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The Path To Peak Water - The Infographic
Submitted by Visual Capitalist
The Path To Peak Water
Water is the lifeblood of humanity; it turns out it is in short supply. Like any other commodity high in demand, you should keep an eye on it for investment purposes as we get closer and closer to “peak water.”
The overwhelming majority of global fresh water is locked up as ice or permanent snow cover, making it inaccessible and severely limiting our readily available supply. The average American uses 65 to 78 gallons of water per day, while the average person in the Republic of Gambia, Africa, uses just 1.17 gallons, barely above the minimum amount needed to survive.
Not only do we consume a lot of water per day, we also use huge amounts of “virtual water.” Virtual water is defined as water we consume indirectly from goods we use, food we eat, etc. Look down at your shirt, did you know that it took 650 gallons of water to make it? If you love beef, we have some bad news for you. It takes 2,036 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef!
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water water everywhere yet not a drop to drink
Global warming will "unlock" the icecaps.
So we now have to worry about running out of water along with peak gas and methane melt in the artic and cooper depletion and uranium for electricity , no food and whatever the fuck else we have been running short of since 1860 who gives a fuck nothing changes except the next shortage. When was the last time you went anywhare and they said I'm sorry the world has run out , lets think NEVER
Its peak bullshit, by people living in a cage (that is to say, a city or town) dependent on someone else supplying THEM with water when they turn on a faucet.
They don't like the idea of being dependent on others but they really can't help themselves, the Starbucks is so close by...lol.
The Great Lakes, with 21% of the world's surface fresh water, are doing fine. As of late, Superior still had 3.7% ice coverage.
http://blogs.woodtv.com/2014/05/22/great-lakes-water-levels-64/
This is the NOAA Coastwatch GLERL cam at the S. Haven lighthouse, catching a sailboat out for an evening sail. The water levels of all five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair are now up a foot or more year-to-year, an incredible boost. Lake Michigan/Huron is up an inch in the last week, seven inches in the last month and 13" year-to-year. The level is now just 7" below the century average. Lake Superior is up a whopping 9" in the last month and 13" in the last year. Superior is now a full 7" above the long-term average. Lake Erie is up 2" in the last week, 6" in the last month and 13" year-to-year. Erie is 4" above the century average. Lake Ontario is up 3" in the last week, 9" in the last month and 12" in the past year. Ontario is 7" above the long-term average. Lake St. Clair is up 8" in the last month and up 13" in the last year. The lake is 2" above the long-term average. Lake Superior’s outflow down the St. Mary’s River into Lake Huron is forecast to remain above average into early summer.
The sea ice is doing its anti-global warming thing:
http://blogs.woodtv.com/2014/05/24/keepin-the-beer-cold/
NOAA is forecasting Arctic sea ice extent to go above average extent by late July! Antarctic sea ice extent is near a historic maximum extent. The National Snow and Ice Data Center says: “Antarctic sea ice extent for April 2014 reached 9.00 million square kilometers (3.47 million square miles), the largest ice extent on record by a significant margin. This exceeds the past record for the satellite era by about 320,000 square kilometers (124,000 square miles), which was set in April 2008". The ice cover is significantly bigger than last year and more than 2 standard deviations above average.” Antarctic sea ice extent has been growing for 30 years. Total global sea ice is well ABOVE average. After shrinking from 2009 to late 2012, total global sea ice has made a significant recovery and is now above average extent.
You folks didn't get the memo?
Most of the water we use ends up back in the environment, whether we like it or not, throuh the magic of the cloud, and advanced evaporative technologies. Cloud 1.0 I mean, actual clouds, not that Internet shit.
Most of the water we use ends up back in the environment
Unless you launch the "used water" into high earth orbit, it all ends up back in the environment.
All water ends up back in the OCEAN. The questions are how dependent we are upon fresh water stockpiles (ice), how much "fresh" water the environment will generate via evaporation from the ocean, and how much energy it takes to do things like remove salt from saltwater or harvest chunks of ice, melt them and sell the water.
Who needs water when you have an iPad?
All water ends up back in the ocean?
That dew on our vehicles every morning argues otherwise, in fact, you're breathing in water right now, just not enough to drown in...lol.
Hopefully, one never goes off wandering around in the desert without adequate water (or a compass & a map) and gets lost but if you do, at least bring a few Siltarps (weight 8oz each) the life you save may be your own...
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/dec/stories/water.html
Yes, even in the desert ;-)
That's a great link.
http://www.dailypaul.com/308070/whoa-obama-allows-great-lakes-water-to-b...
Great Lakes water being sold to China. Though it "won't make a dent," they say, the end of the line is where the difference will be made, at water falls, and rivers down stream of the lakes and the water is to dilute the gulf and other tributaries in a natural fashion, we read about it science. Capturing water before it hits the sea at this rate has to have an impact and there would be an easier way if profit was taken out of the equation. Sorry to be a debbie downer, I am cranky today :)
The Ogallala is dry in a lot of places and irrigated farms ten years ago are dryland now. That slope is exponential.
China has polluted too much of their fresh water and will need to clean it, or steal some from the Mekong and the vietnamese. The idea that they would buy our fresh water and truck it across the pacific is ...... just retarded. More likely the fight over oil in the south china sea is just the first act/opening salvo before they start damming and transferring the mekong river water to north china.
"Antarctic sea ice extent has been growing for 30 years."
So sad. Area =/= volume.
Peak oil, Peak water, please enough of this fear inducing bullshit...we're drinking the same water dinosaurs drank 65 million years ago and still filling up our gas tanks off the residual effects of their rotting carcasses!
The last time I checked, the dinosaurs didn't pay a penny for their water, you and I are going to pay out the ass for it!! We already do, and it's considered cheap by today's inflationary madhouse calculations!! The Dino's didn't have any problems getting access to unlimited quantities of water either!
The hilarity of this water bullshit is, water will be worth as much a some one can afford to pay in the future! Try going two days without water? Shit the average Ametican should go 3-4 days without food every couple months to cleanse the fast food, GMO residue and toxics out of our bodies! But water, 24 hours without water and the mind starts to get very unhinged!!
If I as a corporation or government "own" the access and mineral rights (so to speak) to that water, how much will you pay me for it???? Whatever the fuck you got! And you better hope it's enough, or you and your family, clan, or tribe, are dead!
Peak oil and peak food, could get interesting, peak water will get savage, and quick!
"Try going two days without water?"
I have a water filtration unit and have been living off my own piss for the last 5 years with no residual effects other than a little jaundice. I also draw food in from the atmosphere, an old yogi from India taught me that one. Next question...
