7 ms·

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this contin

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

Taek 5y ago
I'm not celebrating people dying of thirst, but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue. We need to make big structural changes to the global economy to fight climate change, and those changes are going to have an outsized negative impact on today's wealthiest and most powerful people. They aren't going to let change happen without a fight. People dying is what it's going to take to muster up enough of a fight to make the actual change. But the sooner we can hit the panic button and get people focused on the magnitude of the issue, the less people that need to die to get the population properly motivated.
- neaanopri 5y ago
  People dying in Algeria won't realistically get the US, French, or Chinese governments to significantly cut fossil fuels supplied to their citizens.
  - petre 5y ago
    Guess what Algeria's first three main export products are? Crude petroleum, petroleum gas and refined petroleum. They're trying to diversify but it's too litlle, too late.
    - AngryData 5y ago
      Plastics and polymers certainly aren't going away anytime soon so its not like a renewable energy world would just kill them. I don't expect plastic production to actually contract until long after we have made the grid renewable/sustainable and have extra energy for active carbon sequestering. Disposable plastic from grocery bags and simple wrappers are easy to reduce and eliminate but how many consumer devices are made of just metal or wood now and aren't 95% plastic? Plastic is still replacing tons of metal piping and ducts and on cars and everything else. When is the last time anyone has seen a wooden handled screwdriver for sale?
  - wait_a_minute 5y ago
    USA and France are actually doing well on renewables and nuclear even. Whereas China is still building a shit-ton of new coal plants. https://ieefa.org/france-boosts-renewable-energy-spending-to-a-record-e6-billion-in-2021-budget/ https://ieefa.org/france-boosts-renewable-energy-spending-to... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/climate/coronavirus-coal-electricity-renewables.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/climate/coronavirus-coal-... https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissi...
    - beders 5y ago
      About China: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-china-can-achieve-carbon-neutrality-by-2060 https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-china-can-achieve-...
    - rmah 5y ago
      China is also the world's leading producer of solar cells (over 70%) and the world's leading user of solar power (about 33% of global solar power). China is also, by far, the leading producer and user of electric cars with almost half of the production and sales (more electric cars are sold in china than western europe + US combined). Half of all EV's in the world are driving around in China. Further, chinese people use a fraction of the electricity that north americans do. Canada: 14,600 kWh/yr, USA: 12,150 kWh/yr, China: 5,300 kWh/yr. In terms of CO2 emissions, it's the same story: USA: 17.6T/yr, Canada: 15.7T/yr, China: 6.4T/yr, on a per capita basis. It's hard to remember what with the shiny new tier 1 coastal cities, but try not to forget that, on average, china is still quite poor with only 1/4th to 1/5th the per capita income of the richer advanced economy nations like the US, Sweden, UK, Germany, Japan, etc. China is on par with Mexico, Malaysia, Panama, Russia, or Bulgaria. In short, the story is not so simple.
      - marshray 5y ago
        IMO, per captia measures only matters for countries that allow unrestricted internal movement. China strictly controls how many people are allowed to migrate from the countryside to work in the cities, so it is, in some respects, multiple distinct economies with a centrally controlled standard of living.
  - Someone 5y ago
    France would react. If people start mass dying in Algeria, many of them will try to get to Europe. Algeria being a former French colony, being close by, and already having a large population of Algerian descent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerians_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerians_in_France says there are 10 million people of Algerian origin in France. That’s over 10% of the population), France probably will be a major destination.
    - nextweek2 5y ago
