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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAlarm Bells Toll For Human Civilization As World's 12th Largest Mega-City To Run Out Of Water
http://upriser.com/posts/alarm-bells-toll-for-human-civilization-as-world-s-12th-largest-mega-city-to-run-out-of-water-in-just-60-daysTechnical reserves have already been released, and as the city enters the heavy water use holiday season, its 20 million residents are riding on a fast-track collision course with severe water rationing and devastating disruptions....
Consider Las Vegas while you ponder all this: Here's a city with no water future whatsoever, continuing to build new casinos and grow its population even as the water level of Lake Mead has already dropped to emergency levels (and continues to plummet). What do the people of Las Vegas imagine they will drink when all the cheap, easy water is gone? Will they swallow dust and pretend it's water?
The sobering truth is that nearly everyone who lives in Las Vegas doesn't think about this. By definition, anyone who realized the truth about the disappearing water throughout Nevada, Arizona and California would have already sold their property and moved away. Those who still inhabit regions with unsustainable water supplies -- such as Sao Paulo -- are choosing to make believe the problem doesn't exist.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)although, at one point, they owned a small supplier on O'ahu!
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)Can'link from my phone..google has it.
Think it may be in Peru..maybe
central scrutinizer
(11,617 posts)nfm
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)And the deal was assisted by the US Ambassador?
Hmm
alfredo
(60,065 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)They managed to dump the first democratically elected president in decades from when this was posted in '08:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3183814
The water's still safe for his successors, the Moonies and Bushies.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)They are planning for that eventuality, anyway:
The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles
The stinking rich are planning billion-dollar luxury liners that keep the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance.
AlterNet / By Mark Ames
June 1, 2010
What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?
The first such floating castle has been christened the " Utopia"--the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale- -which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot "estates." The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million.
SNIP...
Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.
SNIP...
While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank" is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.
I'll get into Carlucci's partners in the Frontier Group in a moment, but first, let's reacquaint ourselves with Frank Carlucci. From an early age, Carlucci learned the importance of getting to know the right people in the right places. He studied at Princeton in the mid-1950s, where as luck should have it, Carlucci roomed with Donald Rumsfeld. Both Carlucci and Rumsfeld shared a passion for Greco-Roman wrestling at Princeton, and both went on to serve in the Navy after Princeton. Their paths would split and merge several times over the next few decades, even as they remained close personal friends throughout their lives. In the late 1950s, Carlucci briefly served as an executive at a lingerie manufacturer, Jantzen (the Victoria's Secret of its day), but quickly left to join the State Department.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles
"The heart grows stronger by facing the evils of the world." -- Ludwig van Beethoven
The Carlyle Group/former Secretary of Defense/Big Guy in the MIC Frank Carlucci got his start in Congo, helping Allen Dulles with the Lumumba account back in 1960.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)Human evolution? Climate change drove us out of Africa, forcing us to adapt to new environments.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...of evolution for cybernetic organisms. One day AI robots will look back and say, "Uck! I can't believe we're descended from people."
Perhaps an AI subculture would also have evolved that deemed such thought blasphemy and conduct its own version of Scopes Hominid Trials.
http://english.lem.pl/works/novels/the-cyberiad
RKP5637
(67,032 posts)at least those with the power and money, are too short sighted and greedy. Many of them only care about themselves and their cronies. They will look for how to survive after much of civilization dies off, but I doubt they will be successful. As it goes, nothing lasts forever. We are one very tiny speck of life in a vast universe and there aren't any likely coming to save us. Perhaps the first explorers to Mars will survive, somehow, and earth will be just a burned out planet that could have been great.
Short of that, it's unthinkable how much human endeavor goes into methodologies to kill each other off. Is that F'ed up or what.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)NBachers
(17,007 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)As they buy up water and whatever else they can hawk back to people in need.
