to significantly reduce the human population. The scientists with a clue know this to be true, short of some truly amazing technological development. However, this is quite a politically incorrect topic which is not to be discussed.
The Chinese will soon take care of the problem for us I am quite sure.
Reduction of population? You're NUTS.
You might as well sleep with Helicopter Ben Krugman and the Queen of England, since you completely support their population reduction propaganda.
We have a universe to populate, the question is, how hard is it for people like you to break from the oligarchy's mind control?
Because we're in a manufactured crisis, not a real one. This world could support a trillion people if we want it to in time.
Here's a clue, the scientists that know it to be true are morons. They are PSEUDO scientists.
Keep reading and absorbing British Empire propaganda and you will create the self-fulfilling prophecy you speak of...needlessly.
You know why those 'technological developments' don't occur? Because we take away the ability of gov'ts and corrupt private businesses away from attempting to make advances.
You are so bass ackwards about things it's amazing.
You aren't politically incorrect, you spew fascist propaganda that is dedicated to achieving the oligarchy's aims. Congratulations.
If Clean water is the issue then can't you just react hydrogen and oxygen together to make pure H2O?
(more expensive but better than water that is actually just horsemeat)
Energy creation requires the use of lots of water. Try again.
All nonsense. Water passes through things, it does not disappear. Wasn't this covered 1-2 weeks ago.
I just had some water "pass through" my system. Here, have a drink idiot. Don't worry, the yellow color and smell are the by-product of all that nonsense you speak of and can be completely ignored. Drink up!
There's only ONE thing that can realistically "save the planet"
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/e-newsletters/drovers-daily/Commentary-Savo...
I'm a bit partial, but, to me, the most intelligent people that I've run across are grass farmers.
That scene in the Good Bad and the Ugly comes to mind where Clint Eastwood is at the stagecoach. What a look. Think I'll pop open a Gerosteiner. Mskes me thirsty just thinking about it.
Yeah, but since everything is controlled by the people who have the most money, who will still be able to afford to buy water, long after poor people no longer could, there is nothing likely to get done about these problems until they are way too late to resolve in more favourable ways.
Anyway, the ruling classes already have their plans in place for all these kinds of related problems. Those plans are to continue to deliberately cause genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law, so that there will be enough excuses to massive kill off enough of the population to wipe out most of the basic demand for water, and almost everything else too.
Of course, I think that is insane, however, all the evidence clearly points to that being the actual solution that will be imposed upon things like water scarcity, as well as scarcity of everything else. Furthermore, if one is serious of these kinds of problems, then the only better solutions have to be some better murder systems, doing better death controls, than the current ruling classes are planning to impose.
It is precisely because it will be practically impossible to agree on better limits, that we will default to having the worst possible limits, imposed through the maximum possible deceits ... which is basically WHY the world is the way it is NOW, and will probably be even more so like that in the foreseeable future!
It's a good thing that fracking doesn't use much water!!!
One word; desalination.
And then I give it a few hundred before man depletes the seas to...
What do you do with all the salt?
Use it to melt the polar ice caps and make more water!
Plenty of water in Canada we ought to be more than willing to sell.
Pipeline!
Folks in the US would like to point out who it is that has the larger military... your "price," I assure you, will be what we are willing to pay...
Plenty of good debate on this thread. Like everyone else, I too like the idea of access to clean water. It's unfortunate that so much of our fresh water is polluted and continues to be polluted. If only we had some sort of gubment agency and laws that would prevent that!
Likewise, along with others on this thread, I immediately sense a scam/scheme when crises such as these are highlighted, using the tragic conditions in third-world hell-holes as a means to drive the point home HERE. As if to say, Chinese/African peasants would have all the fresh clean water they could handle, if only WE did something. Naturally, that 'something' typically consists of US having more of our ever-depleting wealth forcibly extracted, while our gubment planners devise grandiose plans to herd us all into stack-n-rack urban centers, where all these things can be 'properly rationed' to us by our betters. See? Problem solved, planet saved, and children rejoice across the world.....if only we'd bend over, pay more and do what our benevolent masters in the UN decide is best for us.
Sorry guys, I'll grant that we have our own issues with access to clean water in the US (i.e. Lake Mead, etc). But when this next crises takes on the same tone of the bullshit 'global warming' scam, complete with hordes of willing thieving burearats at the ready to 'solve' the problem....I reflexively must be skeptical. Just wait....soon enough there will be a 'cap and trade' scheme, or some sort of global 'water rights exchange' system developed.
