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>Solving the upcoming water problems is a wholly political problem and not one of engineering I'm not sure I understand this. Maybe in the sense that if there

by nir 17y ago

>Solving the upcoming water problems is a wholly political problem and not one of engineering I'm not sure I understand this. Maybe in the sense that if there was peace among nations it would easier to apply the engineering solutions that would solve the water problem? Even so, directing more resources to water engineering research can be reasonably expected to result in some useful solutions. Few will claim that strengthening political science depts would yield more world peace. (BTW, the 2nd article contains Reddit-level nonsense. That it is published by academics - I assume? - says more about academia than its subject matter)

krschultz 17y ago
The phrase often attributed to the water problem is "Water flows uphill towards the highest concentration of money"
Tangurena 17y ago
No, peace isn't the solution. In the western states, such as CO and UT, the water-rights laws are tangled, messy and arcane. They even predate the statehood and are embedded in the state constitutions. Effectively, once you turn a pipe on, you can never turn it off. People who have "senior water rights" are allowed under those state laws to make people "upstream" not only stop using water from rivers, but replace the water that they had been using. Canada has a large number of rivers that flow north into the Arctic sea. From the US perspective, that water is wasted. "We" would like to see it pumped south. However, we wanted a uniform framework of laws governing that. So we forced the Canadians into accepting water-rights laws substantially similar to the western states' laws. Consequently, the Canadians banned such water exports. If you want to see how screwed up water distribution is in the US. And how political the mess is, then I recommed that you read the book Cadillac Desert. http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244 http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-... And as for the anthropik article, several of the points made in that article (and yes, I know it rambles too much) have to do with how Israel needs the water, and how that water is critical to the security of their nation. When the water being pumped out of the aquifers in Gaza became too contaminated for agriculture, then Gaza ended up getting returned to Palestinian control (and now about all that grows are flowers and hatred). If you look at the "security barrier" on the West Bank, it seems to follow no political nor demographic map. When you map that security barrier against the aquifer's boundaries, then you get a match. Water is life. And the Babylonians had to struggle with salt deposits in their cropland. As their fields got too salty for high yielding crops like citrus and wheat, they had to switch to lower yielding grains like emmer (good luck finding that outside of a health food store) and barley. Some of those fields ended up so salty that they shine in modern day Iraqi sunlight: those are salt deposits from more than 2000 years ago. Food is life. Water is life. Without both, we die. Therefore they become political.

by nir 17y ago

krschultz 17y ago

The phrase often attributed to the water problem is "Water flows uphill towards the highest concentration of money"

Tangurena 17y ago

No, peace isn't the solution. In the western states, such as CO and UT, the water-rights laws are tangled, messy and arcane. They even predate the statehood and are embedded in the state constitutions. Effectively, once you turn a pipe on, you can never turn it off. People who have "senior water rights" are allowed under those state laws to make people "upstream" not only stop using water from rivers, but replace the water that they had been using. Canada has a large number of rivers that flow north into the Arctic sea. From the US perspective, that water is wasted. "We" would like to see it pumped south. However, we wanted a uniform framework of laws governing that. So we forced the Canadians into accepting water-rights laws substantially similar to the western states' laws. Consequently, the Canadians banned such water exports. If you want to see how screwed up water distribution is in the US. And how political the mess is, then I recommed that you read the book Cadillac Desert. http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244 http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-... And as for the anthropik article, several of the points made in that article (and yes, I know it rambles too much) have to do with how Israel needs the water, and how that water is critical to the security of their nation. When the water being pumped out of the aquifers in Gaza became too contaminated for agriculture, then Gaza ended up getting returned to Palestinian control (and now about all that grows are flowers and hatred). If you look at the "security barrier" on the West Bank, it seems to follow no political nor demographic map. When you map that security barrier against the aquifer's boundaries, then you get a match. Water is life. And the Babylonians had to struggle with salt deposits in their cropland. As their fields got too salty for high yielding crops like citrus and wheat, they had to switch to lower yielding grains like emmer (good luck finding that outside of a health food store) and barley. Some of those fields ended up so salty that they shine in modern day Iraqi sunlight: those are salt deposits from more than 2000 years ago. Food is life. Water is life. Without both, we die. Therefore they become political.