Tee hee...giggles...and people take these "DUers" seriously. Tee hee Iraqi war. Tee hee 9/11.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)a Captain Nemo or a Moby Dick waiting out there, even for billionaires.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)the class they oppress.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)it wouldn't be long before the employees with the guns realized they didn't really need their employers for anything but cheap labor.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)kept them awake from time to time.
relayerbob
(6,510 posts)The 1% don't give a crap about us. That's 70 million people who will only need enough slaves to run their automated factories to keep them rich in food and tech. The rest of us are just boat-anchors / vermin to them. We all die off and they have their utopia. So they hope.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)evolved one bit. They are still arrogant assholes.
erronis
(14,955 posts)And, of course to make mega-bucks off the hording - just like the banks are doing with metals.
Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)or more likely congress will pass a law forcing the great lakes states to give up their water
rufus dog
(8,419 posts)Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio all Koch suckers governors.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Because Great Lakes water IS NOT controlled only by the US or the states that border the great lakes.
It is controlled by a consortium of states and provinces.
As Waukesha WI found out, water CANNOT be drawn out of the natural watershed (which doesn't reach the ~12 miles west of LAke Michigan) so that Waukesha can cheaply dilute radioactive drinking water to a safe radioactive level without approval of CANADIANS.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)alfredo
(60,065 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)rufus dog
(8,419 posts)thanks for the insight.
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)They will have to convince an awful lot of us, after we won the battle against fracking here in NY.
NY has some of the toughest environmentalists, and environmental groups that I know of. I also believe that it was the birthplace of the environmental movement in the US.
Let those bastards TRY to steal our water! They'll be sleepin' with the fishes, as my friend Nunzio might have once said!
former9thward
(31,805 posts)Oh, that's right, from the other states. Maybe those states should cut off energy supplies to NY. Have fun with your water then....
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)The 2,353-megawatt Robert Moses Niagara hydroelectric power plant is the fourth largest hydroelectric power plant in the United States and, in 2013, New York produced more hydroelectric power than any other state east of the Rocky Mountains.
New York's Renewable Portfolio Standard requires that 30% of electricity come from renewable energy resources by 2015; in 2013, 23% of the state's electricity generation came from renewable energy resources.
http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY
former9thward
(31,805 posts)And of course you may not know NY heating oil has nothing to do with hydroelectric power. Also all the gas that powers the millions of cars and other transportation has nothing to do with hydroelectric power. Have fun with that water ...
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)At least New York is trying to do something environmentally sound to meet a significant part of its energy needs.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)will kill anyone who wants any NY water. Turn about is fair play....
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,593 posts)We will fight with pitchforks and shovels if we have to.
navarth
(5,927 posts)...the powers that be are investing so heavily in formerly-unpopular Detroit? I notice it.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)I grew up near Lake Michigan, and my family still lives there. I plan to retire there, and I will do all I can to make sure that there is plenty of water in Lake Michigan.
TheKentuckian
(24,949 posts)Probably better range than a shovel is really required, still are bringing a knife to a gun fight but that beats the shit out of a slide rule.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Treaties between the US and canada dont allow water to leave the great lakes Basin without both countries approving. Plus its just not possible to pump that mich water that far of a distance.
Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)freebrew
(1,917 posts)after seeing the damage done to the Aral Sea in just a matter of decades, I wonder.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)KXL- votes in the Senate failed to override Obama's veto today.
By only 4 votes however.
It came THAT close to possible future demise of our Midwest aquifer.
No foresight for human survival but plenty of it for TransCanada & those who support their toxic billion$$$ agenda in our Congress & Senate.
Its sick.
Matariki
(18,775 posts)Water. Shipped from all the aquifers they've been buying up.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-new-water-barons-wall-street-mega-banks-are-buying-up-the-worlds-water/5383274
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)..always a step ahead where profit on commodities goes, years ago, purchased land in South America with rights to the immense aquifer below the surface.
Ya know, perhaps knowing the damage oil drilling & mining does to the natural water supplies.