"Drinking your own piss" ok bro, you obviously got it all figured out, but I'm sorry I thought we were talking about the human population on earth and larger inter-planetary and social-political policies of the commercialization of water, and the devastating effects of that??
But "drinking your own piss" and "eating food from the atmosphere" is I'm sure a viable option for the 8.5 billion humans minus you!
Also, keep in mind RL, this opinion by 'visual capitalist' will only fuel the parasitic creative ideas of leech infested lying politicians to tax and fee the water we drink, just like the global warming loot the masses fraud by taxing the air we exhale (CO2, now classified as a pollutant per the brain dead EPA, another lie, CO2 is a nutrient) paying these assholes to live. Our saving grace will be civil unrest to effect change once the Nation destroying bureaucrats get through with annihilating the economy. Pray the people chose liberty and freedom vs. totalitarianism.
Is that so? The idea of pricing out consumers on a rarer and rarer resource(water being made rarer and rarer due to the 'american' consumption spree), commodity etc is yet fully a part of 'american' economics.
'Americans' cant make the choice of freedom: 'americans' are running a business of extorting the weak and farming the poor.
'Americans' emergency is to keep all the bottom people choralled at the bottom, they cant allow anyone to break loose.
Welcome to an 'american' world, it is a cosy place to live, you'll see.
Why don't you go jump off a factory roof? This is why nobody likes you...
He would, but Apple made them put up nets.
Nobody? Who is that nobody? Does it include 'americans' in it? Who cares to be liked by 'americans'? Apart from 'americans' as the group is all for them...
'Americans' liking you, possibly the last thing that one human being could desire.
No argument there in your analysis, but I think the "masses" have to grasp the reality of the problem and dire resources situation (whether it's man made or "peak" something) before they can "chose" liberty and freedom!
The problem with today's world and America in particular, is no one thinks there's a god damn thing wrong or even anything to worry about for a 1000 years!! This will be our demise!
Lack of clean water is the main reason the die off after an EMP attack would be savage. No public water supply, no toilets, excessive concentrations of people. Within days an exodus of desperate people, drinking from surface water sources contaminated by crap of sick and dead people.
+100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXSZk_EpDio
Fuck Ghambians. Fuck the Coloradoans. Give me my Coooooors! They can keep their weed. No one cares about the flyover states when da' SHTF.
/sarc (maybe, sorta', kinda', maybe...)
Come try Scandinavia ;) In a few decades I plan to own a natural spring/lakeside extraction and cleaning facility running somewhere here. 1000 Liters (about 250 gallons for you metrically-limited yankees) cost's 0,50€ for domestic users. I love my 45 minute showers :D One tourist guy was absolutely amazed, when we could find un-gassed bottled water in a huge hypermarket...
Someone interested to invest?
http://en.cncnews.cn/news/v_show/32268_Secret_of_Finland%E2%80%99s_drink...
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Study+finds+tap+water+purer+than+bottle...
Fortunately, Coors has been stockpiling water by stealthily hiding it in 'beer' cans.
It's also been sequestering CO2 in the same cans
Fishermen stockpile aluminum at the bottom of our fresh water sources.
That Dihydrogen Monoxide is toxic stuff!
Best to mix a little CO2 and alchohol in.
I drink Olympia, because "It's the Water".
It is so deadly, delegates to a UN climate conference want to ban it. Honest.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Environment/2010/12/14/16543821.html
there's a video of this somewhere on the net too
Dear UN,
Please take your criminality and building and leave.
Sincerely,
An American that knows
I had a lot of olympia between 1990 and 1994. It was totally the water.
Only the Silver cans. The piss yellow ones have the beer in them.
Water is going the way of oil in that our natural resources are being sold to the highest bidder, and none of the money goes to the sheep.
knew a canadian glacial geomorphologist who specialized in alberta glacial terrain and was asked by the american gov't about 25-30 years ago to study how to move fresh water from alberta to northern califonia by using existing rocky mountain valley ways..........his answer after being bribed mounds of cash
go suck a pole, they never came back but the disquietening question remains....if they've been thinking of how to rape canada of its fresh water for the last 30 years, what's the answer they've come up with. And no muppets...invasion still doesnt move the fucking spice so put your glocks back in your gonch
Oh please, we're pumping entire rivers over the Sierra Nevada 24/7 since decades now. Rivers that used to drain to the pacific out their mouth no longer do. The entire flow, just about, passes through human uses. Here in the PRK, we are meant to be rationing water. The amount wasted by residences is freaking staggering so it will be a breeze to meet those targets. The main challenge is making agriculture save, as if they're raking it out in a desert, using very well maintained drip systems and so forth. But then the el niño, la Nina thing will reverse for a few seasons of great fucking skiing and snowboarding and those who spent too much on that will regret it
LTER, cry me a river, pun intended!
Not only is it the most integral life sustaining resource that can now be made profitable and privatized by the banks to be sold to the highest bidders, it also can be used as a political cudgel to deprive an already war ravaged Country bringing it to it's knees!...
Who says you need chemical weapons of mass destruction to finish them off?... Wonder if Erdogan got his cues for doing this from Netanyahu and "Barry"?
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Water_Wars%3A_Ankara_suspends_pumping_Eup...
Don't tell these guys that you can build power plants and desalination plants...
There must be scarcity! Water project, meet depleted uranium.
Signed, Your Beloved Leaders
Ofcourse. We'll use the depeleted uranium from our nuclear reactors, that we use to power our desalinsation plants, to blow up your desalination plants. After all, that is how freedom and democracy are protected.
Dont they already use seawater to cool down certain nuclear power plants? It seems logical that they could use the same power plant to distill seawater.
Do you know how much water is required to run a power plant? Do you understand that peak everything (we have only in the last few hundred years of our history discovered that we are on a finite planet with no capacity to transit to other places in the foreseeable future) means that the collapse is not linear. It is exponential and multi-dimensional. Think about it: you are saying the equivalent of "well then let them eat cake," because it will require more and more natural resources and energy to seek out energy and natural resources just to survive. It is an implosion. We are done. It is going to be a long slog from here. I am all for the challenge if we could get these corrupt and insane assholes out of the way. It would beat a culture of the Kardashians, anyway.
Do you know where the water goes that is used to run a power plant? Do you know where it usually comes from?
Yes and yes. I'm not following you if you could elaborate. To save time, if you are saying that water is not used to make electricity, then that is wrong. I'm not sure of what you are implying on the second.
Ever hear of the "water cycle"? We aren't destroying this water we're using, it ends up back in the environment "through the magic of the cloud", except in this case it's Cloud 1.0 - actual clouds.
Does the water cease existing after being used in a powerplant?
Does it become contaminated?
Can it be recovered?
