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Dark days ahead of us.. money won't be enough if everyone is fighting for the same resources.. then we'll have water issues very soon, things are changing at a

Dark days ahead of us.. money won't be enough if everyone is fighting for the same resources.. then we'll have water issues very soon, things are changing at a very fast pace, it's scary

7373737373 5y ago
I don't get how and why water could ever be an existential problem for humanity, other than in extremely remote drought regions. Yes, desalination plants and other infrastructure investments may make it more expensive, but it doesn't seem to be a fundamentally scarce resource.
- DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
  there is a whole Wikipedia entry dedicated to the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  at .01 cents a gallon or less, yeah it's not scarce at all...
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  You can use desalination for drinking water, but growing food requires way too much water for it to be feasible.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    In Israel, use of desalination made more effluent suitable for irrigation. Before that, the effluent contained too much salt. This isn't desalinating specifically for irrigation, but it is a source of water for irrigation that wouldn't exist without desalination. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-study-water-desalination-advances-lends-to-dramatic-boost-for-farmers-1.5848554 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-study-water-des... Israel is not self-sufficient though; they import 80% of the grain they consume.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Literally billions of people rely on glacial meltwater which will eventually run out. Yes it is technologically feasible to provide the whole world with desalinated water, but it is also technologically feasible to provide the whole world with renewable energy and for some reason we haven't done that either.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  Also pipelines are already proven via oil and natural gas. You can transport oil from remote areas in Canada to western Texas with little effort. Very trivial to extend the idea to routing water from any of the thousands of lakes in Canada. Vegas had a plan to do just that (though from Reno). These ideas aren't pursued because water is not scarce enough for them to be economically justified yet. If the time comes, they will do it and likely cheaper than you think. If renewables eventually take over, we can even repurpose the existing oil pipelines. Likely need to widen them, but much cheaper than land use/zoning legal battles.
  - arbitrary_name 5y ago
    Not trivial at all. It's billions of dollars, huge amounts of energy to pump water up and down mountain ranges, many years of construction, many more years of litigation... And why on earth would Canada give us their water? There was a plan to pipe water to California from the Pacific north west, and the projected costs for that were insane. By the time the high price of water justifies projects on this scale, there will be blood in the streets, not water in aqueducts.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      These problems will tend to evaporate when water starts running low enough to impact people's daily lives. Civilization adapts quickly once somebody pokes the bear.
      - 7373737373 5y ago
        I would love to see a historical survey of what circumstances and processes made large scale projects like these happen
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      Most shortages of water are caused by an inability to build and maintain infrastructure, not an inherent scarcity of water.
- phatfish 5y ago
  Clean water in the right location can certainly be scarce. If a large population is close to the limit and unusual weather or some other event causes a shortage, I'm not sure how long a quick fix like trucking it in would be sustainable.
- nostrademons 5y ago
  It's not an existential problem for humanity, but it could be an existential problem for individual humans. Settlement patterns grow up water availability. There's a reason India and eastern China are densely populated while the Sahara has virtually nobody. The U.S. Southwest (LA, Vegas, Phoenix, and smaller cities in SoCal/AZ/UT/NV/NM) urbanized when we developed the technology to dam & control the Colorado River. In 100 years, it's likely they'll be thriving communities in the Sahara, Canadian Shield, Siberia, etc. to make up for the increasing inhabitability of Northern Europe, the U.S. South & Southwest, Indian subcontinent, Middle East, etc. But that's cold comfort for the people who already live in the affected regions, who will have to migrate, die, or spend most of their resources on water infrastructure.

Dark days ahead of us.. money won't be enough if everyone is fighting for the same resources.. then we'll have water issues very soon, things are changing at a very fast pace, it's scary

7373737373 5y ago

I don't get how and why water could ever be an existential problem for humanity, other than in extremely remote drought regions. Yes, desalination plants and other infrastructure investments may make it more expensive, but it doesn't seem to be a fundamentally scarce resource.

DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
there is a whole Wikipedia entry dedicated to the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity
calvinmorrison 5y ago
at .01 cents a gallon or less, yeah it's not scarce at all...
bcrosby95 5y ago
You can use desalination for drinking water, but growing food requires way too much water for it to be feasible.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  In Israel, use of desalination made more effluent suitable for irrigation. Before that, the effluent contained too much salt. This isn't desalinating specifically for irrigation, but it is a source of water for irrigation that wouldn't exist without desalination. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-study-water-desalination-advances-lends-to-dramatic-boost-for-farmers-1.5848554 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-study-water-des... Israel is not self-sufficient though; they import 80% of the grain they consume.
jeffbee 5y ago
Literally billions of people rely on glacial meltwater which will eventually run out. Yes it is technologically feasible to provide the whole world with desalinated water, but it is also technologically feasible to provide the whole world with renewable energy and for some reason we haven't done that either.
adam_arthur 5y ago
Also pipelines are already proven via oil and natural gas. You can transport oil from remote areas in Canada to western Texas with little effort. Very trivial to extend the idea to routing water from any of the thousands of lakes in Canada. Vegas had a plan to do just that (though from Reno). These ideas aren't pursued because water is not scarce enough for them to be economically justified yet. If the time comes, they will do it and likely cheaper than you think. If renewables eventually take over, we can even repurpose the existing oil pipelines. Likely need to widen them, but much cheaper than land use/zoning legal battles.
- arbitrary_name 5y ago
  Not trivial at all. It's billions of dollars, huge amounts of energy to pump water up and down mountain ranges, many years of construction, many more years of litigation... And why on earth would Canada give us their water? There was a plan to pipe water to California from the Pacific north west, and the projected costs for that were insane. By the time the high price of water justifies projects on this scale, there will be blood in the streets, not water in aqueducts.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    These problems will tend to evaporate when water starts running low enough to impact people's daily lives. Civilization adapts quickly once somebody pokes the bear.
    - 7373737373 5y ago
      I would love to see a historical survey of what circumstances and processes made large scale projects like these happen
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    Most shortages of water are caused by an inability to build and maintain infrastructure, not an inherent scarcity of water.
phatfish 5y ago
Clean water in the right location can certainly be scarce. If a large population is close to the limit and unusual weather or some other event causes a shortage, I'm not sure how long a quick fix like trucking it in would be sustainable.
nostrademons 5y ago
It's not an existential problem for humanity, but it could be an existential problem for individual humans. Settlement patterns grow up water availability. There's a reason India and eastern China are densely populated while the Sahara has virtually nobody. The U.S. Southwest (LA, Vegas, Phoenix, and smaller cities in SoCal/AZ/UT/NV/NM) urbanized when we developed the technology to dam & control the Colorado River. In 100 years, it's likely they'll be thriving communities in the Sahara, Canadian Shield, Siberia, etc. to make up for the increasing inhabitability of Northern Europe, the U.S. South & Southwest, Indian subcontinent, Middle East, etc. But that's cold comfort for the people who already live in the affected regions, who will have to migrate, die, or spend most of their resources on water infrastructure.