      Before The Brexit vote, the UK prime minister David Cameron went to Europe to get a "better deal" for the UK. What he came back with didn't answer the people's problems with sudden mass migration. What should have been proposed was a unified Europe border force. Where each member state takes its share and also send resources to help manage the southern border. Leaving the problem to Spain, Italy and Greece is the worst approach. The 1 million migrants in 2015 really was a dry run for what will happen when Africa is too hot. The EU needs to plan now for receiving these people, because you can't send them back.
      - nirv 5y ago
        Frontex is exactly such kind of a unified EU border force[1][2][3]. They occasionly use forced "pushbacks"[4] on migrant boats on Southern sea borders, leading to a lot of criticism and accusations of EU lawbreaking. [1] https://frontex.europa.eu/ https://frontex.europa.eu/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Border_and_Coast_Guard_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Border_and_Coast_Guar... [3] https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/27/eu-plans-to-boost-power-of-border-agency-frontex-raise-eyebrows https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/27/eu-plans-to-boost-power-... [4] https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/20/eu-migration-chief-urges-frontex-to-clarify-pushback-allegations https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/20/eu-migration-chief-urges...
- lostcolony 5y ago
  I'm not even optimistic about that. Because it'll be the -poor- people dying.
- nradov 5y ago
  What will force the issue isn't people dying, but rather masses of climate refugees fleeing countries that are no longer habitable and moving toward the poles.
  - sbierwagen 5y ago
    Nothing says the response has to be positive. One possible response is "papers please"-style national IDs and autoturrets at the border. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/trump-the-first-demagogue-of-the-anthropocene/504134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/trump-th...
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  For the same reasons we make fun of climate-change deniers who say "look at this record cold winter; there's no global warming" means we can't use a historic heat wave to say "look globaal warming". weather != climate
  - tclancy 5y ago
    So you’re saying things getting constantly warmer isn’t evidence because people who don’t want to see it do the opposite? Math definitely checks out.
  - anamexis 5y ago
    > For the same reasons we make fun of climate-change deniers who say "look at this record cold winter; there's no global warming" means we can't use a historic heat wave to say "look globaal warming". We make fun of the climate change deniers in this scenario because the cold winter often is evidence of climate change. Record heat waves can also be evidence of climate change.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    A heat wave (like other weather) by itself isn't evidence of global warming, but extreme weather events like this (and like extreme winter storms) are made more frequent by global warming. You should expect to see more "once in a millenium" weather events as the planet continues to warm.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue. Or, that will just get the rest of the nations of the world to focus on preventing climate refugees from entering their nation, and perhaps use their militaries to secure remaining resources.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  >People dying is what it's going to take to muster up enough of a fight to make the actual change. No it wont. If anything it will just start a war and/or a(nother) refugee crisis. Plus dead people. I think hoping for disasters to catalyst change is a sadly naive worldview. >we can hit the panic button What panic button? Where?
- mbostleman 5y ago
  How do we know this is the result of climate change? It's meant as an honest question. Though it is largely ignored in the mainstream discussion, I've heard for years to be careful about making a distinction between weather and climate. Are you thinking this is not weather, but climate? How does one tell the difference? If there's a record winter of cold temps, would it be evidence that the climate is cooling?
  - retrac 5y ago
    I don't mean to be dismissive, but simple statistics. A record winter by itself is just a freak incident. As is a record hot summer. But what are the probabilities? One record cold day broken after 80 years? Improbable but not downright implausible. Year after year after year of record highs? Just coincidence?
    - mbostleman 5y ago