Water, once heated, cannot be allowed to cool or it becomes just gross. Ever take a swig of your coffee after it has cooled? The cooling destroys the water. Try to reheat it? Stil gross. The water in it is ruined. Fortunately, when you pour it down he drain, it passes into an alternate universe where it can't contaminate our precious planetary fluids.
Do you know how much water is generated in a typical power plant through the combustion process?
Humans generate more water than they consume when metabolizing carbohydrates. That's the "hydrate" bit of the word.
No, it isn't. The "hydrate" part of "carbohydrate" is hydrogen attached to carbon (not oxygen). The separation of oxygen from hydrogen to fuel metabolism is a net loss of chemical water in humans, not a net gain.
Do you know how much water is required to run a hydro plant?
The same amount that comes out the back of it, destroyed I tell you, in the chopping blades of a vicious turbine, after a terrifying death plunge through the standpipe of doom.
Ok I'm listening with desalination plants, the part I'll find the most interesting is the "power plant" solution you recommend?
We are already spending 1.5 dollars to get 1 dollar worth of energy in this Nat Gas shale fracking game! The taxpayers are of course picking up the imbalance, so the company still makes money and "we" create incentive, blah blah blah, but the reality is still 1.5 units to produce 1 unit is a lose lose situation that will blow up over time, guaranteed! No exceptions!
So water, which was a free proposition or near free in the past, both on a consumption and agricultural, food producing level, will now cost what???
That's the million or maybe trillion question going forward, and anyone thinking the current global economic models and systems have this handled or even priced in at .5%, is fucking crazy!!
It's not so much, do we have the tech or know how to tackle it, it's what the fuck is going to be the cost, where will this mystery money come from, and who's going to pay for it all???
On the good side of desalination, we can use all that extra salt to cure / preserve meat instead of wasting electricity freezing it.
Like oil, water can be gotten to, it is just the price that will limit how much and who can get it. Indeed, most is locked in ice. Great rivers like the Siberian rivers also are not easy to access. Water is growth, no water, then economic growth is limited. China may run into water limits long before energy becomes a problem. Here is a chanc for Russia and China to tap the Siberian rivers, which flow the wrong way. Except for the great Amur, which forms a border between them in places. Amur might be worth the investment.
I live on Lake Superior, the water is fresh, clean enough on most days to drink from the lake, though summer brings bacteria near shores. Bird droppings being the problem.
Some years back a water company looking to cash in on Asian demand brought a small tanker into the lake, and attempted to load it as a legal trial case. They were stopped by the US and Canada, they company lost it's case, and for now, nobody can fill tankes or run pipelines outside the region. Since Canada has a say, this stops all the pressure from dry mid western areas with their pipeline ideas.
Canada and the Great Lakes US are both water rich, we are Arabs of water. Not that I believe average people will see any profits from it. Still, these waters are valuable, and as pressure mounts, it may happen. The thing about Lake Superior water is that it is so clean it is really drinking water quality right from the lake. High quality. I hate bottled waters and any tap water I have ever tried. It just tastes so good out our taps here on the shore.
"Say hello to Arizona"(and Utah I might add.)
Slowly but sure all the "peak everything" bubbles are being blown away. "The last post they make is at zerohedge."
I mean the Columbia River is absolutely huge as not just a water source but as an energy producer.
If the USA really does go all in on micro grids and wind power (and equity and debt markets this forgiving put many a monopoly at risk) these prices will collapse and the bankruptcies will be epic indeed.
I've already seen the forty percent corrections in the portfolio YTD.
General Electric is still down 67% (it was down 90% at one time) and makes Steve Ballmer look like a trading genius.
I think free internet is right around the corner actually.
Don't even get me started on what will be public transportation in a couple of years. (Just google "Google" in case you all are wondering.)
When steering wheels are outlawed, only outlaws will have steering wheels.
Me? I aim to misbehave.
Another double-plus good.
And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAoSknxwd-k
My uncle has a country place that no one knows about. He's keeping a sweet red barchetta in it, and has a huge gas tank with Stabil 50 Year gas preserver in it. Sometimes I am gonna elude the Eyes and hop the turbine freight to far outside the wire where my white haired uncle waits. He lives for letting me joyride out there even though I always get chased by those gleaming alloy air cars. He knows I'll always lose them at the single lane bridge, and they'll never work out where he lives and never capture and torture me. Im too smart.
C'mon El Nino
I'm no scientist or anything, but exactly how do you get rid of water? That gallon of water used to make orange juice still exists, it's just orange juice. Then it's consumed, and becomes part of the water content of some juice drinker. Then it's urinated out to become part of the ground water. Sun evaporates it out, becomes rain, waters an orange tree, etc. Again, I just have a high school science education, but I'm calling bullshit here. I suppose there is an argument for peak population here. I wonder how many gallons of water are contained in 7 billion people?
I am with you man.
Every spring the well in my backyard blows the seals and pours water on the lawn for a month. Then at the dryest depths of summer the level in the well drops by 2 or 3 feet.
This spring every resevoir in the vicinity of NYC is overflowing its banks. Every time it rains an inch we get dire flood warnings. If we're running out of water it is camoflauged very well.
The problem is that the water isn't always where it is needed. Like where your food is grown.
Pipe it in like oil and natural gas, problem solved!
The EndOfTheWorld stuff on ZH is getting pretty outlandish. Only problems are presented, never solutions. Population and resource allocation problems have been around FOREVER. Yet humanity as a whole has gotten BETTER not worse at meething these challenges. Reclamated water for irrigation, new pipelines from where the "good" water is. Education of 3rd worlders so they know they can't fuck their way to prosperity.
On that last note, I've been watching the starving Africans for years wondering why you don't just trade them sterilization for food and supplies. Could have solved the problem a long time ago. Eugenics by choice ain't a bad thing...
So much fantasy in this post.
Humanity as a whole has gotten better? No, 'americans' have made their lot better using certain ways that are less and less available.
It is rather funny to play the humanity card ('americans' cant prevent themselves from doing that as they have hijacked humanity through things like their natural rights theory) when the data give that some human beings use just enough water to sustain themselves.
Common sense gives that billions of people before achieved the same or more.
It is the direct consequence of having starving people around, they make that whole humanity betterment appear for the fantasy it is, common sense impose that, as starving the second last stage, death being the last, it means that human beings reach that point before. Either that or they wont be human beings.
Solving an overconsumption problem by getting rid of the non or extremelly low level consumer: it is another fantasy 'american' have the secret of.
Of course, it aims at hiding the reality as it is: by getting rid of the symptom, 'americans' avoid showing the cause. Since they are the cause...