Always looking out for their next billion dollar meal.
"Bush Criminal Enterprise bottled water for sale". Wait for it..its coming. Big bucks for the Bush's.
Maybe some can link it back here. I cant link from my phone.
Thanks
Matariki
(18,775 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)They bought an aquifer because they know what water will be worth when their oil commodity taints water supplies wherever their cronies drill.
Profiteering on commodities.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Because a Republican Senator from Oklahoma hurled a snowball on the Senate floor.
justhanginon
(3,287 posts)I know it certainly convinced me. He must have the i.q. of a head of cauliflower and entrusted to help run our country. Frightening!
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)bikebloke
(5,260 posts)When the water runs out, will we have a new type of migrants - water refugees? Then ghost cities.
erronis
(14,955 posts)I can't wait to see caravans of well-tanned folks from Phoenix showing up in the US NorthEast.
Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)Some of the best water resources in the continental US right here, clean and abundant, and with no large populations already dependent on them.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)*I* have the privilege of voting against Lindsey Graham :p
daleanime
(17,796 posts)SMC22307
(8,088 posts)Any impact on SC?
Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)Everything "upstream" both water and weather wise here leads directly into the mountains and one of the largest continuous protected areas this side of the Mississippi. A check of potential fracking sites in NC shows them all too far north and east to have an impact on upstate SC. Basically everything that would dump on us is blocked by the Smoky Mountains and the big national forest protected areas.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I meditated on it and "knew" there would be water. I didn't know about the aquifer it sits on. Nor did I realize how much increased precip we'd be looking at.
As an added plus, the caravans of southwesterns will freeze their buns off if they set foot outside up here. 24 below, not including wind chill, should cool their jets more than a little
Trillo
(9,154 posts)No, I don't think so. There's this thing called a 30-year mortgage. Once you've signed the documents, you agree to pay and keep paying. Yes, you can sell, but given the problems with violent police and many other unknowns, such as unfamiliar local or State laws, its often safer to live with the dangers you know, then to move to a place where you don't understand the dangers. (sometimes even moving to a nearby place with new neighbors can be a problem)
I actually rec'd this, but I'm removing my rec, as this was a major logic flaw the author made.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)which has no water to prevent fire? Between drinking and filling the fire hydrant, which do you think will win?
There will be tens of millions of people trying to migrate with no money within a few years, gonna get interesting. And we deserve every thing that is going to happen, since we could have stopped it and didn't. It will coincide with the disappearance of more jobs, the graying of the population, and some serious structural problems with this facade we are blithely calling an economy right now. And if one makes it too expensive, they might make it unsafe to go buy it at any price.
You are correct, there are always new dangers in leaving comfort, the same argument used by plantation owners the world over, an argument which benefits almost entirely the plantation owner.
But that's why we have the labels "winners" and "losers". Or maybe alive and dead will be more appropriate.
onethatcares
(16,133 posts)with the collapse of the retirement system and the fact that many are and have been using credit to stay alive, once the lifeline is cut, they will move south where the jobs really aren't and the water is not doing so well either. Toss in chronic illness, homelessness, and a government that doesn't give a rats ass about them, it will be a very interesting time.
Good luck,
Trillo
(9,154 posts)its ridiculous and insulting to compare having a place to live with plantation owners of the past who owned and beat slaves daily. Comparing a mortgager to any business is a rather severe logic flaw. Apples and oranges.
You're just fear mongering.
And if you're right and things really do get that bad, then that tank of inert welding gas I have might come in useful. Life isn't all its cracked up to be, mostly its just unrewarded labor and insults, such as your own.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Now you just sit in your office and they send you the biggest part of their labor, while you laugh and throw McDonalds applications down on them. Then get your lapdogs to tell everyone how right it is, now that the plantations are gone.
They don't need chains, as long as they have your mind.
oh, btw - "then that tank of inert welding gas I have might come in useful" < Your solution is suicide? And I am the one fear mongering? *snort* That's why I mentioned the other category. The rest of us have work to do.
bye.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)jtuck004, you're part of the reason DU sucks.
