Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#71

Post by jensen123 » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #49

rrrazdan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is confused about the death of the river. The problem is clearly with Indian people itself, including me. There is a lot going on at the ground level and there is a lot more that should be done. I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people fighting for their next meal? As average incomes grow, people ar…

>> I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. I think it's all due to overpopulation - which it can be argued is a result of poverty too. As long as the world refuses to address exponential population growth, we will continue to run into resource shortages on this finite planet.

The population of India has an average IQ of 81. Compare that with China, which has an average IQ of 100. I guess this is why China instituted the (very smart) one-child-per-family policy whereas India has done nothing.

http://www.rlynn.co.uk/uploads/pdfs/Intelligence%20and%20the...

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#72

Post by rrrazdan » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

jensen123 wrote: post #71

phkahler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. I think it's all due to overpopulation - which it can be argued is a result of poverty too. As long as the world refuses to address exponential population growth, we will continue to run into resource shortages on this finite planet.

The population of India has an average IQ of 81. Compare that with China, which has an average IQ of 100. I guess this is why China instituted the (very smart) one-child-per-family policy whereas India has done nothing. http://www.rlynn.co.uk/uploads/pdfs/Intelligence%20and%20the...

Well IQ is directly related to nutrition. So lets see how that plays out.

Also Indian population density is less than the Netherlands. So its not all about over population.

India is also inching towards lower birth rates with southern states already below 2.1 .

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#73

Post by rrrazdan » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #49

rrrazdan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is confused about the death of the river. The problem is clearly with Indian people itself, including me. There is a lot going on at the ground level and there is a lot more that should be done. I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people fighting for their next meal? As average incomes grow, people ar…

>> I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. I think it's all due to overpopulation - which it can be argued is a result of poverty too. As long as the world refuses to address exponential population growth, we will continue to run into resource shortages on this finite planet.

I have got news for you. The exponential population growth is already slowing in most of the world save Africa. It is going to halt somewhere around 2150 and then reverse.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#74

Post by cholantesh » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

pigpaws wrote: post #34

cholantesh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the purpose of your comment is. In the article, overconsumption, pollution, and interstate water routing disputes are all mentioned as exacerbating factors, with climate is only given a passing mention. Those human factors are part of a wide, ongoing discussion in Indian communities around the world, and water catchment is common in municipalities within the country. I'm not sure this is an 'honesty…

The 'honesty' issue I mentioned was in regards to the article and how it portrayed the issue and how it implied 'climate change' was the main culprit. I understand the issue is much more widely discussed in India with all of its various facets and variables, but the way the article framed it was disingenuous at best (IMO).

I don't really see that, personally. I read it as saying that AGW is exacerbating already rampant human issues that are causing the quality and quantity of water in the Gangetic basin to decline.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#75

Post by oceankid » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

lifebeyondfife wrote: post #8

A friend of mine was involved in this documentary about a similar situation going on in neighbouring Nepal: https://vimeo.com/115894458 . Interesting and sad to see the human side of how unreliable access to such a basic human need, affects life.

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#76

Post by noir_lord » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

workusername wrote: post #45

I'm not going to read the article because the question as a title suggests to me that the journalist could have done more research. That aside, this reminds me of the UK which regularly has floods in winter, and droughts in summer. Now if we have too much water in one season, and too little water in another, surely it's not too hard to figure out a common solution to both. I call it a "dam". Are there reasons the UK…

> surely it's not too hard to figure out a common solution to both

If only we had expert engineers on civil projects, civil engineers if you will to look at this stuff eh.

1) We don't have that many rivers that would suit having a dam put in.

2) We are very densely populated, daming a river would require moving large numbers of people (time consuming, costly and likely to end up in court).

3) The areas most effected by drought are the south-east, they also get way less rainfall in summer and winter than the north-west which floods a lot more.

http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/GCSE/Year11/Weather,Climate/R...

4) Population pressure on water is vastly higher in the south east than in the North and south west.

5) Assuming you could dam the rivers and have a water reserve the most sensible place to do it would be the north-west, you then have to get the water hundreds and hundreds of miles down into the south east (which has been proposed but moving water is expensive relative to it's commodity cost, a 1m cube of water ways exactly 1 tonne).

6) The UK idea of a drought is very different to what most regions would call a drought, only in the absolutely worst years do we go beyond a host pipe ban and even then only for a few weeks.

7) Given the population density and the difficulty of moving vast quantities of water you'd need to put the dams in near to the densest population since the human impact of a damn is proportional to the population density that's not great

8) Dams cause widespread ecological change (sometimes a net benefit sometimes not).

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#77

Post by pkaye » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:40 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #69

pkaye wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindus don't bury their dead. They cremate them. Now there are polluting aspects to cremation but it can be done better than burial using proper incineration equipment. I have observed that such environmentally friendly cremation services are becoming more common in India even in smaller cities.

Not all Hindus cremate their dead. In fact a small minority do. In South India, burials are what you will see in nearly all the cases. Only a certain castes cremate. Everybody else buries and yes river burial too is not common. Lets talk of reckless dumping of human waste, industrial waste into rivers and lakes.

Do yo have any citations that only a small minority of Hindus cremate their dead?

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#78

Post by srean » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 9:58 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #69

pkaye wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindus don't bury their dead. They cremate them. Now there are polluting aspects to cremation but it can be done better than burial using proper incineration equipment. I have observed that such environmentally friendly cremation services are becoming more common in India even in smaller cities.

Not all Hindus cremate their dead. In fact a small minority do. In South India, burials are what you will see in nearly all the cases. Only a certain castes cremate. Everybody else buries and yes river burial too is not common. Lets talk of reckless dumping of human waste, industrial waste into rivers and lakes.

As a non-religious athiest hindu this is the first time I am hearing this, could you give some pointers. I would have expected it to go the other way (if at all), that is, only a small minority of hindu's do not cremate their dead.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#79

Post by srean » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 9:58 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #68

rrrazdan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is confused about the death of the river. The problem is clearly with Indian people itself, including me. There is a lot going on at the ground level and there is a lot more that should be done. I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people fighting for their next meal? As average incomes grow, people ar…

>>You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people fighting for their next meal? I completely refuse to believe this. Poor are no way to blame here. Its pretty much the upper middle class, rich and industrial waste that is polluting the rivers. In a city like Bangalore, most of the lakes have been destroyed to the point of no recovery. What were once places of recreation are now cesspool for all sorts of waste from…

Could not upvote this enough !

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#80

Post by ethbro » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 12:42 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #27

pigpaws wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not ALL attributable to poverty - There is no SINGLE factor (aside from Education). The poor are not the only ones using the river as a burial ground. do you understand what a single rotting body does to the water supply, let alone tens of thousands?

I also presume that the volume of bodies has increased in line with population, whilst the river volume has stayed constant (if not, in fact, decreased)

I'm going to make a modest proposal, but I wonder if there's enough caloric content in a body to make it worthwhile as feedstock in industrial aquaculture.

Nutrients preserved, value created, payments potentially made to the bereaved families. Everyone's a winner!