'Americans' cant endure anything (including people) that are living proofs of the nature of 'americanism'
By getting rid of people who show that 'americanism' did not better humanity as a whole, well, they wish they could maintain the fallacy that 'americanism' did better humanity.
Sterilization: why so? People in power, even when they are 'american', are forced to deal in reality.
The reality is that people who just sustain themselves are one step from extinction. It is useless to manufacture that extinction otherwise than by the forces of the system put in place 'americans'.
'Americans' have established a pyramidal social order on the world scale. Pyramids never collapse by the top, they collapse by the bottom.
And each time the level at the bottom is crushed by the weight of the higher level, the top sees the ground coming closer.
Welcome to an 'american' world.
Could you have said any less with more words? If you doubt humanity is in a better place today than in history I point you to our starving proto-homo-sapien prdecessors or perhaps those who toiled under absolute monarchy which is a wee bit worse than our oligarchy of today.
All you doomers never engage debate on advances in technology that we can't possibly predict. Who's to say nuclear fusion will not be harnessed within 50 years? Abundant energy would destroy your over consumption leads to end of species hypothesis.
Apparently, not enough words.
Humanity is a better place?
What humanity?
Humanity under the 'american' imperium is such a better place that 'americans' commonly crave for getting rid of human beings whose mere existence proves 'americans' wrong in their claim that humanity is a better place.
How that craving makes humanity a better place is stuff made of 'american' things.
fool! we will 'solve this' problem using BITCOIN! 'Satoshi' is not anAmerican!
The water cycle is a figment of your imagination. Water is a non-renewable resource. Didn't you get the talking points? This was right under "Carbon Dioxide is a Pollutant." It's the new science, yo, 97% of globalists agree.
Globalists? Who's that? 'Americans' by nature, are globalist.
The water cycle, as applied in the another post, is indeed a figment of imagination, it is fantasy.
As a result of the 'american' hubris that led them to claim they could overcome the environment, 'american' societies rely on man made water cycles.
It is the sustainability of these cycles that should be assessed, not the natural cycles.
'Americans' declared a couple of centuries ago that being constrained by the environment was the hallmark of inferior races.
Them, 'americans', as the master race, was not subjected to the contingency of the natural world.
Trying to demonize the diverse inhabitants of an entire continent or two? "Master race?" What's next, blaming all of the world's problems on "The Jews"? Or is it those evil "Islamists"? Maybe the male is the problem, or old people, or young people. Hey, how about whitey? Stir up some racial tension? Nah, you're right... time to convince people "Americans" are the problem. And it's so easy, what with the criminal acts of the pillaging ruling class, both domestically and abroad.
Not every German living under Hitler was evil. Most were good people subject to the attrocities of war, and that's the approximate state of the American people right now.
Again, I just have a high school science education, but I'm calling bullshit here. I suppose there is an argument for peak population here. I wonder how many gallons of water are contained in 7 billion people?
______________________________________________
So funny.
Argument for peak population? Inequality comes with a price, a price 'americans' are not willing to pay in certain cases, mainly when that inequality puts in light how much 'americans' are responsible for a certain state in the world.
The raw data give it though: there cant be peak population as people are inequal. Oh, yeah, in this case that 'americans' like to see people equal, even when they are obviously not.
The 'american' middle class overpopulate the world, others not.
On the natural cycle of water, it was another good one. 'Americans' told they were that kind of special because they could overcome the environment.
In this regard, natural cycles should not constraint 'americans' as they can overcome the environment.
The orange example might be worth for some third worlders, it is not as 'americans' use water in various ways that require heavy water facility treatment in order to return to human usage.
Without that treatment, water is taken out of the circuit.
In 'american' societies, water requires man made sterilization processes.
Overcoming the environment, it is what leads to stuff like the mad cow.
The rationale was simple and similar to water cycle. Cows eat proteins as they eat grass? Why not short cut the cycle and feed them directly with animal proteins as those animal proteins were recycled in the process of making grass anyway?
Welcome to an 'american' world.
Free Tibet asshole, or are the Himalayan glaciers too important to give back?
'Americans' are at the doors of central Asia. So why bother? If the water in the mountains is needed, they will take.
'Americans' have drained the 'americas', they have drained Africa, they finished draining Europe. Remains Central Asia and well, mission accomplished.
Pretty sure someone tried that before...
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.” - Dune
Siphon the Pacific Ocean into Death Valley and distill it into fresh water along the way. They could put a sign up, "Come see a pair-a-dice on your way to Las Vegas."
But no. Nobody listens to Q99X2.
Just let it pour out to a couple inches depth at a time in Death Valley and let it evaporate there, and then seed the clouds when they hit somewhere useful. Nature's distillery.
Notice that 69% is used for irrigation for FOOD.
A lot of modern irrigation uses oil, and so does tillage, harvesting, fertilization, pest control.
Most pesticides are petroleum based (bug killer, weed killer) and to create the fertilizer requires a lot of energy.
Peak humanity is going to be caused by our house-of-cards food system which relies on OIL.
Water is neck-and-neck with oil, but you can't survive more than 3-4 days without water.
Love your posts but can't disagree enough with this one.
Ever since the 90's "the USA has gone green."
For sure fertilizers are very water hungry...but covering what once was a desert with "Amber waves of grain" has indeed created a climactic change in climate...to something with a lot more moisture content.
Also you have livestock...that shit creates entire ecosystems that didn't used to exist.
You do have a tremendous problem of scorpions and snakes...predators in general...but that's because there is an explosion in life out there.
"Keep the pets indoors" as they say.
The problem remains the dollar and MASSIVE outsourcing. When combined with the stupendous debt creation it's really hard to argue that "the problem here is that we still haven't created enough inflation."
That's with a one hundred percent increase in energy costs in just a year!
Thanks disabledvet.
I'm not talking about lawns or suburbia, but the corporate farms that no one sees (unless you fly over them and look down).
Post WWII mechanization began, in concert with petroleum based pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers.
Large corporate farms have not gone green, they rely on GMO mono-cultures and machinery.
Acerage farmed hasn't changed much, but the intensity and yield/acre based on oil have.
The world population has swelled based upon it; upon mechanization and oil.
If the oil doesn't flow or gets too expensive it will make the Irish potato famine look like a picnic.
This is just about corn but it is similar for most other food crops post WWII - look at the chart:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/16/a-brief-history-of-u-s-corn-in-one-chart/
p.s. - This is not a global warming rant, just an observation that the system is unsustainable long run. It's akin to bacteria and antibiotics, we will run out of options - and nature culls the herd.
IDIOT.
You're so ignorant on this, it hurts. I usually like your comments, but I'm a farmer, and you are absolutely clueless and spouting falsities about things you do not understand, know or comprehend.