Probably shouldn't get in the middle of this, maybe you two have some history (I don't know you or your posting history at all, sorry, probably should), but I've always considered the poster you are ignoring to be one of the better ones here. I can see getting pissed off by snark or someone prophesizing a bleak reality but it seems like an over-reaction to me.
You think 30-year mortgages will prevent migration? In my neighborhood in northern California, every 4th home or so is sitting empty, and has been since the '08 collapse, or maybe not quite that long, depended on how much savings the residents had when their housing values collapsed and they lost their jobs. These homes could not be sold, since the mortgages were much larger than the new values of the homes. Once people exhausted their savings, people either walked away or were eventually evicted, and went anywhere they could get a roof over their heads. They got a 7 year ding on their credit record, and some of them face future prosecution by the banks or endless harrassment by collections thugs in a never ending effort by the banks to recover some value. What we needed was principle reduction but the administration let Geithner foam the runway for the banks instead, so we just got screwed.
When a regional economy collapses, as would happen if water was not available, jobs disappear, housing values collapse, and homeowners are left with nothing but the road.
I had a lot of savings, it's all gone now as is my job and wife. Still holding out here, hoping to land a job before my parents can no longer pay the mortgage. I love it here or I would have already given up on it. Even now, 6 1/2 years after the financial collapse, my home is worth less than the balance on the mortgage, and we bought this place about 6 years before the collapse.
When economies collapse, mortgages don't hold people, the people are either evicted or they walk away. Hopefully you never have to learn this first-hand. Best of luck to you.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)in a region. In mass migrations, some older people will stay behind, unless storm troopers with badges point the gun and say move or die. At that point, it's not much different from breathing welding gas, except the gas would probably be less painful, and I believe it would be better to die by ones own choice than be shoved around and shot by Nazis who are above the law and due process.
You expanded the conversation far beyond what was originally asserted. No, 004 and I have no history that I'm aware of, I just have less tolerance than I used to for ridiculous crap that makes no sense.
It was a new personal policy I adopted a few months ago, maybe 6. I never used to use the ignore function. Now I do, as I don't want to have my mind twisted around by idiocy, which happens a lot here on DU if you let it, and I used to. No more.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Zero water would undoubtably bring about economic collapse.
There is some hair-on-fire, IMO, in the OP, asserting that anyone in Nevada, Arizona and California should move (I am in California). There will be regions within those states that dry up, probably, but much of California wil do just fine.
You seem to have missed the point that 30 year mortgages do absolutely nothing to prevent mass migrations. By the time conditions are bad enough to inspire such migrations (and I agree that for the most part we are not there yet and much of these areas will be ok), the economies will have colllapsed and the mortgages will have no meaning, as the some of thee home-owners will lose jobs and their ability to make payments, causing a collapse in real estate value, the homes at that point are un-sellable, followed by evictions and walk-aways, and a downward economic spiral that does end in migration, ala Oklahoma's dust bowl migration to California.
I'm done with this, have said my piece, believe what you want, or have the last word, up to you.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)IIRC, because most of the thread is now invisible to me, but there was a question, something about why would people stay instead of move before there is zero water. I offered a possible reason, if not more than one. Then I was given this ridiculous apples and oranges comparison, was accused of being a plantation owner (implying slave ownership) or something. I pointed that out, and then was confronted with a scenario that I couldn't even understand, like it was written by a child learning how to string words together in a sentence. Ignore.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)I can think of plenty of reasons some people would stay rather than leave, seems like talking about trees rather than the forest though, the main point was water crisis = big problems and mass migrations, no? But if you're focusing on some individuals who would stay, sure, I don't disagree at all. I still think you're ignoring a good poster, up to you though.