      Makes sense. I don’t have a good grasp on what the actual data is over time. My primary awareness is the extreme events that make the news.
  - jbotz 5y ago
    There are actually scientific methods for attributing specific events to global warming or not, probabilistically. I.e. although you can never say with perfect certainty "this heatwave was caused by global warming", you can say: with global warming this heatwave has a probability 0.1 (once in ten years), but without global warming it would have a probability of 0.001 (once in a thousand years). We seem to be having several "once in a thousand years" heatwaves per decade these days.
    - mbostleman 5y ago
      Gotcha.
  - johnchristopher 5y ago
    You are some steps behind the climate change deniers list of refutations (in more or less general chronical order): - there are no climate change - climate change is not because of humane activities - climate change isn't that bad - climate change might be good overall - climate change is business as usual: improvise, adapt, survive You can find more claims and counter claims https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm here. I picked up that one following your question about cold winter.
- _jal 5y ago
  People dying will not change the minds that need changing. The people who profit from the current state of affairs need to be convinced to modify their plans. Perhaps there are other ways to persuade them, but fear of something worse than not profiting from their current investment plans is the only thing I can think of at this point.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > I'm not celebrating people dying of thirst, but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue Millions of people die from AIDS, malaria, and the lack of potable water and food each year. But most of those deaths happen other continents, so nothing is done about it. The transmission of HIV could be virtually ended in the US with drugs like PrEP that have been on the market for a decade, halting a 30+ year AIDS pandemic. That didn't happen, and PrEP's price in the US rose from $1200 to $2400 for a 30-day supply in 2019, despite costing ~$40 retail in other first world countries. Now that one formulation recently became generic, it costs $1400 retail, or $600 with coupons, for a 30-day supply. As of 2020 there is a program for those without insurance, but if you're a working adult with insurance, you aren't eligible. As long as there is money to be made, people dying will be acceptable to those in power.
- edoceo 5y ago
  What is the number? Hella people already dying and we (USA) ain't doing shit. The haute bourgeoisie will not, have not done anything to help. Mike Muir was right. Give it revolution!!
martythemaniak 5y ago
These folks are serious and they just raised 30 million to provide vast quantities of cheap, desalinated water: https://www.terraformation.com/ https://www.terraformation.com/ Seems crazy now, but vast forests covering most of Algeria may be entirely possible in your lifetime.
- rmah 5y ago
  Vast quantities? LOL, their plant in hawaii does only 128 tons a day. Americans use 3 tons a day. Each. Even relatively thrifty nations use over a 1 ton a day per person. Hardly "vast quantities". And it's not cheap, they're currently using "reclaimed" solar panels to provide power. At scale, this not possible and not cheap. More to the point, their main goal is to plant and grow trees, not provide fresh water.
shoto_io 5y ago
I totally agree. Just note that heat (higher than average temperatures) doesn’t necessarily translates into drought (the absence of precipitation).
908B64B197 5y ago
Again? Didn't the Romans build aqueduct there 2000 years ago?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kmerroll 5y ago
  All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Arrath 5y ago
Most desalination methods are unfortunately quite energy intensive, and produce a concentrated brine that has environmental/disposal concerns such that it can't just be pumped back into the ocean, really. It presents a difficult problem for entrepreneurs to tackle. Definitely the potential to change people's lives for the better, though.
- raidicy 5y ago
  Stupid question. Can't we just let the brine evaporate and then compress the minerals left over?
  - _rpd 5y ago
    This is a common method of salt production ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt
  - nradov 5y ago
    In theory sure, but that would consume huge areas of valuable coastal real estate. And we don't really need more salt.
- nradov 5y ago