At least 97% of farms in America are family owned. We DO grow lots of gmos - to better manage the crops against weeds and bugs and diseases. Most of the yield gains are from genetic breeding, not gmos - gmos actually have a slight yield drag vs. non gmos. Many farmers grow both gmo and conventional. We spend a little more to manage non gmos, but get a little better price in most cases.
Technology has improved significantly. Computers can map everything we do, and we can adjust seed/fertilier/other "inputs" on the fly, based on what that section of soil needs.
NO ONE monocultures. NO ONE. Unless they want to go out of business -- and how "sustainable" is that?
Especially for the friggin farmer and his family, and the communities we're a part of!
Every farmer rotates crops - even in "fly-over country" -- corn this year on the east side, beans on the west. Next year, the opposite. You get better yields, healthier soils and need less fertilizer. Many of us use cover crops, and depending where you're at, you can add wheat, cotton, sorghum and many other crops to the rotational mix.
Larger equipment REDUCES energy use vs. 40 years ago. Newer tractors can run up to 100 percent biodiesel -- a natural, renewable, low-emisson, locally-grown fuel source.
Go google this and start to wake up and stop buying the socialist line on farming.
I'm stopping now, but could go on. and on. and on.
Get a clue, please.
Aye, no doubt you rotate crops.
90%-97% of farms are "family owned" but that includes family partnerships and family corporations.
I appreciate your perspective from the field. My argument was more about population numbers and acreage intensity utilizing oil and needing water.
At some point we won't be able to keep up with the need for food in relation to the supply of land, oil, and water.
It's hard to find non-advocacy research one way or another but this study concludes corn is increasing in monoculture:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167880912004379
There was nothing socialist or environmental wacko about what I was saying; inputs and outputs and end runs was my point.
At some point the population will be too great for the amount of arable land, water, and food grown.
Thanks for farming and growing food.
I here what you're saying but when we live in a world where lettuce grown in California has been contaminated with E.coli (fuck me how that even happens) and results in a recall all over the US and Canada I call BULLSHIT on this industrialized mega-farm-fuckery leviathan that we call our food supply chain. In my part of this world I've seen the amount of farmland increase by orders of magnitude in the past few decades but I've also seen the ratio of really fat stupefied fuckers explode even the ones that do hard physical labor every day, health problems have exploded and produce nutritional values have fallen - unless you grow it yourself as we did when the family farm was exactly that the family farm - no corporate sponsors or more accurately no corporate slave masters.
Feed lots and mega farms that is the vast majority source of the poison that gets sold at today's supermarkets.
The sad truism has always been that farmers are the hardest working and the lowest paid members of society while the inverse is true of the banksters and politicians and for that I have always felt the deepest sympathy but that does not change the fact that our food production system is simply another unsustainable enterprise of corporate greed.
EB, good post. Read this one by Richard Heinberg. A really good detailed description.
What will we when the oil runs out
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/05.14/whatwillweeat.html
Wasn't peak water also here 10 or 15 years ago?
Yes, it's another scare tactic to keep the people all a'twitter, just like the other "peak" warnings. The only "peak" we should be concerned about is peak government. Therein lies the majority of our problems.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Ogallala_change...
Poster DietCokeAf. Mentioned this video by Dr. Albert Bartlett.
One of the most important thing to understand when looking at water use, energy use, or population growth, etc. is in this short video is the best there is. (His dry humor is really good)
Dr. Albert Bartlett The Exponential Function - YouTube
? 10:59?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
The only shortage of water is in areas where people complain if they can't fill their pools or water their lawns (cough ... L.A. ... cough). Most cities get their water from public utilities, and just like all other utilities there is an increase in price to cover wages, pensions and healthcare ... NOT because water is a scarce commodity. But if you say it in the press enough times then you can raise the crap out of rates and no one can complain, because it's a scarce commodity.
I worked for USAID in Jordan trying to raise the amount of water per capita, because as this article also falsely claims "you can't have a high standard of living without high water use". That's cart before the horse. USAID wanted to raise the amount of available water thinking standard of living would follow, but it's the standard of living that pays for making water available and finds uses for it. Beef make take 2000 gallons per pound, but it's not treated water being drunk out of a tap by a cow. It's muddy range water from a stockpond, which California might want and file a law suit over but it doesn't really support the premise of the article.
Water is necessary for life, and since TPTB know this, guess what they're going to charge you more for? All you preppers better add a solar powered well to your Armmagedon kits.
So this article expects me to believe that water is being sequestered in such a manner it can no longer evaporate and be reclaimed again? Seems legit.
There's plenty of water, but some needs to be desalinated. There's even a lot of fresh water, it's just 1,000 miles or more from where it's needed, and it's generally cheaper to desalinate (with today's technology, and assuming you're near an ocean) than to move it 1,000 miles.
Desalination is plenty cheap enough for urban water supplies, the cheaper water is only needed for agricultural, and then industrial, purposes. Los Angeles is probably the poster child for too many people for the natural water supply, and has zero desalination at this point - but is actually in reasonable shape for another year of drought based on decent planning. Come on, El Nino!
Finally these "it takes six zillion gallons to raise a cow" is misleading, as others have said, to a first approximation water is neither created nor destroyed and 99.9% of it gets reused without muss or fuss - cow drinks, cow pisses, water evaporates, water rains back down, cow drinks again. It's nature's way.
So what am I blithering about? All urban costal cities should get going on desalination to a smaller or larger extent. And maybe get moving on some thorium reactors to power them - although with a little overcapacity desalination actually matches up well with solar and wind, use it when it's there and wait a while when it's not. Come on now, some solar and wind-powered desal plant can turn a profit just selling tours and t-shirts to the green tourists ... until they become common. Or you can let the kids run on a treadmill to help, charge them $20/hour for the honor, that's the way to win! Charge $40/hour for fat kids until they get thin, for "motivation". Actually I think that will be required by Obamacare.
And once it is gone game over. There will never be another drop to be had and we will all shrivel up like a raisin.
Right????
Gosh pretty graphics make big fuckin' lies more believable.
Wait a fuckin minute here. "The overwhelming majority of global fresh water is locked up as ice or permanent snow cover, making it inaccessible and severely limiting our readily available supply."
So which fucking way is it? Either global warming will solve the problem or there is no global warming.
Fucking liars and propagandists all over the fucking place.
Where do you think the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will flow to when they melt? Kansas?
What are you saying - PERMANENT isn't permanent? You fucking GW cultists are so fucking stupid it's amazing. One of the bogus 97%'ers.