LiberalArkie
(15,686 posts)I might remind them about the great drought in the mid west around the depression time. "Grapes of Wrath". People left farms and property that had been in the family for generations. Loaded what they could and went west.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)Your value will come back if you have access to good water. I observe that most populated ares have recovered value. Are you in a small rural mountain town that was considered a retirement area, but has no viable self-creating economy? I suppose many town in NorCal up in Shasta, Sonoma, outer Napa, Lassen, Del Norte and similar may have not yet recovered. Humboldt county has gotten really expensive because of the marijuana growers' money and the retiring university personnel. Your place will go back up in value after Californians in Silicon Valley sell their places and move to the woods. I live in Mariposa, Calif. with a healthy flowing artesian well and lot's of land here at 3,050 ft elev., sold my house in Carmel in 2013 and headed for water and four seasons out of the coastal fog.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)before home vaues here fully recover. This home's value has climbed back to within shouting distance of the balance owed on the mortgage (I've been making mortgage payments for 13 years though), but to recover the down payment, pay a selling commission and get out of here it still needs to go up by well over $100,000 (nearly 50% of what it is currently worth). But I'm not expecting to recover the down payment, it would be nice just to have the option to sell without owing money or facing foreclosure.
Ideally I would stay here, depends on employment though. We had been living off of my wife's salary and a now depleted inheritance from my family so when my jobwent away some 8 years ago I took time to recover some sanity and spent more time raising our son, restarted a long-neglected music career too, not that there is much money in it, it was what I loved to do.
Water supply is so far holding out, surprisingly, local spring water that has yet to dry up despite this long drought.
Yes I am in a small coastal mountain community, official population 125 people! Very bohemian and rustic, smack in the redwoods, a stream runs through the back yard when it has water in it.
I've never been to Mariposa that I can recall. Sunny? That's what I miss most, can't garden here and have to drive out of the woods to get much sun. Regards.
Skittles
(152,966 posts)I hope you are hanging in there and I do so wish for better days for you and your parents
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)Can you spell "hyperbole"?
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)where the article says it's the end of human civilization? Thanks.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)"Alarm Bells Toll For Human Civilization As World's 12th Largest Mega-City To Run Out Of Water"
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)Have you ever looked up the definition of hyperbole?
alfredo
(60,065 posts)NickB79
(19,114 posts)And that's at "only" 0.8C of warming so far. The projection is that we'll see 3-4C of warming by the end of the 21st century. We're not even close to seeing the true scope of the damage we've succeeded in unleashing.
Exactly how many hundreds of millions of people have to be displaced, how many cities have to become uninhabitable, before it is no longer hyperbole to you?
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)People will move, wars will come and go, cities will rise and fall for many reasons. Cultures adapt to the environment.
Statements like this headline will probably always be hyperbole.
Global warming is not the death knell of humanity. When we go, it will probably be due to a biological, technological or astronomical cause.
EEO
(1,620 posts)navarth
(5,927 posts)dem in texas
(2,672 posts)Some towns in Texas are already putting this into operation - Wichita Falls for example.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I have an FB friend there -- an ex-DUer, in fact.
turbinetree
(24,632 posts)He says there is no problems in the world, there is no climate change----right
riqster
(13,986 posts)h2ebits
(632 posts)Please go to the article and read comments for updates. The article apparently first appeared in November 2014. Since then, Sao Paulo was hit with torrential rains and flooding. Unfortunately, their reservoirs did not fill up because they were further north than the heaviest rains.
It's not that the problem went away but rather that it was delayed a bit.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)They are an international model for smart water use. For instance, something like 99% of water used indoors is recycled and reused.
Their bigger problems are landscaping (which has prompted smarter outdoor use than most other desert cities, except for the casinos) and California & Arizona, which use a disproportionate amount of water per person and the division of which was decided a hundred years ago, when there were only a hundred people in Clark County.
