Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Hopefully the developing world can learn from our mistakes and not build cities and farmland in deserts.
Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
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Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#53Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#54If our weather is getting more unpredictable due to climate change why don't we get better at capturing the heavy rain we experience in some parts of the world and allowing it to sink in to the ground rather than running off into rivers. Particularly thinking of some of the flooding in UK and Europe over the last decade. If the ice caps melt due to rising temperature surely this means more water in the atmosphere and…
There's been some noise about fixing this, but after privatisation there's no commercial interest in taking on national-scale projects without government subsidy.
Somewhere like CA is largely desert anyway, and there's no obvious wet climate area to collect water from.
So practically, only draconian conservation laws and perhaps a huge string of desal plants can save CA. I guess neither of those are likely. And then you get a repeat of what's happening in Sao Paulo and Rio in Brazil, where there's no water for days on end.
The terrifying thing about climate change is that it's literally making some areas uninhabitable. Large parts of FL have less than fifty years, CA and NM are drying out, the East Coast will become more prone to flooding and perhaps also to extreme winters.
Europe is going to have similar problems as flooding becomes common. There are already places in the UK where buildings insurance is no longer affordable.
At some point the economics stop making sense. Not long after that people either leave or become homeless.
It would have been smart to avoid these outcomes, but that doesn't seem to have happened.
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#55With 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://…
There is a theory that if we continue making the Gulf warmer by putting so much salt in, it could be a catalyst for plunging the world into an ice age. Who knows if that's true.
Already here in New Zealand we are exporting some of our fresh water to very rich people over in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries. Can't link the source, it was a court news article about some guy who assaulted someone. He was exporting prime NZ lambs, and water tankers...
A previous comment I made, with quote from National Geographic about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2094701
[1] http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/environment/waste-dump-threaten...
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#56With 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
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
More realistically, California stops growing alfalfa and stops raising beef cattle altogether. That would free up enough water to water every lawn across the state.
Well, we should consider moving away from lawns too. They are the largest crop grown in the US. http://scienceline.org/2011/07/lawns-vs-crops-in-the-contine...
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#58Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#59With 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://…
Simple: cost As long as it is cheaper to exploit an existing clean water source than to spend the energy, and invest in the massive and in some cases unproven tech and engineering infrastructure to build desalination plants, then that's what will happen. It's unfortunate, because the cost to future generations, or the biosphere doesn't calculate into our current economic system, and most of the commercial infrastruct…
$0.58/m3 seems pretty cheap to me.
Re: Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now, UN report warns
#60With 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://…
The issue is the waste... the salt that's left over. What happens to it? In the Persian Gulf (I think...) they have basically killed everything in the water from the abundance of salt that's been put back into the sea water.[1] There is a theory that if we continue making the Gulf warmer by putting so much salt in, it could be a catalyst for plunging the world into an ice age. Who knows if that's true. Already here i…