Nothing is eternal permanent. I suspect they mean seasonal permanent - snow that doesn't melt every summer and get replaced every winter.
Peak Water, probably not. I have 2 naturally occuring springs here in Maine, both licensed by Maine DHHS for sale to the public. Anyone interested we would be more than happy to sell you water.
The water tests to be some of the cleanest water in the United States with a low value of ~20 PPM TDS. Each spring is surrounded with several hundred acres of heavily forested hills/mountains with little to no development in the area now or planned in the distant future.
You guys do realize that $1.00 bottle of water at the local convienence store costs the bottler about $0.05 to make and fill, including cap, label and blown lightweight PET bottle. The markup comes from transportation, distributor and store profit.
In the coming months you will see a new paperboard carton launch with water.. That was supposed to be our contract but the brand owner backed out during contract negotiations.
So, you're saying we can use more water, at an exponentially rising rate, with unlimited future increases in consumption?
Not to take our ever wandering minds from the latest gadget or fashion or trend, but, collect and spend as you like, water alone is the energy.
No water, no energy, no life.
Go ahead and laugh.
My best bet for the next fifty years would be desalination investment, but the caveat to that is the recycle problem. No matter how you look at it there is a finite amount of fresh water. Those systems have to have replenish and have water recycle parameters built in. And agriculturaly, underground water zones have been bought up. We're approaching a period where water is not replenished fast enough for the populaton expansion. We're talking 18 billion people folks, by 2050. If you bring more in through comet capture, you seriosly disrupt the ecosystem. So that's out. And too costly.
We have to equalize the use of water to the recapture and return to the use quality cycle.
The question really then becomes, how long were we meant as a species to survive, and how long can we be so really stupid to not recognize our own demise.
Just because we needed a drink, or a long shower, or the kids were hot.
Water is the sweet liquer of life. Do you get it?
Water is and will be as any metal, oil, or toil in human terms.
Sit on your hands, wait and see.
You'll eventually die of thirst.
Do you really think that if the population expands faster than the replenishment rate of fresh water that the human race will die? Seriously? Some humans may die, but the entire race will not.
Malthus called, he wants his tinfoil hat back.
Long term this is really not a problem.
Secure enough for yourself & those who over-populate will release their water back to the Earth sooner than you will when they die sooner.
Water is polluted, drink beer............
Does this water disappear forever?
Something tells me not.
How can it be gone forever?
It maybe moved or transported from place to place, but I would be willing to bet that we have the same amount we have always had.
Of course I live in the mountains and drink out of the up river side and deposit on the lower side. Would imagine my impact on the water supply is nil, or almost nil. Of couse I do like beer so that water comes from somewhere else so I am a net addition to my little micro climate. Maybe the down river neighbors should pay me for adding to the water supply...................
How much water do you need to make Soylent Green? Probably not much.
One word: DESALINATION
Peak bullshit!!! Just checked the rain barrels they are clear full. If people chose to live in inhospitable places and they are not smart enough to distill salt water which covers 80% of the planet why should I feel sorry for them?
No reason distillation has to be expensive.
This guys using Fresnel lens to do it.
http://www.greenpowerscience.com/SEAWATER.html
I think a few solar tracking mirrors focused on one Fresnel lens focusing on a pot could do the job quick.
Of course I don't have a PHD in B.S. Peak Hysteria.
Quit talkin sense would ya, you're gonna cornfuse dem GW cultists
Hey, did anyone notice that this is a water planet? A few LFTR's hanging on the coastline and powering some DESAL plants might be a good thing to look into...
Yeah, more nuclear plants, that'll solve all our problems.
We still need to put the salt somewhere & that's a lot of liquid radioactivity near liquid water. Fukushima's already pretty bad.
We should use nuclear inland & use tidal & solar for coastal desalination. There's no shortage of tidal power to use for this.
All around the world water is being privatized because there is great money to be made out the thirst of others.
500$ worth of solar panels + Water from the Ocean = Peak Water Theory Stupid
Sure you wont be taking 100 Gallon Showers, but you will have water, throw in a rain-catch system . . . win
It's only peak water if humanity is completely lazy beyond hope.
Did you read the report on EROEI on solar panels in Spain? 2.45:1 under best conditions, assuming they work for the full 25 years. I guess you're still doubling the energy and outsourcing the pollution to China, so there are some benefits, but solar panels are no panacea.
I hate when author of such a crap article underestimates zerohedge community regarding basic math skils. It bothers me that for the author there is actually 100,3% as a part of something . HE could have written 69,7,% or 29,7% besides I can not see reliable sources for such a number. This kind of shitty analysis really annoy me.
Well, this is one that I am qualified to comment on because I have a unique perspective. I do irrigation work and I have for two decades, in one facet or another, just because of the nature of my background. Golf course, commercial, residential. I have dealt with all of those types of systems. I do not talk about it much because, well, it really isn't funny to talk about unless you are actually IN irrigation. Who wants to hear shop talk? We all have tales of woe to tell but that is life as it is.
On this thread, I do think I will be on topic as irrigation is listed in Tyler's post. That is a fair point so I feel the need to make one myself. I will only speak of what happened to me today but could write volumes on the experiences I have had over the last two decades and I postulate that .govs are the biggest proponents of the "water crises" and yet are part an parcel to the problem itself. This should be no surprise to anyone but is worth telling about.
Your biggest wasters of water are the .gov itself and large corporations. I bring a camera to prove it but I don't care anymore because it is that bad. I have already been in trouble for exposing shit like this but I will take a shot again because it really needs to be said. Let's just pretend we have a bunch of new Home Cheapo accounts.(we do) I was against that to begin with because we only had one last year and that was one too many. If you personally hire me to start your and maintain your irrigation system, then I will do that for you. I will tell you where the problems are and give you a cost estimate to fix it and I will fix it but I am not doing it for free. You get what you pay for.
These Home Cheapos are not like that at all. There is a whole shitload of paperwork that needs to be filled out for any fucking little thing that needs to be pre-approved before anyone does any actual service to the system. These corporate idiots only want to enter it in their system on so that they can report that the system is "on".
Life in irrigation does not work that way and water freezes in Minnesota. I came across a Home Cheapo system today that we had not had before and determined that no one blew out the system before freeze up last fall. The records indicated that the system was blown out in 2010, 2011, 2012 and that was the end of it. That entire is fucked and it is all under parking lots and concrete. There is no system anymore except for a clock.LOL It's shattered and buried under parkings lots and concrete. The game is over. You do not HAVE AN IRRIGATION SYSTEM ANYMORE!