Better villains would be San Diego, LA, or Phoenix.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)Block after block of emerald green lawns in the desert.
americannightmare
(322 posts)such as living in the desert - as the climate warms! You still need water to reuse it. No sympathy whatsoever for desert folks; human beings aren't supposed to live in the desert, at least not on the scale of Phoenix or Vegas. At least in LA or San Diego they can build desalination plants. Completely unsustainable lifestyle - as if the rest of the world that actually lives where there is abundant water isn't bad enough at it...
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/water-environment/two-new-parks-may-add-criticism-las-vegans-waste-water
Kaleva
(36,147 posts)Some areas will become wetter while others will turn drier.
Yes, this is a serious problem. But giving it a title like "Alarm bells ring for human civilization" just makes it so fucking hard to take seriously. sorry, but human civilization is not at risk because of this. A lot of people's lives and health, yes, but not Human Civilization.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Because if anyone in Brazil looks to the east there is what is called WATER. A lot of it. More than they could even BEGIN TO USE.
Existing Desalination facilities and facilities under construction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Existing_facilities_and_facilities_under_construction
Seawater desalination in Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_desalination_in_Australia
Don't even bring up Money- the US is spending ~$20 MILLION DOLLARS PER HOUR
on wars and "homeland security". https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
Even California can do desalination (it took awhile)
There doesn't have to be a drought anywhere. Let alone the end of the world, which is 2/3 water.
*Trivia: There are 22 Liters of Hydrogen in ONE TABLESPOON of water.
shanti
(21,672 posts)No lack of water up there. I plan to move there when the time is right, probably Oregon.
Warpy
(110,913 posts)and while people are being very careful and consigning things like lawns to oblivion, there are still a few golf courses that haven't Astroturfed the fairways and corporations that maintain bright green lawns that are spray irrigated every other day. Those are the things that worry me, the use of potable water for decorative grass.
I don't get Phoenix and Las Vegas. The climate and jobs markets keep them growing, along with the real estate bust that led to reasonably priced houses. Unless the climatologists and meteorologists are both wrong, they are definitely going to run out of water and rather sooner than later. Either they migrate to that narrow strip of land on the upper west coat or they'll all have to go back east somewhere and it's not going to be pretty.
Potable water has always been in very short supply out west and it always will be. People might be drawn to the endless summer climate of the lower elevations, but they're going to have to make some big changes if they want to live out here. I don't see those changes happening in the "successful" cities like Phoenix, only in the very poor cities like mine.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I've heard the aquifer that underlies it is not as vast as it was once thought to be.
Warpy
(110,913 posts)and the San Juan River Diversion Project was completed. We're OK as long as we are careful.
Even if they suddenly start to be careful (fat chance), Las Vegas and Phoenix are going to be in a lot of trouble very soon.
nikto
(3,284 posts)ffr
(22,649 posts)And their hot season is coming to a close, so there should be hope on the horizon.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Are you sure that aquifer contains fresh and not brackish water?
Not every city has the same opportunities.
ffr
(22,649 posts)I'd have to believe that in a region with as much historical natural rainfall as they have, in a country is big and wide as theirs, there would be lots of possible areas to find water below the surface. It's not a stretch for them to have aqueducts to deliver that water from far off either, other cities and civilizations have been doing that for thousands of years. That just seems obvious.
But I'm not doubting the gist of the article, cities have always been presented with natural resource problems and Earth's natural resources are not unlimited. So even if they do find another source(s) of lots of water, it's merely a short-term solution for a systemic problem of over-breeding and outstripping of the ecosystem.
It's stories like this that make me wonder when we start speaking up about sustainable human population levels. Seems to be a taboo subject that nobody wants to meaningfully address.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Expensive recycling and other methods become mandatory and marginal enterprises are forced to vacate. Forethought can prevent a lot of pain, but it's not all that common.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)What are we doing about it?
Not a damn thing of course.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)I recently watched "Last Call At The Oasis" and it's sobering. It's already getting nasty out west as Lake Mead continues to get lower quickly, the fight over what's left of the groundwater is heating up.
