Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

popularmechanics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 46 posts

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#21

Post by dash2 »

card_zero wrote: post #13

So it's "breaking down" and "malfunctioning" relative to the water needs of the humans living in the affected areas. So this is not in fact any meaningful step change in the system, unless you see providing comfortable amounts of fresh water to all humans living in those specific areas as its purpose.

I don't know what water's purpose is in God's eyes, but I think from humans' point of view, we should try and make sure all humans have comfortable amounts of fresh water, and if that will become impossible, that's a problem.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#22

Post by OccamsMirror »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #16
Sakos wrote: post #2

> That’s the conclusion of a new report published this week by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water—a group of leading scientists and economists formed in 2022 whose mission is to assess the state of Earth’s hydrological systems and how those systems are being managed. The results are not encouraging. The report finds that demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by more than 40 percent by the end of th…

It seems like efforts to fix our problems are being deliberately sabotaged by wealthy corporations as they attempt to squeeze as much profit as they can before our inevitable civilisation collapse. Personally, I think the best way to make progress would be to remove the billionaires first as they are working against the majority's interests.

That's not cool, man. I'm totally planning on becoming a billionaire! How else will I be able to afford the bunker of my dreams to protect my family from the incoming calamity?

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#23

Post by jebebeebehhe »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #16
Sakos wrote: post #2

> That’s the conclusion of a new report published this week by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water—a group of leading scientists and economists formed in 2022 whose mission is to assess the state of Earth’s hydrological systems and how those systems are being managed. The results are not encouraging. The report finds that demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by more than 40 percent by the end of th…

It seems like efforts to fix our problems are being deliberately sabotaged by wealthy corporations as they attempt to squeeze as much profit as they can before our inevitable civilisation collapse. Personally, I think the best way to make progress would be to remove the billionaires first as they are working against the majority's interests.

Communism. (I say as a non-pejorative) I wonder if there is a way to make that work.

Or decent socialism. Co-ops > Corps.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#24

Post by 0xEF »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #16
Sakos wrote: post #2

> That’s the conclusion of a new report published this week by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water—a group of leading scientists and economists formed in 2022 whose mission is to assess the state of Earth’s hydrological systems and how those systems are being managed. The results are not encouraging. The report finds that demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by more than 40 percent by the end of th…

It seems like efforts to fix our problems are being deliberately sabotaged by wealthy corporations as they attempt to squeeze as much profit as they can before our inevitable civilisation collapse. Personally, I think the best way to make progress would be to remove the billionaires first as they are working against the majority's interests.

It's called Accelerationism. Those with the resources to weather the collapse feel it is their duty to bring it about so they can restart civilization "correctly" this time.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#26

Post by aspenmayer »

ThrowAaaaway wrote: post #14
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, we’ll use all the power useful for making clean water from the ocean for AI, and the shareholders will be so happy they can continue to extract value from those aquifers for a while longer :)

It's possible to use waste heat to evaporate water, to make drinking water from salt water, but it's unpractical to build datacenter on a shore, or pump salt water uphil to a datacenter.

Seems like Microsoft and Google are trying to make it work.

How Oceans are Being Used to Cool Massive Data Centres [2017]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-oceans-are-being-used-to...

Alternative Water Cooling Sources for Data Centers [2019]

https://www.ashrae.org/technical-resources/ashrae-journal/fe...

> While the temperature of surface ocean water can fluctuate seasonally, it can still be a valuable source of cooling. In hot regions such as the Middle East, surface seawater as high as 90°F (32°C) is used for condenser cooling with conventional systems. This is because even the higher temperature water is more efficient than air cooling and using potable water for evaporative cooling is not allowed due to water use restrictions.

Feasibility study and multi-objective optimization of seawater cooling systems for data centers: A case study of Caspian Sea [2021]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22131...

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101528

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#27

Post by card_zero »

dash2 wrote: post #21
card_zero wrote: post #13

So it's "breaking down" and "malfunctioning" relative to the water needs of the humans living in the affected areas. So this is not in fact any meaningful step change in the system, unless you see providing comfortable amounts of fresh water to all humans living in those specific areas as its purpose.

I don't know what water's purpose is in God's eyes, but I think from humans' point of view, we should try and make sure all humans have comfortable amounts of fresh water, and if that will become impossible, that's a problem.

Uh-huh. I'm objecting to phrases that give the impression that something specific and terrifying is happening that might, for instance, kill all life, when what's really happened is that a quango released a report about the ongoing general decline.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#28

Post by rtpg »

There's some cruel irony in the planet getting hotter not just making it rain more and making rain happen on land.

I do wonder what the state of desalination is. I have read a bit about brine management out of curiosity , but I really have a hard time understanding what can be done about it. If someone figured out how to make concrete from brine or something could we be doing a lot more desalination?

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#29

Post by prolly97 »

EGreg wrote: post #9

Elon Musk is worried about “population collapse” in countries Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right? What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation…

Uhu.. And how do we decide which people we don't want to exist? Is it last in first out? - "we were here first"?

As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of those surviving or being the lucky chosen ones. I'd rather have my siblings + have to figure out how to fix issues with water supply etc. along the way, than not have my siblings and not have meaningful 'problems' to work on.

We've solved harder problems. Throwing 7 billion people under the bus, because a problem seems a little hard, seems idiotic.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#30

Post by rrrrrertt »

EGreg wrote: post #9

Elon Musk is worried about “population collapse” in countries Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right? What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation…

Not to mention how nasty it is to create new sentient beings in a shitty world that is going to ruin just to satisfy our selfish needs... I would be ashamed to meet their eyes, let alone tell them I love them.
Post reply on HN