"We can't pay you unless the system is on". OK then, turn the clock to on and shut off the water supply. Did you think my mileage was for free? The one store alone is going to be over $100,000 and we found two more stores in similar shape. But do you want to know what was really leaking? It is the fire control valves. It is not only Home Cheapo but every apartment or HOA that I go to. I have not stood in a dry room yet this year. Those complexes with swimming pools are full of leaks. You know that you have to have like 500 state licenses to fix on any of the swimming pool crap but that is not what I have. I have the other 500 licenses.
The other day when I was starting a system, and before I even turned the clock on or opened the valves, I got the age old, "The irrigation is leaking" and you should fix it. I had to reply that I had not even turned the water on yet so how could an irrigation leak be possible if there is no water in the pipes. Yet the leak is near the swimming pool but the maintenence guy said it was leaking irrigation. For fuck sakes. I stand there and have to listen to that shit. What do you even say? I am pro-naked women and such but they are always women who say these things. In the woman's defense it is usually some maintenance guy who is afraid of a shovel who is an idiot.
Everyone blames water usage on irrigation. My comeback is that those who bitch are cheap fuckers and don't want to spend a nickel. Irrigation is a bitch and always has been. Irrigation is not the latest I-phone app. It is old school common sense. What the fuck is the matter with people? It can be fixed but you have to spend money. No one wants to spend any money so I guess just leave the fucking system off and do what you want to do. I really do not care if you have a green lawn or not. If you want a green lawn then you have to pay. If not, you can fuck off and drink beer all day and water with a garden hose or just drink beer and not water anything. I could care less.
The one other thing I would like to add is about the slurry you see on the floors in some of places we go; Home Cheapo in particular here but they are not all consistent. They all have deisel generators somewhere near the back of the store. Sometimes they are outside and sometimes they inside. I have yet to see one of those generators that is not leaking fuel. The indoor ones are obvious due to the smell. WTF? It forces you, by sheer common sense, to at least look. These machines(engines) are all tagged and it is usually by .gov inspectors or some out of state company. I stare at that shit in wonder while cycling the irrigation clock. Oh, look what pretty rainbow colors you get with diesel and water flowing down the floor drain. I do not leave leaks leaking so it is not from me. I can't touch the Fire Department stuff though. I am not touching any of their shit even though it is common sense to fix. If anything were to go wrong after that then it would be all my fault.
Irrigation? Yeah, right. We have our own issues but it is not all us. It is not OK to leave leaky shit all over in our circle. Most every irrigation guy knows that fact. If he doesn't, fire him and hire someone who knows what they are doing if you can find one. Start with your local fire department and request a fix of some leaks if you really care.
Heh, you would be horrified at the last irrigation system that I put in at my place. It's simply not buried deep enough to withstand a hard freeze, and we do get them here. On the flip side, the pressure tank's bladder is gone, and I just hook up an air compressor to it and blow the lines out when I am done for the season. It is this way because I had previously moved yards and yards and yards of dirt, and the thought of digging a real trench just rubbed me the wrong way, and I don't mind firing up the air compresser once per year. (Actually more, because, with the bladder gone, I need to keep the tank charged so that the pump doesn't short cycle.) OTOH, 2 years ago, my irrigation well went out, and I drove the new well by hand. Talk about a fucking workout. But that was something I was intent on doing right.
If I was helping a ZHer that would be one thing. I will be the first one to admit that irrigation only guys are odd ducks. Iriigation is not the only thing that I know about. For this purpose, irrigation is very unique to region. Frost depth is considered to be 48 inches here and no one buries pipe that deep so we blow the water out. I am not digging four feet deep because, come on, that is full retard.
There are many different ways to set up an irrigation system and I have my way and others have theirs own way. I am not saying that you have to do it a certain way or one way is better than another. One thing is for sure and we all agree no matter how we do it, the system needs to be blown out before winter sets in. There is no "maybe".
I have seen some pretty bad irrigation things in my years but I have never seen anything like this one that I saw today. I have fixed some pretty fucked up systems but if you let your full of water PVC mainline freeze there is nothing I can do for you. The game is over at that point. There is just no way to repair it. And you know all of the valves are blown apart. The only thing good might be the wire but why bother?
That is pretty cool that you drove your own well. To me, that means you know how much fun some of this irrigation crap can be. I would bet that you sealed up any leaks that might have happened and not been a corporate bitch. That is your own system.
All irrigation really is is getting water to where it needs to go for the right amount of time. There do not need to be 87 leaks everywhere, AND a minaline break, for fuck sakes. Not only that, at the one Cheapo, the whole frozen system is shot. You can't recover from that one for free. The "get a great deal" game is over. These morons have thousands of yards of shattered PVC under pavement. Nothing can be done to salvage that shitshow as it is just that bad.
I do not know what else to say. I guess I can say this, we hve another Home Cheapo up the road about 14 miles and there is another mainline break there as well as the fact that 12 of 14 zones won't turn on. Perfect. I say we drop these fucking accounts since they are subbed anyway.
tell them they can just wait til all those leaks start moving the soil underneath the pavement.
talk about sinkholes :)
LOL. You are correct Sir. I can just see it happening now. 80,000 gallons of water per day filling up what I call mosquito ponds and undermining the pavement at the same time. It is even better that corporate in some other state is making the decisions because they know best of course. I'm sure this will be an adventure and if I know big box corporates, and I do, they will say, "Just fix what you can see visibly see leaking" and not anything else. I hope I am there when the first semi-trailer breaks through the first massive sinkhole, rolls down the hill into a shitty mudhole and the driver gets exsanguinated by mosquitoes.
For everybody who is complaining that it is impossible for there to be water problems, just keep in mind that the Colorado river sometimes dumps NO water into the ocean because we use that much of the water. I live in a desert, so I happen to know a little something about water issues. Go into a meeting in the southern half of the state with farmers talking about water rights, and it's a safe bet that everybody in the room is being sued by or suing another person in the room over water rights. I'm good to go on water right where I am, but 30 miles west of me, some dumbass out of state developer wants to build a community for 80,000 people, and the water out there will need to be pumped from several thousand feet below the ground and desalinated. That kind of pumping and desalinization takes energy. A good deal of it. The water would be very, very expensive, but I'm betting the dumbasses are going to lose their asses on this project.
Of course, we could use our water more intelligently, i.e. crops that take 5 acre feet per year could be replaced with drought adapted crops. I'm sure that some enterprising farmer could convince people that tepary beans are the latest fad, even though they were a staple in my neck of the woods before European influence caused a switch to common beans. They're the most drought adapted crop in the world and can be dry farmed in the Sonoran desert. I've not tried them yet, but I hear they are good. (I've got some growing, haven't watered them in 1 1/2 weeks and they've perked up, even though it's been getting up to the upper 80s/lower 90s. I'm going to see if the weeds around them die before I have to water again.)
vaq, check out the anasazi beans, i think you can get them at Native Seeds/Search. tried them one 1 year in high-heat, high-wind, drought-like conditions. the only bean that held up.
that's a great tip on observing nearby weeds to identify drought-resistance. another reasons not to weed unless absolutely necessary.
got any landrace observations this year so far?