As with everything else.....follow the money.
I mostly agree with you - Great debate, Why isn't the EPA actually protecting the environment, What shall we do oh masters.
The big difference between this and other Crisis of the Month stories is that there is no solution. Perhaps a desalination/recycling and freeway-like pipeline project costing about half of the US GDP might fix the US's problems.
Poor countries are fucked, straight up. They have zero solution. Desal is just too costly and nobody wants endlessly printed African nation bonds.
Transport costs of the sheer volume of water required is simply non viable.
It's a basic need and it's a global concern.
Wow, just Wow....
Conspitorial Ideation and pseudo-science of the highest order on display...
And I thought the AGW deniers around here were ignorant fucktards...
Solar powered water makers can condense clean water from the humidity in the air, even in a desert. There is enough ice to allow this process to occur for over a thousand years with the only net effect that the ground water will "recharge" over this same period.
It's bad news for the developing world, but then at some point something has to correct them back to normal population levels, they utterly refuse to do it themselves.
"It's bad news for the developing world, but then at some point something has to correct them back to normal population levels, they utterly refuse to do it themselves."
WTF is "normal population levels?"
Do you mean "sustainable?" And, do you really believe that the "developed world" is sustainable?
Since you happen to know what these population levels are/should be, then perhaps you can also tell everyone what they should be for Australia. Just wanting to check to see how good you are...
When you read the idiotic comments by people who are so certain there is no water problem, it makes it easy to understand why our societal system is so very fucked up. Every solution, or excuse for non-action, presented here is either patently absurd or completely fails to address all but a very small aspect of the overall problem.
The world is covered with water! - What a shame the vast majority of it is unsuitable for direct human consumption.
Just purify it! - Too bad that would make it too expensive for the vast majority of humans to afford.
Just build purification system for personal use. - Sadly, that is just not practical for all those city dwellers who will in short order come to your farm and kill you and take your shit.
I could go on, but the stupidity here on this topic is limitless apparently, and my time is not.
Ignorance is bliss as they say, so be happy morons.....for now.
Water fit for human consumption fell from the sky yesterday where I live. It happens a lot, believe it or not.
It happens so much that we had to build shit to get it out of the way(storm drains and such).
In the winter, it often appears as a curious white powder that has to be shoveled from my sidewalk. We have big trucks with shovels on the front to get it off the roads.
When it doesn't fall from the sky, you can build a little purification contraption that will produce daily one liter of potable water for every two and half square feet of operational space that requires no external power.
If you want to talk about idiotic comments reread your own. You've convinced yourself that there is a shortage of the most abundant substance on the the planet that falls from the fucking sky.
You clearly miss the industrial and agricultural requirements... Unless you are waxing rhapsodically about a low tech agrarian future where todays middle class is engaged in subsistence farming....
"Subsistence" means sustainable. This is how nature works. I wish people would stop using this word pejoratively.
Thanks for proving my point. I knew I could count on you!
"Water fit for human consumption fell from the sky yesterday where I live"
Must not live downwind of big industrial centers, no concern about acid rain...
"In the winter, it often appears as a curious white powder that has to be shoveled from my sidewalk. We have big trucks with shovels on the front to get it off the roads."
In frozen form (snow) it ain't exactly as easy to collect (refer to your "big trucks" comment, this vs. just putting a bucket out to collect it in the un-frozen form).
Nearly all water tends to need filtration and treatment. That's the reality. I currently have a feed off of a spring, and I'd put up this water against anything that anyone else could come up with, but I STILL have to filter and treat it; for reasons I won't go into here I have to adjust my water source- I've dusted off my knowledge on rainwater collection and am coin-flipping whether I want to go this route or whether I want to drill a well. I have more options than the majority of people on the planet...
Actually it is YOU who fail to recognize points that would lead you to your own doom
1. Purifying water is expensive? Really? Are you seriously going to throw out the word...expensive, when human beings control the concept and value of money, not to mention can create economies of scale.
You know in the 70's (and before) IBM sold computers not fit for a wrist watch for $1-5 million dollars. In the 1950's the head of IBM said, why would anyone need a computer in their home?
You are using faulty, illogical, retard speak to try to say purifying water isn't feasible. It most certainly IS feasible, but guess what it isn't the only way to get fresh water.
The other way IS proper water management. Making sure water is channeled and used, rather than wasted by being dumped into the sea.
