If one protests against government corruption is obe rewarded with a additional waterration?
Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
91–100 of 147 posts
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, Idiocracy was release over 11 years ago, so young adults might not have heard of it. Hope I haven't made you feel old :)
I for one got the reference. but HN comment style strongly discourages low-effort jokes. It doesn't add information. I'm not surprised that it was downvoted, whether people "got it" or not. This is fine, HN is not reddit.
God forbid somebody makes a joke! This is a professional website, grim attitude is required.
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#93even though the dams are almost depleted the city's lack of water is more due to political issues than water management. the government is insisting that the local desalination plant manufacturer (which supplies australia and other countries) operate through a "Black Economic Empowerment" partner which heavily inflates the cost, and most likely will be tied to "the worlds most corrupt presidents" partners in crime, t…
This is why this is happening. Everybody is quick to jump on the climate change bandwagon, but the government in ZA is VERY inefficient, incompetent and corrupt... to the point of making many other countries worst days look like competence. If the land reform goes through without compensation expect it to get a lot worse (which is being actively talked about by some of the parties). The compensated land reform has already been a disaster. Farms that were purchased and distributed went from being productive farms to producing nothing in many cases. This is all about mis-management. The Western Cape provincial government, which is where Cape Town is, is one of the more functional governments in the country too.
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#94Just finished reading Affluence Without Abundance https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappear... about bushmen who live in southern Africa. It turns out people have lived in southern Africa for 200,000 years , hunting and gathering. Westerners show up, run out of water in a couple hundred years, and call them "developing." The book is an eye-opener.
Turns out having the most guns doesn't make you the most enlightened.
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#95I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…
Well, that's interesting. Are there companies that own water capacity in countries? Might be a good long term investment.
Reminds me startlingly of this:
https://youtu.be/Bu2wNKlVRzE?t=4m40s
(recommend this film if you haven't seen it)
Edit: it gets more depressing the more you look...
... https://youtu.be/2sWhvOaavTQ?t=44s M.Burry on his investments (2010)
... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meXnifcAwN8 Morningstar: Why invest in water? (2015)
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#96I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…
>2. The city has lost R1.6b ($130m) in water fees due to reduced usage, so now we're facing a "drought tax". To me this is bullshit but thats a whole other post.
Why?
In already deployed networks, decreased usage means the cost per client, or the cost per unit used will go up.
This is a problem with any network that charges for delivery based on usage and cannot easily cut off unused parts of the network.
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
"if done properly", state infrastructure can do this just as well. I'd have a look at the Carillion bankruptcy before claiming that the private sector is a solution.
The problem is that state's aren't really motivated to get things done in a cost efficient manner. If the government in SA is like the US, employees are not rewarded for doing anything beyond the bare minimum to prove that they are still alive. In a private business, the employees have to help the business towards its goal of making money, so all of the incentives are aligned to be successful (employees want promotio…
Someone will surely try your suggestion at some point, and I hope we don't get to find out what the Enron of water supply looks like.
"Newly discovered tapes have revealed how the energy corporation Enron shut down at least one power plant on false pretences, deliberately aggravating California's crippling 2001 blackouts with the aim of raising prices."
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/feb/05/enron.usnew...
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#98The largest of the dams supplying Cape Town (Theewaterskloof) has a massive surface area (around 5000 ha). Given that the area also tends to be very windy due to its altitude and the prevailing South Easter that blows right throughout summer, evaporation must be really high. Also desalination is energy intensive.
For political reasons I'm pretty sure this would be impossible, but I wonder how practical it would be to cover it with solar panels and use the energy for desalination.
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#99Just finished reading Affluence Without Abundance https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappear... about bushmen who live in southern Africa. It turns out people have lived in southern Africa for 200,000 years , hunting and gathering. Westerners show up, run out of water in a couple hundred years, and call them "developing." The book is an eye-opener.
Yes, but hunting and gathering in the bush doesn't do a damn about increasing technology and getting us off this planet. All it takes is one planetary scale disaster, and we're done for.
We're spinning our tires aiming to expatriate from the planet in lieu of a planetary scale disaster. We are better equipped to fix our own damn rock in space than to fuck up another one.
Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water
#100I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…
Regarding the policy being set at national level - I've seen mention of the Western Cape seceding - how realistic was that, and has this had any effect on that? I'm ex Durban/Johannesburg, abandoned the rainbow nation 20 or so years ago with zero confidence in its future, and I'm afraid it was the right call; part of me would love to return, and the WC (there's a pun there) seceding would interest me for a move there…
Well, there's an exodus from the rest of the country to the W. Cape. They call it 'semigration'. Property was up 12% a while ago when all other provinces saw a decline I think (except Gauteng; they were up 3%). As a young person of the wrong demographic here though, myself and most of my friends are preparing for possible departure for a few different reasons. If you are already established in a field with an overseas nest egg that can't be touched by SA inflation though, then Cape Town is probably one of the best cities to live in on the planet. If you know what you're doing, living here is fantastic.