Era of 'Global Water Bankruptcy' Is Here, UN Report Says (theguardian.com) 118
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The world has entered an era of "global water bankruptcy" that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared. The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report's lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion. All life depends on water but the report found many societies had long been using water faster than it could be replenished annually in rivers and soils, as well as over-exploiting or destroying long-term stores of water in aquifers and wetlands. This had led to water bankruptcy, the report said, with many human water systems past the point at which they could be restored to former levels. The climate crisis was exacerbating the problem by melting glaciers, which store water, and causing whiplashes between extremely dry and wet weather.
Prof Kaveh Madani, who led the report, said while not every basin and country was water bankrupt, the world was interconnected by trade and migration, and enough critical systems had crossed this threshold to fundamentally alter global water risk. The result was a world in which 75% of people lived in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure and 2 billion people lived on ground that is sinking as groundwater aquifers collapse. Conflicts over water had risen sharply since 2010, the report said, while major rivers, such as the Colorado, in the US, and the Murray-Darling system, in Australia, were failing to reach the sea, and "day zero" emergencies -- when cities run out of water, such as in Chennai, India -- were escalating. Half of the world's large lakes had shrunk since the early 1990s, the report noted. Even damp nations, such as the UK, were at risk because of reliance on imports of water-dependent food and other products. "This report tells an uncomfortable truth: many critical water systems are already bankrupt," said Madani, of the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health. "It's extremely urgent [because] no one knows exactly when the whole system would collapse."
About 70% of fresh water taken by human withdrawals was used for agriculture, but Madani said: "Millions of farmers are trying to grow more food from shrinking, polluted or disappearing water sources. Water bankruptcy in India or Pakistan, for example, also means an impact on rice exports to a lot of places around the world." More than half of global food was grown in areas where water storage was declining or unstable, the report said. Madani said action to deal with water bankruptcy offered a chance to bring countries together in an increasingly fragmented world. "Water is a strategic, untapped opportunity to the world to create unity within and between nations. It is one of the very rare topics that left and right and north and south all agree on its importance." The UN report, which is based on a forthcoming paper in the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources Management, sets out how population growth, urbanization and economic growth have increased water demand for agriculture, industry, energy and cities. "These pressures have produced a global pattern that is now unmistakable," it said.
Prof Kaveh Madani, who led the report, said while not every basin and country was water bankrupt, the world was interconnected by trade and migration, and enough critical systems had crossed this threshold to fundamentally alter global water risk. The result was a world in which 75% of people lived in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure and 2 billion people lived on ground that is sinking as groundwater aquifers collapse. Conflicts over water had risen sharply since 2010, the report said, while major rivers, such as the Colorado, in the US, and the Murray-Darling system, in Australia, were failing to reach the sea, and "day zero" emergencies -- when cities run out of water, such as in Chennai, India -- were escalating. Half of the world's large lakes had shrunk since the early 1990s, the report noted. Even damp nations, such as the UK, were at risk because of reliance on imports of water-dependent food and other products. "This report tells an uncomfortable truth: many critical water systems are already bankrupt," said Madani, of the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health. "It's extremely urgent [because] no one knows exactly when the whole system would collapse."
About 70% of fresh water taken by human withdrawals was used for agriculture, but Madani said: "Millions of farmers are trying to grow more food from shrinking, polluted or disappearing water sources. Water bankruptcy in India or Pakistan, for example, also means an impact on rice exports to a lot of places around the world." More than half of global food was grown in areas where water storage was declining or unstable, the report said. Madani said action to deal with water bankruptcy offered a chance to bring countries together in an increasingly fragmented world. "Water is a strategic, untapped opportunity to the world to create unity within and between nations. It is one of the very rare topics that left and right and north and south all agree on its importance." The UN report, which is based on a forthcoming paper in the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources Management, sets out how population growth, urbanization and economic growth have increased water demand for agriculture, industry, energy and cities. "These pressures have produced a global pattern that is now unmistakable," it said.
This is the story of Man. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing will be done until we are dying of thirst.
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Yep. Always the same greed and stupidity with the human race. No foresight whatsoever.
