Are We Running Out of Water?

[hoon]

America's Water Shortage Crisis: Water Wars | The Environment | Reader's Digest

Interesting piece here on the American water shortage.

[screener]

Interesting is a good description, one of the last lines on page two is pretty telling.

"We're all aware now that we're going to have to treat our water as a valuable commodity," he says.

But obviously contradictory messages are still being sent because according to the article Nevada and Arizona are expected to double their populations by 2030. At any rate, conservation does seem to be taking hold. The question is whether development restraint can also catch on.

[Rog]

It's scary just how many resources are now becoming scarce. Either technology needs to improve sharpish or we need to get a handle on population numbers.

[Richard]

Mmm, resources have always been scarce. That's why we have economics.

[screener]

I think that resources of one sort or another have always been short, in relative ways. Relative to the use being made of them at the time, relative to the technology available for extraction, relative to the distint areas where humans were living, I expect there are others. I think I saw this part of a similar discussion somewhere here not too long ago.

The difference that I see now is that more people are aware and concerned about shortages in material for society. Material that is in shortage relative to the present human population, relative to consumption versus stocks available, and relative to the cost of production.

[Richard]

At the present time there appears to be a greater demand than usual (or greater pressure on the available resources if you want to phrase it like that). I'm not especially worried though as these things happen from time to time. Solutions will most likely be found (unless you believe we're at some kind of limit as to what we can do).

[nickpecoraro]

Originally Posted by hoon

America's Water Shortage Crisis: Water Wars | The Environment | Reader's Digest

Interesting piece here on the American water shortage.

It would seem like we are running low on drinking water.
I live in Florida. Last summer the county south of where I live had serious problems. They had to restrict lawn watering to one hour once per week. Up in Georgia, Atlanta region, they also had a problem. My cousin lives in Las Vegas and my uncle lives in Phoenix, and they also have water shortages.

But once it rains a few times, everyone relaxes, and nothing is done about the future.

Nick Pecoraro

[forfismum]

There is the same amount of water in the world as ever there was.Hard luck if you happen to live in a place where it is in short supply,do what the Aboriginals in OZ do,go walkabout.Rising sea levels will fix all the lawn problems,just you wait and see.

[screener]

Because of climate change and just climate variation there are areas where water was in abundance, and is now scarce. Rainfall patterns changed, glaciers are melting faster than can be saved for later use, but mostly I think the problem is that people are so far removed from reality that they believe they can put millions and millions of people in the desert and expect enough water to come their way as if by magic. This is why it's a desert......

All the talk about turning out economy towards sustainability keeps getting bogged down in a slough of soggy thinking.

[forfismum]

Putting people into deserts is part of the problem.Many parts of Australia have historically been dry and yet there are enormous cities springing up,which for most of the time survive on the brink.Cities like London are rapidly exceeding the capacity to impost water from Wales and Scotland due to underinvestment in the past and the sheer profiteering in the water industry today.There was "talk" during the very dry year of 1975[?] of a grid system for the UK but that came to nothing as soon as it rained again.Many parts of the world are "short" of water only because the old saw is true,you can't get a quart out of a pint pot.Especially if most of that pint is polluted.
Heres a question that has just come to me.In places where A/C is used ,what do they do with the clean distilled water that results? Is it used or run to waste?