Soon to be Worldwide Water Shortage??

Buy a Boat, get a water maker, the earth is 3/5th water. I did and I can go anywhere I want. The watermaker takes sea water and makes better water than you buy in those plastic bottles or out of your tap.

Think about it. Pure clean water. Lots of it.

Just a quick question.

About 20 years or so ago they were saying we were going to have a mini Ice Age. They were warning us, just like you are now, that we would see Europe die under Ice and snow storms. It was on the news and Newsweek, PBS, you name it.

Now those scientists are not to be found.

I say, you will follow those scientists. Just my opinion.

Have you seen the Sun Spot Activity chart? Here is an article on it.

www.space.com...

More...

Alarm Bells Sound For European Water Supply As Hot Weather Looms

Summer has still to make its official start in Europe, yet many countries are sweating - and it has less to do with the immediate temperature than out of worry for their water supplies.
If the sun god Apollo decides to put on a show similar to the heatwave that held western Europe in a molten grip in 2003, half a dozen countries are on course for water shortages that will be socially disruptive and economically costly, experts and officials say.

Southern Spain, southeastern England and western and southern France are viewed as chronically vulnerable, while eyes are anxiously following water availability in parts of Portugal, Italy and Greece, incompletely recovered from the scorcher of three years ago.

Several years of above-average temperatures, below-average rainfall and extraction of water for farms, holiday homes and population densification are driving the big crunch.

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The Midwest is home to the lucrative and rapidly expanding ethanol industry. The water usage demands that these ethanol plants place on supply hasn't reached a critical stage, but is now making some experts uneasy. Although the larger, statewide pictures of water available vs. usage appears adequate, locally, some towns and individuals are and will have to make some usage changes. Examples include the town of Aberdeen, South Dakota currently looking for additional sources of water to be able to comfortably supply themselves as well as a proposed ethanol plant, and the prediction that some well-reliant Illinois residents can expect to have to lower their pumps or their wells altogether.

Experts: Ethanol's water demands a concern
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - City officials in Champaign and Urbana took notice when they heard that an ethanol plant proposed nearby would use about 2 million gallons of water per day, most likely from the aquifer that also supplies both cities.

"There was concern about impacting a pretty valuable resource," said Matt Wempe, a city planner for Urbana. "It should raise red flags."

The proposal for a 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant is just one of many that have popped up in the past several months across Illinois, which already has seven operating plants and is the nation's No. 2 ethanol producer after Iowa...

It's probably an irony repeated elsewhere in other examples, I'm sure, that ethanol (called the "Polution Solution" in the photo accompanying the article linked above) production, while reducing polution, may negatively affect the availability of a precious natural resource.

Ive always wondered about the auqifers......
Have we ever tested them to see if they are getting empty or
have we tested them to see how much they had ? Ive also
wondered why they never sent submersibles in them.

www.waterhistory.org...

Above is a good site for learning about the history of water from a political perspective. Interesting reading.

I remember reading about swaths of the midwest where the natural aquifers are dry and the land is being sold uber-cheap because of this. Does anyone know more about this?

Prez Bush quietly killed a nuclear fallout study last year (no need to know how nukes affect humans right?) so it's no wonder that Americans are kept utterly in the dark about this important subject also. If we have to depend upon our leaders for our well being, we're toast.

I always laugh when i hear "water shortage" or fox news' dramatic "world's drinkable water supply is dwindling". All the water that's ever been on this planet is still here. It doesnt go anywhere. You drink fresh water,urinate it out,and it evaporates. We all know the rest.......moisture=clouds=rain=more fresh water. It goes nowhere.

Even if we drink up the fresh water faster than it gets replaced,we can de-salinize sea water. The only reason we dont have more de-salinization plants on the coast, is 'cause uncle sam doesnt want to fork over the cash.It makes me annoyed when i hear we're running out of drinkable water,especially when we can drink sea water so easily.

Originally posted by spanishcaravan
It makes me annoyed when i hear we're running out of drinkable water,especially when we can drink sea water so easily.

Your location indicates "Bakersfield". Kern county is essentially ruled by water politics. You should read more about the ground under your feet and the availability (or lack thereof) of water.