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I think Aristotle and Socrates have lamented the same thing.
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Same idiot-assholes v0.1 back then.
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Yep. Always the same greed and stupidity with the human race. No foresight whatsoever.
It's true of all animals. Individuals can be intelligent. Sometimes even small cooperative groups can be intelligent. As you transcend "group" and become "herd" the edges of intelligence start to fray and the group becomes dumber as it grows. Humanity is just the first animal to manage to become stupid on a global level.
Having been a farmer, I witnessed the same thing with cattle, and with cats. Individuals could be extremely intelligent. Small groups could maintain and even seem more intelligent in the agg
Re: This is the story of Man. (Score:2)
I wonder if animals have trolls too, that cause this. Just critters who thrive on getting any reaction to make themselves feel powerful...
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I wonder if animals have trolls too, that cause this. Just critters who thrive on getting any reaction to make themselves feel powerful...
I know cattle do. We had one cow in a herd of 125+ that would find a good patch of grass, then do the threat-pose to get the rest of the herd to respond. Head up, tail up, ears perked, looking panicked. The others would stare where she was staring, and eventually run off. She'd then lower her tail and head and get to munching all the fresh grass she wanted to before the rest of the herd would cautiously make their way back. Saw her pull this trick at least six or seven times, and according to the others she
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Devastating as that observation is, it would match my observation that most people do not use whatever general intelligence they have, except when under extreme pressure to do so. Most people today certainly do not invest any effort to verify their typically irrational assumptions about how things work.
The numbers to get this effect is probably larger with humans, but it does seem to be there for most humans. We do still have smarter people, but they are generally not interested in power as they see it is n
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Nothing will be done until we are dying of thirst.
Maybe, maybe not. Our track record is bad, but it's not that bad. There are many environmental problems that we've tacked and fixed, and before they became severe. The ozone layer, acid rain, fire rivers, sewage dumping, industrial waste... a lot of these things were pretty serious problems that we've addressed just in my lifetime, at least in the US and other rich-world countries. Even minor stuff, like trash on the side of the road, has been massively improved (if you think roadsides in the US are tras
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I'm called a troll, but only because mods are cunts who don't know history.
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As if it means anything on reddit.
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Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to know what will happen in the next 10 years, it is still a good read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Then read The Ministry for the Future, and The Second Sleep by Robert Harris.
Both a grim but possible outlook.
Re: Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:2)
I'll check them out, thanks
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First, the models being simple is a merit, not a shortcoming. They are easy to understand and easy to check.
Second, "tech improvements" have not helped us avoid most of the problems that were predicted - resource depletion, resource wars, climate change.
Third, if anything, the LtG population model "underpredicts" the current world population - the estimate for population peak was a tad less than 8 billion, and we're above that already.
LtG did not focus on the problems created by global warming, which will s
Re:Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:4, Informative)
Where the US lands in all this is a toss up. Same for Canada, but more so their cold and distance more than their laws.
Re: Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:4, Informative)
Great insight. The US is currently trying to increase birth rates by decreasing education, prohibiting birth control, and even bringing back child marriage. They read about Lot and said "hold my beer".
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Like many in the 1970s it predicted a massive overpopulation problem. But we're seeing almost the exact opposite with countries around the world seeing signs of serious demographic declines.
But national demographic declines create problems for human-made economic markets, not the environment.
Furthermore, the declines are happening precisely because of resource scarcity. They want more vacations and bigger houses and nicer cars and more lucrative careers and earlier retirement with larger investment payoffs -- all of which are supply-limited by scarcity, so they prioritize those things over unprotected mating. If male-female coupling could happen any time in a world where access to resources wa
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National demographic declines create an economic problem for humans yes, and we all suffer from it. Larger population means more comparative advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage [wikipedia.org] , more economies of scale, and more innovation from new ideas. There's no specific economic system that that will be different for. These will apply regardless. It is also a mistake to think that this population decline will help the environment. Human lifestyle and infrastructural choices determine enviro
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We are using different formulations of scarcity. I am including luxury (ie pricing) plus the increased consumer expectations for standard of living (300 years ago most people lived in handmade huts/shacks with dirt floors and their diet consisted almost entirely of food originating within a 300 mile radius of that shack).