I first realized how fast Lake Mead was shrinking watching "How The States Got Their Shapes". Host Brian Unger and the female head of the Lake Mead Marina were standing in an area that was underwater just ten years ago and they weren't close to where the water now was.
My plan was to at some point move out to Arizona but shelved that with the water issue and the fact it's 105 seemingly every day in the summer.
The climate change deniers, most of them bought out by the fossil fuel industry, are threatening our way of life.
niyad
(112,435 posts). . . .
Exposed tufa towers in Mono Lake; South Tufa, 1981
Mono Lake's "South Tufa" area
Conservation efforts
Main article: California Water Wars
In order to provide water needs for the growing city of Los Angeles, water was diverted from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct system farther upriver into the Mono Basin. So much water was diverted that evaporation soon exceeded inflow and the surface level of Mono Lake fell rapidly. By 1982 the lake was reduced to 37,688 acres (15,252 ha) 69 percent of its 1941 surface area. "[By 1990, the lake had dropped 45 vertical feet and had lost half its volume]" relative to the 1941 pre-diversion water level.[20] As a result alkaline sands and formerly submerged tufa towers became exposed, the water salinity doubled, and Negit Island became a peninsula, exposing the nests of sea gulls to predators (such as coyotes), and forcing the sea gull colony to abandon this site.
In 1974, Stanford University graduate student David Gaines studied the Mono Lake ecosystem, and he became instrumental in alerting the public of the effects of the lower water level.[21] The National Science Foundation funded the first comprehensive ecological study of Mono Lake, conducted by Gaines and undergraduate students from the University of California at Davis, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Earlham College. In June 1977, the Davis Institute of Ecology of the University of California published a report, "An Ecological Study of Mono Lake, California," which alerted California to the ecological dangers posed by the redirection of water away from the lake for municipal uses.[21]
Mono Lake viewed from the summit of Mount Dana. Note near-landbridge at left, almost connecting Negit Island with the mainland shoreline.
Gaines formed the Mono Lake Committee in 1978. He and Sally Judy, a UC Davis student, led the committee and pursued an informational tour of California. They joined with the Audubon Society to fight a now famous court battle, the National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, to protect Mono Lake through state public trust laws.[21] While these efforts have resulted in positive change, the surface level is still below historical levels, and exposed shorelines are a source of significant alkaline dust during periods of high winds.
Owens Lake, the once-navigable terminus of the Owens River which had sustained a healthy ecosystem, is now a dry lake bed during dry years due to water diversion beginning in the 1920s. Mono Lake was spared this fate when the California State Water Resources Control Board (after over a decade of litigation) issued an order to protect Mono Lake and its tributary streams on September 28, 1994. Since that time, the lake level has steadily risen. In 1941 the surface level was at 6,417 feet (1,956 m) above sea level.[22] As of October 2013, Mono Lake was at 6,380.6 feet (1,945 m) above sea level.[22] The lake level of 6,392 feet (1,948 m) above sea level is the goal, a goal made more difficult during years of drought in the American West.
. . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake
catchnrelease
(1,942 posts)The Eastern Sierra is one of my most favorite places to spend time, and especially the Mono Basin area. Over the past 30 years of visiting up there I watched those tufa towers become more exposed. Then after the agreements were reached with LADWP the water level rose and many of the towers disappeared under the water, and fans of the lake rejoiced! Until these past few years when the rain stopped and now the shoreline is retreating again. I fully expect that the fight over the water that should go into the lake will start up again and the 'agreements' will be broken.
There is no way a person can spend any time on the East side of the Sierra and not be aware of what can happen when a place has water and people with power and money want it. They will find a way to get it. Owens Lake was once big enough to have ferry boats cross it and now it's a basically a salt flat. Because powerful people wanted the water and took it.
niyad
(112,435 posts)people were lauding t. boone pickens some time back for his philanthropy. didn't have much to say about how he was buying up all the water in that area--and it wasn't for giving it away.
joanbarnes
(1,715 posts)RKP5637
(67,032 posts)tclambert
(11,080 posts)Somebody ought to look into that.
cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean,
remove the water at the bottom of the ocean.
