Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Only The Beginning



While the average cossetted North American may feel smug about the following, since the water shortages discussed seem far, far away, they are the stuff that social unrest, rioting, regime change and mass migrations are made of:
Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.

From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday.
Greatly exacerbated by climate change, floods and droughts are becoming more volatile:
Water-stressed places are sometimes cursed by two extremes. São Paulo was ravaged by floods a year after its taps nearly ran dry. Chennai suffered fatal floods four years ago, and now its reservoirs are almost empty.
Unfortunately, the short-term solution many countries have adopted, tapping deep into their aquifers, only promises a deferment of the crisis:
Mexico’s capital, Mexico City, is drawing groundwater so fast that the city is literally sinking. Dhaka, Bangladesh, relies so heavily on its groundwater for both its residents and its water-guzzling garment factories that it now draws water from aquifers hundreds of feet deep. Chennai’s thirsty residents, accustomed to relying on groundwater for years, are now finding there’s none left. Across India and Pakistan, farmers are draining aquifers to grow water-intensive crops like cotton and rice.
Are there any solutions? Not really.
...city officials can plug leaks in the water distribution system. Wastewater can be recycled. Rain can be harvested and saved for lean times: lakes and wetlands can be cleaned up and old wells can be restored. And, farmers can switch from water-intensive crops, like rice, and instead grow less-thirsty crops like millet.
Given the world's ever-increasing population, the quickening pace of climate change and humans' reluctance to alter their profligate ways, it is a safe bet that things will get worse. Clearly, this is only the beginning of the horrors that await the planet.



7 comments:

  1. Frankly, Lorne, it's all pretty depressing. We can see the wreck barreling down the tracks. But we're not even trying to slow down the train.

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    1. I agree, Owen. It is hard to hold on to hope these days.

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  2. It's said that the warmer atmosphere, the product of man-made global warming, now holds some 14 per cent more water vapor. We've turned the atmosphere into something of a sponge. That ability to hold more water contributes to the situation where some areas receive little to no rain while others endure deluges and flooding.

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    1. We have played Russian Roulette with our planet, Mound. There is a bullet in the chamber waiting for all of us.

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  3. I wanted to add that the additional water carried in the atmosphere as vapor is water that once would have been in circulation, usually as surface water. Now it's gone, 'sequestered' above our heads. In a world that's already water insecure that extra volume of water now captured by the atmosphere is a real problem.

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  4. .. people pretend not to understand me.. Kinsella (a pretty astute individual as is his wife and partner Lisa) even says he gets where I'm coming from but the message is .. well uh.. sometimes hard to understand..

    C'est la vie..

    But I refer to my home and native land.. Canada.. as the last redoubt.. and that's the confusion zone.. the Nirvana for refugees.. We have everything humanity needs to thrive and prosper. Great waters, giant mountains & glaciers, Innuit & First Nations to guide us, arable land, wild species of salt water and fresh waters, forests, muskeg, sea ice, crazy scary predators like Bear, Wolf, Orca, Wolverine, Raptors, .. and we have water and space EVERYWHERE.. Yes we have four seasons.. we have dangerous & astonishing tides.. ses storms that come from hell, we have enough raw resources to last 50 generations or 100 .. so we give it all away.. for Big Energy & their Pollution.. and we pay them, subsidize them to do it.. TO US..

    Outstanding... clap clap.. standing ovations in OUR Parliament ..

    OUR House of Commons should become a museum.. all dusty & musty
    with wax figures of Harper in his closet, Trudeau acting like Tom Thomson, Ray Novak, Gerald Butts, Peter Kent, and Morneau, Flaherty.. the 'churn twins' and media sellouts

    Can we afford wax effigies of Kellie Leitch ? Chris Alexander ?
    C'mon.. need one of Del Mastro ..

    and je me souviens..
    I remember & will never forget he of the black ops 'war on voters room' Senator Finley or legal beagle artful evangelical zeolot & christian wood chipper Arthur Hamilton..

    Deary me Lorne.. I have a lot of names to name but 'have not yet begun to fight' .. (John Paul Jones)..

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    1. The litany of villains is a long one, Sal. Feel free to add to it anytime.

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