Once again, Silicon Valley is way ahead of the curve.
Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
11–20 of 65 posts
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#12With all the talk of water running out in CA and the world, I am wondering why desalination is not part of the conversation. According to Wikipedia: "Supplying all domestic water by sea water desalination would increase the United States' energy consumption by around 10%, about the amount of energy used by domestic refrigerators." Is this true? If so, why isn't desalination happening on a massive scale in CA? http://…
It is part of the conversation. There was just an NPR Forum segment about it yesterday or so. There are articles about it sometimes (e.g., http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-large...). This solution often ends up not being pursued because it's extremely expensive and energy intensive not only to desalinate but to then pump the water to where it needs to go, and you also have waste product to deal with. So in many cases it has been decided that other avenues, like conservation, are more economical.
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#13Introducing Aquabob! Imagine: a dome that collects condensation (think morning dew). It waters your greenhouse, and leaves you with plenty to water down for those midnight cocktails
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#14[deleted]
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#15With the rising sea levels (due to global warming), wouldn't now be the best time to figure out how to pipe that desalinated water all over the continents?
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#16They point to population growth as a contributing factor, yet they never suggest anyone do anything about that. How about free birth control to anyone who wants it? How about permanent birth control to any adult who wants it? I'd say free to anyone below some income level since the middle class can afford it anyway. With increasing productivity we don't have jobs for all the people anyway, why not encourage making le…
I wonder if there are strategic reasons behind this - do the US and European countries fear a growing China and India and feel the need to compete, for example? Are there military or economic incentives to having a large population today as there used to be a millennium ago? I'm probably going to go with no, but who knows?
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#17With all the talk of water running out in CA and the world, I am wondering why desalination is not part of the conversation. According to Wikipedia: "Supplying all domestic water by sea water desalination would increase the United States' energy consumption by around 10%, about the amount of energy used by domestic refrigerators." Is this true? If so, why isn't desalination happening on a massive scale in CA? http://…
This was the follow-up piece to that "California will have no water in a year" post.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0320-drought-e...
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#18They point to population growth as a contributing factor, yet they never suggest anyone do anything about that. How about free birth control to anyone who wants it? How about permanent birth control to any adult who wants it? I'd say free to anyone below some income level since the middle class can afford it anyway. With increasing productivity we don't have jobs for all the people anyway, why not encourage making le…
I think one of the keys to "controlling" population growth is to bring people out of poverty. Most studies I read, show dropping birth rates as people/nations climb the economic ladder. Education, and health care also play a big part.
Since the original topic is the global fresh water crisis, wouldn't the increased per capita resource consumption from greater standards of living offset any gains in population growth slowing?
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#19They point to population growth as a contributing factor, yet they never suggest anyone do anything about that. How about free birth control to anyone who wants it? How about permanent birth control to any adult who wants it? I'd say free to anyone below some income level since the middle class can afford it anyway. With increasing productivity we don't have jobs for all the people anyway, why not encourage making le…
I think one of the keys to "controlling" population growth is to bring people out of poverty. Most studies I read, show dropping birth rates as people/nations climb the economic ladder. Education, and health care also play a big part.
>> I think one of the keys to "controlling" population growth is to bring people out of poverty.
That implies that poor people have a higher reproductive rate - which I believe is true. A shortcut is to offer birth control to poor people. Many of them don't actually want a bunch of kids, but when you're poor there's not much to do and sex is free.
I agree it'd be nice to bring people out of poverty, but shouldn't we stop creating more people in poverty too? Prevention is cheaper than a cure.
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#20I bet they've got their finger right on a set of great solutions: (1) more money for the UN, (2) more sovereign power handed over to the UN, (3) more money from the UN to fund more studies on why more money should be given to the UN, (4) more posh conferences for UN and UN-related bigshots in exotic locales, (5) annihilate Israel, (6) new Nobel prizes to be handed out to UN-grant-funded researchers promoting increased funding of the UN at UN-sponsored conferences...