Simple
niyad
(112,435 posts)most of the next wars will be fought over water. ("chinatown", anyone?)
wasn't there some discussion on du a couple of years ago showing that some of the fighting in the middle east has actually been about water, not oil?
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)and wholesale abandonment of the countryside for the cities, which were not equipped to deal with the influx...which was ignored by Assad...which led to civil unrest...which helped lead to where Syria is now.
Must have been at least a decade ago that the Pentagon--those crack-brained treehuggers!--released a study citing climate change as the biggest long-term security threat to the country.
niyad
(112,435 posts)many do not.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)"Behind closed doors, the views are grimmer. In a meeting recorded secretly and leaked to the local news media, Paulo Massato, a senior official at São Paulos water utility, said that residents might have to be warned to flee because theres not enough water, there wont be water to bathe, to clean homes."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/world/americas/drought-pushes-sao-paulo-brazil-toward-water-crisis.html
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)eggplant
(3,893 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)It has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and they ignore fundamental infrastructure problems in their city.
Oh wait, I could say the same thing about our decaying infrastructure and law enforcement corruption, too.
I just feel like I'm throwing rocks. I know it is bad, but aren't we headed there, too?
Albertoo
(2,016 posts)It wouldn't be a first in history.
Borobudur, Machu Pichu, Angkor, Sukhotai, Ayuttayah, all were at the center of thriving cities.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)/
I found this when I was reading about how some armies create water from digging a trench in the ground to capture morning dew. I thought that their had to be a better way, more efficient and one that would be able to harvest more water. That is when I stumbled on this invention. Using this plus a design I am working on would eliminate water shortages probably forever.
Lean
(39 posts)Energy companies use 4 - 5 million gallons of water for just one hydro-fracturing well. That's 4 - 5 MILLION GALLONS per well! And they're drilling thousands of them. Then, they dump the contaminated water back into ground aquifers. Americans better wake up! The day of reckoning is coming.
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)the human race is choosing to believe their is no real problem, a few, relatively speaking, are warning there are huge problems looming just over the horizon, environmental, social, financial, many on boards where critical thinking is still a skill like this one. But most feel they have no power to control events and that's the way the PTB want it, I believe they are aiming for huge population eradication, to ensure their future, not ours, but that's just MY CT. Just keep speaking up whenever and wherever possible, we might be able to change the world for the 'better'.......
Beach Rat
(273 posts)Even if the greenhouse gas levels were somehow returned to per-industrialization levels now, there would still be another 100 years of warming to content with.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)What we'll see is the commodification of water and an increased reliance on water sources that are currently too expensive to tap. Why don't we use desalinization and pump it to the dry areas today? Because it's prohibitively expensive, and right now we have other options. But what happens when the fresh water runs out and we have to choose between death & economic collapse vs. spending two, three, or ten times as much for water? We'll spend the money. And the poor will be crushed even further into poverty, and the middle class will diminish that much further, and the rich will continue to get even richer.
lark
(23,003 posts)Sao Paulo isn't all jetsetters who could live anywhere but choose to live there. There are a lot of peole, like my inlaws, who have jobs that would only be available in Brazil in this city, whose ancestors were Portugese who migrated there hundreds of years ago and Indian natives. My mother in law could not afford to move. Many people there are poor and can't afford to move. They are in a bad situation due to political decisions over which they had no control or input. They are the victims, not the causes.
My daugher and son-in-law want her to move here and have offerred for her to live with them, however she's 68, doesn't speak a word of English, and is terrified of flying.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)flvegan
(64,389 posts)that would reduce our requirement for water on a massive level.
Go vegan.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I also doubt that veganism will make many inroads in Brazil any time soon.