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India Staring at a Water Apocalypse

34 points by jmsflknr 7y ago

martincollignon 7y ago
Want to make a difference on climate change as a technologist? Feel free to join these communities actively looking for support and with ongoing projects (that are alive): - https://climateaction.tech/ https://climateaction.tech/ - https://techimpactmakers.com/ https://techimpactmakers.com/ - https://www.tmrow.com/ https://www.tmrow.com/
asdfman123 7y ago
Who's ready to for a century of famine, mass relocation and warfare? Hooray! I guess the best we can hope for is it doesn't affect comfortable rich people like us too much, right?
- siphon22 7y ago
  Speak for yourself. Im a struggling bakery/cafe worker :p
  - orev 7y ago
    In the U.S. or most of the Western World, you're still rich compared to most of the world's population.
adrianN 7y ago
And yet India is still heavily investing in coal.
dang 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20322186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20322186
pkaye 7y ago
If they would reservoirs could they collect sufficient water from the monsoon seasons?
wrong_variable 7y ago
This article makes me question all the other alarmist articles that comes up on HN. India is not facing a "Water Apocalypse". Salt water infiltration into groundwater and soil is a harder problem to solve. Urban/rural India has no system whatsoever to manage water. The problem is that without some sort of stick, nobody is going to do anything about it and the stick is almost here. This problem will resolve itself in time, anybody who has been even slightly forward looking would have already invested in water conservation. Sea Level rise and salt water infiltration in agri land is much more concerning though.
- tomweingarten 7y ago
  Can you elaborate? I'm reading your argument as "This is not such a big deal because there are other horrifying things that are an even bigger deal", but I'm guessing that's not what you mean. Are you saying this will resolve itself _naturally_ in time? And if so, what gives you confidence?
  - wrong_variable 7y ago
    > "This is not such a big deal because there are other horrifying things that are an even bigger deal" If India was Syria, then it would be a bit more horrifying, as even simple rain harvesting wont solve the problem in Syria. India is filled with problems, let me put it this way, if India was blessed with the amount of freshwater as Canada, India would still misuse it terribly. Its a good thing there is no petroleum. The problem here is not rain, or climate change or drought - but politics, corruption and bureaucracy. India needs its own Meji Restoration - some type of shock therapy - or else the suffering will just continue to get worse.

34 points by jmsflknr 7y ago

Want to make a difference on climate change as a technologist? Feel free to join these communities actively looking for support and with ongoing projects (that are alive): - https://climateaction.tech/ https://climateaction.tech/ - https://techimpactmakers.com/ https://techimpactmakers.com/ - https://www.tmrow.com/ https://www.tmrow.com/

asdfman123 7y ago

Who's ready to for a century of famine, mass relocation and warfare? Hooray! I guess the best we can hope for is it doesn't affect comfortable rich people like us too much, right?

siphon22 7y ago
Speak for yourself. Im a struggling bakery/cafe worker :p
- orev 7y ago
  In the U.S. or most of the Western World, you're still rich compared to most of the world's population.

adrianN 7y ago

And yet India is still heavily investing in coal.

dang 7y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20322186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20322186

pkaye 7y ago

If they would reservoirs could they collect sufficient water from the monsoon seasons?

wrong_variable 7y ago

This article makes me question all the other alarmist articles that comes up on HN. India is not facing a "Water Apocalypse". Salt water infiltration into groundwater and soil is a harder problem to solve. Urban/rural India has no system whatsoever to manage water. The problem is that without some sort of stick, nobody is going to do anything about it and the stick is almost here. This problem will resolve itself in time, anybody who has been even slightly forward looking would have already invested in water conservation. Sea Level rise and salt water infiltration in agri land is much more concerning though.

tomweingarten 7y ago
Can you elaborate? I'm reading your argument as "This is not such a big deal because there are other horrifying things that are an even bigger deal", but I'm guessing that's not what you mean. Are you saying this will resolve itself _naturally_ in time? And if so, what gives you confidence?
- wrong_variable 7y ago
  > "This is not such a big deal because there are other horrifying things that are an even bigger deal" If India was Syria, then it would be a bit more horrifying, as even simple rain harvesting wont solve the problem in Syria. India is filled with problems, let me put it this way, if India was blessed with the amount of freshwater as Canada, India would still misuse it terribly. Its a good thing there is no petroleum. The problem here is not rain, or climate change or drought - but politics, corruption and bureaucracy. India needs its own Meji Restoration - some type of shock therapy - or else the suffering will just continue to get worse.