  Most desalination plants do just pump the brine back into the ocean. That isn't ideal from a marine conservation standpoint but if the outflow pipe runs out deep enough then it's not too bad.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    If it's not ideal right now, how well does it scale if more and more desalination plants come online to meet freshwater demands, and dispose of their brine in the same manner?
    - tinco 5y ago
      It's not ideal if the brine is dumped in one location. If it is dumped deep enough it gets a chance to be diluted before it hurts the environment. In the end, all fresh water goes back to the ocean so it's not like we would be creating an imbalance, there's just a risk of causing local damage.
FridayoLeary 5y ago
I just know that Israel are pioneers in this field. Water scarcity has always been a problem in Israel. (the chief solution to this has been, unfortunately, to starve the Salt Sea of water.)
AngryData 5y ago
It isn't technology that holds back water desalination, it is energy availability/cost. Even the most promising desalination tech is only a small efficiency boost over simpler established methods. Yeah efficiency gains certain help over the long term, but the overall energy costs are still enormous and nearly require dedicated power plant for any significant amount of clean water. The best bet in actually desalinating population scale levels of water would be investment into nuclear power. And the desalination could double as a buffer for the nuclear plant so that it could be run at peak power and efficiency nearly full time.
- julienb_sea 5y ago
  This isn't technically accurate, we have access to abundant long term (multi-century) reserves of natural gas which can be used to provide power needed for desalinization. Nuclear is in no way a "blocker". Certainly, cost is a substantial barrier especially in less wealthy nations.
  - thewarrior 5y ago
    Carbon emissions
    - julienb_sea 5y ago
      If the choice is reducing emissions or saving lives from dehydration, I wonder which is the appropriate course of action.
      - thewarrior 5y ago
        Which could completely destroy modern civilization over time. Once certain tipping points are crossed most of the earth could become uninhabitable for large parts of the year.
      - azernik 5y ago
        Problem is, carbon emissions make the dehydration worse by heating up the planet. It's counterproductive.
londons_explore 5y ago
Nearly all of earth has plenty of water for drinking... The thing we don't have enough for in many places is agriculture, industry, watering lawns, bathing, etc. Although as usual the human problem of doing a suboptimal job of allocating a scarce resource applies...
twobitshifter 5y ago
Even temperatures alone are getting into the deadly range in terms of wet bulb temperatures. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/hotter-human-body-can-handle-pakistan-city-broils-worlds-highest/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...
PicassoCTs 5y ago
First we deny (which costs energy/money), then we wall the problem off (which costs energy/money) - the moment it overwhelms us, we have neither energy nor money left.
crishoj 5y ago
A highly efficient multi-stage solar still has been developed at MIT [1]. An alternative to desalination is capturing humidity from the air, e.g. by isothermal membrane-based air dehumidification [2] or passively using condensation [3]. I’m involved in building a fund to invest in startups in this and other areas related to biosphere resilience, and would love to get in touch with people taking such technology to the market. My guess is we will be needing adaptive measures sooner than most people expect. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iYodKQP72mg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iYodKQP72mg [2] https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1476418 https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1476418 [3] https://newatlas.com/science/passive-drinking-water-harvester/ https://newatlas.com/science/passive-drinking-water-harveste...
fomine3 5y ago
Can't we just collect rain falling to sea, or grab clouds?
raxxorrax 5y ago
I think current desalination methods either use massive amounts of energy or massive amounts of space. Some suggested nuclear power, but I think there are better forms of energy production, especially since you don't need base load or capacity, so solar and wind are much better here. Of couse solar space conflicts with desalination itself. You could just use the sun to evaporate the water in the first place.