Funny you mention Anasizi beans. I ate some last night. And I have some planted, along with Zuni Gold, Bolitas and regular pintos.
As for the landrace observations, I'm trying for some heat resistant brassicas. It's not that they will die if it gets hot, it's that the cabbage won't form heads, the kohlr abi won't form kohl rabi, etc... I'm simply killing everything that doesn't at least partially do what it should. Same with raddishes. People say that you shouldn't save radishes that bolt the first year. For spring gardens in NM, there is no such thing. Once I get something that works, I'll work on it being edible.
Isn't water that is dumped in the ocean "wasted" What is wrong with the Colorado not wasting water?
And what is the difference between "drought-adapted crops" and GMOs?
Remember 5th grade science class? Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. There is exactly the same amount of water as there was 20 million years, less anything used (and unreturned) from the various space programs.
Go smoke another one.
Not being dumped into the ocean means that people who use that water cannot use more. It means that the limit has been reached. It means that, should there be several years of drought in the Colorado River basin, people won't be getting enough freash water. Not all water is fungible.
And GMO is a very specific thing. Like splicing specific genes into the DNA of an organism, where those spliced genes come from other species. So, what is the difference between a plant that has a fish gene spliced into its DNA and a bean that is bred from a plant that originated in the desert? I'll let you figure that one out for yourself.
Use your fucking head.
EDIT: And remember E=MC2. Energy cannot be created and destroyed, but matter can be changed into energy. Matter can be destroyed. It's how atomic bombs work.
To El Vaquero:
One need not split the atom to prove your point. Simply apply an electric current to water and it will split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Apply a flame and they will recombine into water.
This is a silly article, what's next? "The Path To Peak Gold"???
Water and Gold won't leave this planet anytime soon
Neither will the government.
Thank god most people recognize this fear-mongering bullshit for what it is.
BTW - Have a nice glass of water. Then think about all the fish that had sex in it. :P
NSA uses 1.2 to 1.7 millions of gallons of water per day to cool the computer equipment iin the 100,000 sq ft facility in Utah. Shutter that facility to save water.
They can just bottle it and sell "NSA Warm Water!", with a rat's eyeball floating in it.
Peak water is only a concern if you are trying to builld yet another uneeded golf course in the desert in Arizona. It might also be a concern if you live in the Saraha or the Jordan Valley.
But for the rest of the planet, there is lots of water. As long as the sun continues to shine on the earth and evapouration occurs because of that, we will be fine.
BTW, the water is not locked up in glaciers and ice caps forever. Ice evapourates, just like water does - only more slowly. So that water is being recirculated back into the atmoshere as well.
Peak water = peak fear
"Like any other commodity high in demand, you should keep an eye on it for investment purposes as we get closer and closer to 'peak water.'”
"For investment purposes"? What is really real, water that keeps all living organisms, including humans, alive, or "investments," a human social construction that won't mean squat when the real stuff runs out?
Can't you folks see that the whole money game is just a collective fantasy indulged in by a bunch of social primates, all vying to "make money" by playing around mathematically with abstract symbols while the real world dries out, acidifies, burns up, and otherwise becomes unfit for our form of evolved life (and many others)? How utterly pathetic.
'Americans' are the primary if not the only responsible for the current state of the world.
'Americans' are fully addicted to fantasy because in fantasy, they evade that fact.
They will stick to any kind of fantasy in order to keep maintaining the illusion that 'americans' have been the saviours of humanity when they are in fact the gravediggers of humanity.
'we' should all be very afraid of these 'americans'
Pretty much with rare exception where the land dries the air gets wetter & we now have machines to take that water if we need it.
It's called the Dewpointe.
Money has a use: it's faster to trade credit and/or units of physical goods than to transport each and every unit of every other non-money / less-money-ish good (heavier, liquid, etc.) just to settle balances of what is owed to people. By settling up with money units we can actually minimize wasted resources on storage & transport otherwise we'd be moving water, oil, food, every which way and only expending water, food, energy, to do so for no purpose of consumption, merely to put it to the person it's destined to short-term. To reduce all that entropy & get the final destination right & skipping all the interim, we have money.
To this effect light-weight paper cash & very high-speed electronic credits would be great except the cost apparently is too high given the corruption of the human species generally.
The people who believe that there is no problem with the fresh water supply are most likely the same "city dwellers" who believe that "food comes from the store".
Those who live where water is already a scarce resource see it differently.
peak bullshit
The author should be the "exceptional". He simply is not aware that 95% of world population uses "litres", not "gallons". But, hey, that is why only 5% is exceptional.
We have a well, live out in the country. Pump it out, use it for whatever, dump it back into the ground thru a septic tank/drain field. The grass is greener and the well refills. Circle of life, kumbaya mofo's. Now if I had 15 mllion neighbors I might have a problem during the drought years but I don't.
I am a bit worried by the coming air shortage. Cows breathe an awful of of it ya know.
I just went into the kitchen and ran some water into a Pyrex bowl. My water was gallons on one side, liters on the other. wtf?
I've heard of this before.
It's an Imperial Conspiracy!
This article is total BULLSHIT.
Every time one reads about "peak" something, your first thought should be, "Someone is trying to corner the market and drive up the price." Why are the Bush family and major investment companies buying up huge aquifers and water rights all over the world?
A shortage of water has always been a problem in the American southwest and the great plains. The Oglalla Aquifer (the greater Colorado area) has been in trouble since the 1960's due to excessive pumping for irrigation. The South Platte River has virtually ceased to exist. The current drought in the west had the situtaion worse than usual.
As for the west and southwest, a possible solution was suggested (and ignored) in the 1970's: build a massive water pipeline from western Canada to Colorado anf the plains, with massive reservoirs along the route.
However, this ancient advice is still the best: "Don't live where there is NO water, stupid!"
Der! just because certain companies are going to take advantage of the situation it doesn't mean that the problem is artificial. Water availablity would not be such a problem if there were less people trying to live in unsuitable terrain, there was less pollution and less waste/contamination from industry/agriculture/oil exploration. If everyone had realistic choices about where to leave they'd obviously pick the cleanest,most resource rich and convenient spot - not going to happen!
Ahem - the opposite is true also:
Just because certain companies are attempting to take advantage of a situation it doesn't mean that the problem is real.