NAWAPA XXI is one of many such plans for regions around the world, NAWAPA XXI plan covers North America. I bet you think that is unfeasible too, because you don't understand a single thing about the physical economy.
To YOU, what Charlamange did in Europe was a waste. That the Erie Canal and Panama Canal were impossible, so on and so forth. Now maybe I'm putting words in your mouth, but the true Krugman/Obama/Bush/Bernanke morons are the ones that are against things like NAWAPA.
So you have to ask yourself, are you, in your own way, a moron like those guys? Or do you have the Forrest Gump level common sense to realize that it is entirely possible.
These projects can be done around the world, and nations use real diplomacy to negotiate long term pacts to achieve these projects around the world, and you have a system of money, like that of Hamilton to achieve this goal.
Simple, easy peasy, not greasy, homemade American Pie.
"when human beings control the concept and value of money, not to mention can create economies of scale."
That would be "economies of scale in forward." Wait until you get a load of what "economies of scale in reverse" does...
"The other way IS proper water management. Making sure water is channeled and used, rather than wasted by being dumped into the sea."
I totally agree! The first rule is to retain water on your landmass for as LONG as you can. As far as water being "wasted" by going "into the sea," well... that's what nature does whether we're here or not- it's part of the hydrological cycle. Nature doesn't waste. Again, the primary goal/rule is to use the water for as long as you can before it does leave your landmass.
"These projects can be done around the world, and nations use real diplomacy to negotiate long term pacts to achieve these projects around the world, and you have a system of money, like that of Hamilton to achieve this goal. "
All is fine and dandy until there are resource shortages and then those pacts go completely out the window (ask most indigenous peoples how this goes)*. Hamilton as savior? PLEASE!
* I am pretty sure there was a "pact" that allowed Bechtel to operate in Bolivia.
Blanket statements are problematic.
What I DO find to be most scary is what Eric Sevaried warned about:
"The chief cause of problems is solutions."
Somewhere above I posted a link to a talk given by Alan Savory. And I will bring up the name Zepheniah Phiri (http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=3669) as yet another man who holds the answers, NONE of which involve complicated things or technology, all things which are PROVEN. Phiri has been said to have created Eden in his semi-arid land (you'd have to poke around for pictures- I have several in Brad Lancaster's Rainwater Harvesting book).
Ooh, Ooh, I got one:
Gravity: Can we really count on it?
To the same level that we can count on you to make asinine statements....
No, human beings simply have to stop pushing paper as a focus and start engineering a solution. Or in today's world, impossible. In the real world absent the scams of monetarism, very easy to do.
NAWAPA XXI, which has been around for about five decades now, and what President Kennedy was going to implement would well more than double our water supply. The texas aquifier would indeed start to fill up.
North America does NOT have a water shortage, it simply doesn't want to start a single, easy plan to remove this threat from North America.
Even beyond this you have desalinization. So in reality, no country near a sea in the world has a real problem, unless the oligarchy, their bankers or ivory tower wizards control your economy.
Beyond this there are already plans on the books for many other Phlino, Transaqua,
Oh and the author is wrong about the Colorado river. The water was diverted as we've been screwing the Mexicans for decades, the ONLY reason there was a flow in 1998, was because of the massive amounts of rain Arizona got, that massive amounts of water had to be released down the various tributaries. Hell it even took out some of the bridges being built in the Phoenix area.
There is no water shortage. Only a shortage of common sense.
If we created fake barriers and go look woe is me, then guess what we can have a lack of water through sheer idiocy and incompetence. Or we can actually do what is well, simple, easy, and well within our grasp to make sure fresh water simply isn't an issue. Our choice. Wars for water or water surplus, it's our choice.
Here's a great video about NAWAPA, which debunks any idiocy about shortage of North American water. Only fools like Barney Frank oppose things like this.
http://larouchepac.com/nawapa1964
Glass-Steagall
The issue isn't whether we have enough water, the issue is POTABLE water.
Larouche?
No thanks. I'll take Alan Savory's and Zephaniah Phiri's solutions over some bureaucrat's solutions. I trust small-scale farmers and people who actually devote their lives to making things happen.
Water Desalination Plants + Cold Fusion + The Overthrow of the Energy Cartel = Problem Solved
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/drinkseawater.html
http://ecat.com/
Still doesn't solve the other myriad of natural resource issues (depletion of other resources). Energy is usually applied to something... and while it might be applied to desalination (what happens to the salt?), there's still the issue of us needing to fabricate things out of other resources.