Taek 5y ago

I'm not celebrating people dying of thirst, but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue. We need to make big structural changes to the global economy to fight climate change, and those changes are going to have an outsized negative impact on today's wealthiest and most powerful people. They aren't going to let change happen without a fight. People dying is what it's going to take to muster up enough of a fight to make the actual change. But the sooner we can hit the panic button and get people focused on the magnitude of the issue, the less people that need to die to get the population properly motivated.

neaanopri 5y ago
People dying in Algeria won't realistically get the US, French, or Chinese governments to significantly cut fossil fuels supplied to their citizens.
- petre 5y ago
  Guess what Algeria's first three main export products are? Crude petroleum, petroleum gas and refined petroleum. They're trying to diversify but it's too litlle, too late.
  - AngryData 5y ago
    Plastics and polymers certainly aren't going away anytime soon so its not like a renewable energy world would just kill them. I don't expect plastic production to actually contract until long after we have made the grid renewable/sustainable and have extra energy for active carbon sequestering. Disposable plastic from grocery bags and simple wrappers are easy to reduce and eliminate but how many consumer devices are made of just metal or wood now and aren't 95% plastic? Plastic is still replacing tons of metal piping and ducts and on cars and everything else. When is the last time anyone has seen a wooden handled screwdriver for sale?
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  USA and France are actually doing well on renewables and nuclear even. Whereas China is still building a shit-ton of new coal plants. https://ieefa.org/france-boosts-renewable-energy-spending-to-a-record-e6-billion-in-2021-budget/ https://ieefa.org/france-boosts-renewable-energy-spending-to... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/climate/coronavirus-coal-electricity-renewables.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/climate/coronavirus-coal-... https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissi...
  - beders 5y ago
    About China: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-china-can-achieve-carbon-neutrality-by-2060 https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-china-can-achieve-...
  - rmah 5y ago
    China is also the world's leading producer of solar cells (over 70%) and the world's leading user of solar power (about 33% of global solar power). China is also, by far, the leading producer and user of electric cars with almost half of the production and sales (more electric cars are sold in china than western europe + US combined). Half of all EV's in the world are driving around in China. Further, chinese people use a fraction of the electricity that north americans do. Canada: 14,600 kWh/yr, USA: 12,150 kWh/yr, China: 5,300 kWh/yr. In terms of CO2 emissions, it's the same story: USA: 17.6T/yr, Canada: 15.7T/yr, China: 6.4T/yr, on a per capita basis. It's hard to remember what with the shiny new tier 1 coastal cities, but try not to forget that, on average, china is still quite poor with only 1/4th to 1/5th the per capita income of the richer advanced economy nations like the US, Sweden, UK, Germany, Japan, etc. China is on par with Mexico, Malaysia, Panama, Russia, or Bulgaria. In short, the story is not so simple.
    - marshray 5y ago
      IMO, per captia measures only matters for countries that allow unrestricted internal movement. China strictly controls how many people are allowed to migrate from the countryside to work in the cities, so it is, in some respects, multiple distinct economies with a centrally controlled standard of living.
- Someone 5y ago
  France would react. If people start mass dying in Algeria, many of them will try to get to Europe. Algeria being a former French colony, being close by, and already having a large population of Algerian descent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerians_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerians_in_France says there are 10 million people of Algerian origin in France. That’s over 10% of the population), France probably will be a major destination.
  - nextweek2 5y ago
    Before The Brexit vote, the UK prime minister David Cameron went to Europe to get a "better deal" for the UK. What he came back with didn't answer the people's problems with sudden mass migration. What should have been proposed was a unified Europe border force. Where each member state takes its share and also send resources to help manage the southern border. Leaving the problem to Spain, Italy and Greece is the worst approach. The 1 million migrants in 2015 really was a dry run for what will happen when Africa is too hot. The EU needs to plan now for receiving these people, because you can't send them back.
    - nirv 5y ago
      Frontex is exactly such kind of a unified EU border force[1][2][3]. They occasionly use forced "pushbacks"[4] on migrant boats on Southern sea borders, leading to a lot of criticism and accusations of EU lawbreaking. [1] https://frontex.europa.eu/ https://frontex.europa.eu/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Border_and_Coast_Guard_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Border_and_Coast_Guar... [3] https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/27/eu-plans-to-boost-power-of-border-agency-frontex-raise-eyebrows https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/27/eu-plans-to-boost-power-... [4] https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/20/eu-migration-chief-urges-frontex-to-clarify-pushback-allegations https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/20/eu-migration-chief-urges...
lostcolony 5y ago