You seem to be convinced that the water which falls from the sky will be clean enough to use. Water really comes down to storage and transport. When you turn the tap on, you are using a very complex system. If it fails or is interrupted, you will find your entire life altered.

Also, in your area of the country, water rights will probably come down to bullets at some future date. It's far too arid a region to support even one quarter of the population that live there (So Cal I mean). There's just too many millions of people, and if enough of them get thirsty, they'll destroy the infrastructure.

There has been more than one excellent book written on the subject of a looming water crisis in that region. Cadillac Desert is one that pops to mind right now.

Admittedly all of our water is still around, but as the atmosphere heats up (which it is doing) it absorbs more and more water--which coincidentally helps it heat up faster. Anyway, the bottom line is that there is less water available on the surface of the Earth, or beneath the surface, as the world heats up. It becomes easier to condense it out of the air using the type of simple apparatus I saw sketches of earlier on this thread, but otherwise the water is not useable. You can expect droughts to increase and become more widespread as global warming takes a tighter hold of the planet.

Someone earlier speculated on the cause of the droughts in Spain & Portugal perhaps being a consequence of the Gulf Stream slowing down. They could be right. As the Gulf Stream slows (and thus carries less heat to Europe) the temperatures there will drop and as they do there will be less moisture in the air to condense and fall as rain. Europe will therefore become cooler as well as dryer.

[edit on 23-6-2006 by Astronomer70]

Duly noted SMALLPEEPS. What i was trying to get across didnt translate well. Basically what i was just saying is that yes,the supply on demand of drinkable water is low,and is a problem;but can be solved. Water de-salination plants are all over the mid-east, but not here. The only reason we dont have many de-salination plants is beacause of cost,and envirionmentalists. If it costs too much money,then the gov't isnt interested.

I guess what im tryin to say is that a proactive approach,i.e water conservation and use of de-salination plants is the best way to go. Especially with this global warming goin on.

Some links in case you'd like to learn more: www.awwa.org...

Info on using nuclear power for desalination also.

www.edu.cn...

"Desalinated seawater is as pure as purified water sold on the market, " Li says. "A small amount of seawater would be added to meet the mineral needs of the human body. After high-temperature treatment, the water is purified, its salt content even lower than that in the piped water we drink now."

Originally posted by jumpspace
Water will be the new gold of the future I believe.

Well I guess your better start really liking us here in Michigan. Weather has been pretty normal here, just your usual mix of messed up weather.

Thought I'd also let you know that in Western Australia, some farmers aren't planting crops this year as the rain didn't come for them to plough/seed.

This is happening for the FIRST time for farmers who've been farming their whole lifetime.

Expect the price of grain to be expensive at the end of the year and, as such, all other grain based products.

There's an "insider tip" for all you traders

Cheers

JS

Originally posted by spanishcaravan
The only reason we dont have many de-salination plants is beacause of cost,and envirionmentalists. If it costs too much money,then the gov't isnt interested.

The bigger problem is in the countries/regions where there is not enough money to make de-salination plants even an option.

If today we see people risk their lives for the possibility of getting work in a foreign, richer land, what do you think of a future where people will have to move to richer (in available drinking water) countries/regions just to stay alive?

If people reach a point where they have to risk their lives for drinkable water then the World will be in a point from which they may be no return.

Ok some facts for you people...

The is a current worldwide shortage of water, people around the world are having problems with this and while there may be some places that are ok for now that still dosen't change the fact that this is the truth for most of the world.

For those who say that water dosen't go anywhere I'd tell them to look at a river, preferably one of those overflowing ones that are flooding through some place in the spring, that's the summer's fresh water flowing away and getting to the ocean far ahead of time. Furthermore when it gets to the ocean it isn't accompanied by and increase in evaporation to make up for the added water, it remains the same and the ocean gets a bit bigger. One reason why this is happening is to a large extent due to deforestation, which used to provide flood control and a means of spreading out the flow of water over time instead of in one uncontrollable torrent. Another reason is the melting of glaciers which not only hold lots of water in the form of old ice that has been there for centuries but also protects the winter's snowfall from quickly melting away during the spring and in doing so depriving the summer of an important source of fresh water. To those sceptics out there I ask you to try and deny that we're cutting down trees and that glaciers are melting, it might help if you took note that Mount Kilimanjaro lost it's snow cap in recent years thanks to warming temperatures. On a larger scale China is expected to lose a signifigant portion of their Tibetan icefields by around 2050 which will leave the Yellow river (already strained for irrigation and drinking purposes) that much drier during the summer months, for a look at a similar river closer to home look at the Colerado river.