I'm not even optimistic about that. Because it'll be the -poor- people dying.
nradov 5y ago
What will force the issue isn't people dying, but rather masses of climate refugees fleeing countries that are no longer habitable and moving toward the poles.
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  Nothing says the response has to be positive. One possible response is "papers please"-style national IDs and autoturrets at the border. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/trump-the-first-demagogue-of-the-anthropocene/504134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/trump-th...
skeeter2020 5y ago
For the same reasons we make fun of climate-change deniers who say "look at this record cold winter; there's no global warming" means we can't use a historic heat wave to say "look globaal warming". weather != climate
- tclancy 5y ago
  So you’re saying things getting constantly warmer isn’t evidence because people who don’t want to see it do the opposite? Math definitely checks out.
- anamexis 5y ago
  > For the same reasons we make fun of climate-change deniers who say "look at this record cold winter; there's no global warming" means we can't use a historic heat wave to say "look globaal warming". We make fun of the climate change deniers in this scenario because the cold winter often is evidence of climate change. Record heat waves can also be evidence of climate change.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  A heat wave (like other weather) by itself isn't evidence of global warming, but extreme weather events like this (and like extreme winter storms) are made more frequent by global warming. You should expect to see more "once in a millenium" weather events as the planet continues to warm.
tshaddox 5y ago
> but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue. Or, that will just get the rest of the nations of the world to focus on preventing climate refugees from entering their nation, and perhaps use their militaries to secure remaining resources.
FridayoLeary 5y ago
>People dying is what it's going to take to muster up enough of a fight to make the actual change. No it wont. If anything it will just start a war and/or a(nother) refugee crisis. Plus dead people. I think hoping for disasters to catalyst change is a sadly naive worldview. >we can hit the panic button What panic button? Where?
mbostleman 5y ago
How do we know this is the result of climate change? It's meant as an honest question. Though it is largely ignored in the mainstream discussion, I've heard for years to be careful about making a distinction between weather and climate. Are you thinking this is not weather, but climate? How does one tell the difference? If there's a record winter of cold temps, would it be evidence that the climate is cooling?
- retrac 5y ago
  I don't mean to be dismissive, but simple statistics. A record winter by itself is just a freak incident. As is a record hot summer. But what are the probabilities? One record cold day broken after 80 years? Improbable but not downright implausible. Year after year after year of record highs? Just coincidence?
  - mbostleman 5y ago
    Makes sense. I don’t have a good grasp on what the actual data is over time. My primary awareness is the extreme events that make the news.
- jbotz 5y ago
  There are actually scientific methods for attributing specific events to global warming or not, probabilistically. I.e. although you can never say with perfect certainty "this heatwave was caused by global warming", you can say: with global warming this heatwave has a probability 0.1 (once in ten years), but without global warming it would have a probability of 0.001 (once in a thousand years). We seem to be having several "once in a thousand years" heatwaves per decade these days.
  - mbostleman 5y ago
    Gotcha.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  You are some steps behind the climate change deniers list of refutations (in more or less general chronical order): - there are no climate change - climate change is not because of humane activities - climate change isn't that bad - climate change might be good overall - climate change is business as usual: improvise, adapt, survive You can find more claims and counter claims https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm here. I picked up that one following your question about cold winter.
_jal 5y ago
People dying will not change the minds that need changing. The people who profit from the current state of affairs need to be convinced to modify their plans. Perhaps there are other ways to persuade them, but fear of something worse than not profiting from their current investment plans is the only thing I can think of at this point.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I'm not celebrating people dying of thirst, but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue Millions of people die from AIDS, malaria, and the lack of potable water and food each year. But most of those deaths happen other continents, so nothing is done about it. The transmission of HIV could be virtually ended in the US with drugs like PrEP that have been on the market for a decade, halting a 30+ year AIDS pandemic. That didn't happen, and PrEP's price in the US rose from $1200 to $2400 for a 30-day supply in 2019, despite costing ~$40 retail in other first world countries. Now that one formulation recently became generic, it costs $1400 retail, or $600 with coupons, for a 30-day supply. As of 2020 there is a program for those without insurance, but if you're a working adult with insurance, you aren't eligible. As long as there is money to be made, people dying will be acceptable to those in power.
edoceo 5y ago
What is the number? Hella people already dying and we (USA) ain't doing shit. The haute bourgeoisie will not, have not done anything to help. Mike Muir was right. Give it revolution!!

martythemaniak 5y ago

These folks are serious and they just raised 30 million to provide vast quantities of cheap, desalinated water: https://www.terraformation.com/ https://www.terraformation.com/ Seems crazy now, but vast forests covering most of Algeria may be entirely possible in your lifetime.

rmah 5y ago
Vast quantities? LOL, their plant in hawaii does only 128 tons a day. Americans use 3 tons a day. Each. Even relatively thrifty nations use over a 1 ton a day per person. Hardly "vast quantities". And it's not cheap, they're currently using "reclaimed" solar panels to provide power. At scale, this not possible and not cheap. More to the point, their main goal is to plant and grow trees, not provide fresh water.

shoto_io 5y ago

I totally agree. Just note that heat (higher than average temperatures) doesn’t necessarily translates into drought (the absence of precipitation).

908B64B197 5y ago

Again? Didn't the Romans build aqueduct there 2000 years ago?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kmerroll 5y ago
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Arrath 5y ago

Most desalination methods are unfortunately quite energy intensive, and produce a concentrated brine that has environmental/disposal concerns such that it can't just be pumped back into the ocean, really. It presents a difficult problem for entrepreneurs to tackle. Definitely the potential to change people's lives for the better, though.

raidicy 5y ago
Stupid question. Can't we just let the brine evaporate and then compress the minerals left over?
- _rpd 5y ago
  This is a common method of salt production ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt
- nradov 5y ago
  In theory sure, but that would consume huge areas of valuable coastal real estate. And we don't really need more salt.
nradov 5y ago
Most desalination plants do just pump the brine back into the ocean. That isn't ideal from a marine conservation standpoint but if the outflow pipe runs out deep enough then it's not too bad.
- Arrath 5y ago
  If it's not ideal right now, how well does it scale if more and more desalination plants come online to meet freshwater demands, and dispose of their brine in the same manner?
  - tinco 5y ago
    It's not ideal if the brine is dumped in one location. If it is dumped deep enough it gets a chance to be diluted before it hurts the environment. In the end, all fresh water goes back to the ocean so it's not like we would be creating an imbalance, there's just a risk of causing local damage.

FridayoLeary 5y ago

I just know that Israel are pioneers in this field. Water scarcity has always been a problem in Israel. (the chief solution to this has been, unfortunately, to starve the Salt Sea of water.)

AngryData 5y ago

It isn't technology that holds back water desalination, it is energy availability/cost. Even the most promising desalination tech is only a small efficiency boost over simpler established methods. Yeah efficiency gains certain help over the long term, but the overall energy costs are still enormous and nearly require dedicated power plant for any significant amount of clean water. The best bet in actually desalinating population scale levels of water would be investment into nuclear power. And the desalination could double as a buffer for the nuclear plant so that it could be run at peak power and efficiency nearly full time.

julienb_sea 5y ago
This isn't technically accurate, we have access to abundant long term (multi-century) reserves of natural gas which can be used to provide power needed for desalinization. Nuclear is in no way a "blocker". Certainly, cost is a substantial barrier especially in less wealthy nations.
- thewarrior 5y ago
  Carbon emissions
  - julienb_sea 5y ago
    If the choice is reducing emissions or saving lives from dehydration, I wonder which is the appropriate course of action.
    - thewarrior 5y ago
      Which could completely destroy modern civilization over time. Once certain tipping points are crossed most of the earth could become uninhabitable for large parts of the year.
    - azernik 5y ago
      Problem is, carbon emissions make the dehydration worse by heating up the planet. It's counterproductive.

londons_explore 5y ago

Nearly all of earth has plenty of water for drinking... The thing we don't have enough for in many places is agriculture, industry, watering lawns, bathing, etc. Although as usual the human problem of doing a suboptimal job of allocating a scarce resource applies...

twobitshifter 5y ago

Even temperatures alone are getting into the deadly range in terms of wet bulb temperatures. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/hotter-human-body-can-handle-pakistan-city-broils-worlds-highest/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

PicassoCTs 5y ago

First we deny (which costs energy/money), then we wall the problem off (which costs energy/money) - the moment it overwhelms us, we have neither energy nor money left.

crishoj 5y ago

A highly efficient multi-stage solar still has been developed at MIT [1]. An alternative to desalination is capturing humidity from the air, e.g. by isothermal membrane-based air dehumidification [2] or passively using condensation [3]. I’m involved in building a fund to invest in startups in this and other areas related to biosphere resilience, and would love to get in touch with people taking such technology to the market. My guess is we will be needing adaptive measures sooner than most people expect. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iYodKQP72mg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iYodKQP72mg [2] https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1476418 https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1476418 [3] https://newatlas.com/science/passive-drinking-water-harvester/ https://newatlas.com/science/passive-drinking-water-harveste...

fomine3 5y ago

Can't we just collect rain falling to sea, or grab clouds?

raxxorrax 5y ago

I think current desalination methods either use massive amounts of energy or massive amounts of space. Some suggested nuclear power, but I think there are better forms of energy production, especially since you don't need base load or capacity, so solar and wind are much better here. Of couse solar space conflicts with desalination itself. You could just use the sun to evaporate the water in the first place.