As for global warming and it's effects I just need to look back at the odd weather years we've been consistantly having in British Colombia... which is indeed a pretty wet place all things considered. In the last 5 years I can point to at least 3 years where the weather was way outside of the normal bounds. Two were dry years, both one right after another google 'Okanagan Mountain park fire' to see the first of those two years. Another, the year before that I recall where the snowfall during the winter was exceptionally high and managed to last throughout the cool summer. While it may not be a local case of warming thanks to the complexities of weather and it's randomness most won't see it as everything's getting warmer but simply that weather's getting werider as the climate and weather patterns change.

more updates:
World water shortage fuels investor interest

UN warns over Afghanistan drought

Drought Drives Up Wheat, Corn & Food Prices

Drought threatens Amazon basin

It's happening faster than you think it is.

The worldwide situation with water is going to get a lot worse than it currently is and there is essentially nothing we can do about it that is going to make a significant difference. We take water completely for granted, but it is one of the most valuable resources on Earth. Water is absolutely essential to human life and as it becomes scarce trouble will erupt over it and get worse over time. Massive die-offs and migrations will happen whether we like it or not and borders are not going to make one whit of difference.

Originally posted by Astronomer70
The worldwide situation with water is going to get a lot worse than it currently is ...Water is absolutely essential to human life and as it becomes scarce trouble will erupt over it and get worse over time. Massive die-offs and migrations will happen whether we like it or not and borders are not going to make one whit of difference.

Don't worry about it. Everyone is distracted by all the wars and terrorists and everything. No one will notice so it won't matter.



[/sarcasm]

Water scarce in southwest

MORE than 11 million people in Chongqing Municipality and neighboring Sichuan Province lack adequate drinking water due to a summer drought.

About 8 million people across 40 counties in Chongqing have run out of drinking water.

In Sichuan, the temperature has remained above 38 degrees Celsius during the past month. The temperature in Chongqing climbed to 43 degrees yesterday.

Another 3.1 million people in Sichuan were short of drinking water.

Crops on large tracts of farmland have withered. Many regions will not have a harvest this year. The drought has caused economic losses of 9.23 billion yuan (US$1.15 billion) in the two regions.

More...

See also: More Than 60 Percent of U.S. in Drought


It's lookin' bad pretty much everywhere, isn't it?

DEFINENTLY NOT IN GA!!!! We have the greenest grass, greenest trees, it is like spring all over again. The only reason we have this is only because of 90 degree weather and freakish lightning storms that threaten to kill people. I like the storms, I like the green, but I don't like warm weather. I love the cold

sierraactivist.org..." border=0>

Billions face water shortages, crisis looms

A third of the world is facing water shortages because of poor management of water resources and soaring water usage, driven mainly by agriculture, the International Water Management Institute said on Wednesday.

Water scarcity around the world was increasing faster than expected, with agriculture accounting for 80 percent of global water consumption, the world authority on fresh water management told a development conference in Canberra.

Globally, water usage had increased by six times in the past 100 years and would double again by 2050, driven mainly by irrigation and demands by agriculture, said Frank Rijsberman, the institute's director-general.

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Billions! As I said earlier in this thread, this is the sleeper issue of my lifetime...

The beast is finally rearing its ugly head...

And take a look at this example:

Ireland: ONE-THIRD of the groundwater samples tested for quality by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were found to be contaminated by sewage, according to a shocking new report.

Of those tested, 11% were grossly contaminated, the environmental watchdog found.

Similarly, one-third of all rivers, 22% of estuaries and coastal waters and 10% of lakes tested for water quality have been found to exceed legal levels of pollution while the number of fish kills remains at “an unacceptably high level”.

The EPA report found 23% of the groundwater locations examined exceeded the national guideline value for nitrate concentration for drinking water and 2% were in excess of the mandatory limit.

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:shk:

[edit on 16-8-2006 by loam]