How did those wealthiest nations get wealthy? They created higher value items and extracted higher profits - both by charging higher prices due to explosive growth in consumable goods and b
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The fundamental premise of that report was that the global population growth rate would keep growing, which it hasn't -it has been shrinking for over a decade, and is almost to an equilibrium point - after which the population is going to start *shrinking*.
With shrinking population, will come shrinking water demands.
The global population collapse is going to cause a lot of other problems - our economies are not built to withstand it - but running out of water won't be one of them.
The only question we have r
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which it hasn't -it has been shrinking for over a decade
No, the global population hasn't been "shrinking for over a decade", it has increased from 7.5B in 2016 to 8.3B today. The prediction numbers by LtG from 1974 are lower than that.
Next, please.
Re: Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:2)
The GROWTH RATE has been shrinking for a decade.
Reports in the 70s were all predicated on not just growth, but INCREASING growth rates (exponential) because that's what had happened until that point. All of those models were wrong. The growth rate has been collapsing even faster than it grew. The global population is never going to reach 9 billion, and the peak estimate is revised down every single year. Its actually looking unlikely we will ever even break 8
5 billion.
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The GROWTH RATE has been shrinking for a decade.
You should reply with CAPS to yourself, buddy.
Reports in the 70s were all predicated on not just growth, but INCREASING growth rates (exponential)
Since we're basically where they predicted we'll be at this time, the conditions at this point of time hold.
The global population is never going to reach 9 billion,
It doesn't matter, the model did not reflect the effects of trumpistani coal-rolling, which has effectively lowered the necessary number.
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And you should take a reading comprehension test.
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Coming from an "expert" who is confused about the difference between growth and growth rate, the recommendation doesn't mean to much.
Perhaps it is best for the "expert" to peruse their own advice for their own benefit.
Re: Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:2)
I said growth rate in the very first post. Go read it. You're the one who confused them, not me.
Re: Well, as it was predicted in 1974... (Score:2)
That's a fair cop but you also said this:
"The only question we have right now is, will global population collapse happen fast enough to avert the water crisis."
But when situations get much worse the birth rates tend to go up, not down, because people are less careful and also because the institutions that shape societies begin to fail. On the other hand, mortality rates increase. I would say THAT is the relevant balancing act.
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In short, it's not like folks haven't seen this coming.
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...he said confidently, while providing absolutely zero analysis, as per usual.
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They're so selfish (Score:1)
Put a price on water - tragedy of the commons (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes we gave away the rights to more water than there typically is in the various rivers but we as a society made a deal with the people who we gave those rights to. We can't say, oh, we all made a mistake, we want to take your water rights away. Ground water is even worse in many places. If you don't take as much water out as possible your neighbors will take it out anyway.
We have this bizarre idea that people will on their own decide how much of a common good they can take and cumulatively people won't take more than is sustainable. How many fish stocks have been depleted when we knew they would be gone? How much CO2 have we put into the atmosphere while arguing it's the Chinese, the Americans, the rich, the 100 biggest oil companies, etc that should be cutting back? It's not my greed it's everyone else's.
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The farmers absolutely are selling the water, a truckload at a time to weed farmers.
We shouldn't allow them to sell it, but we also shouldn't force them to use it. We could just do neither thing!
Re: Put a price on water - tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
California has a water surplus right now. We only use 8% of our water on residential. Last year we were letting the excess go out of our reservoirs because we had them topped off. This year will be the same. The snow pack is healthy and we just had several massive storms in rapid succession that set water fall records. And that's without a bunch of new things we're doing to maintain more of the rain instead of letting it go into the ocean. We currently have 10 years of capacity in case of a worst case scena
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You forgot about aquifer replenishment. Land subsidence and long term water supplies don't matter to you, huh?
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California has a water surplus ON THE SURFACE.
Now let me tell you about under the Mojave Desert and Colorado desert, where the water table is dropping because rainfall can't replenish what's being pumped up.
And if you don't believe me, you can go to 34.835594 -116.206203 and check the measurement wells for yourself in the Mojave. I'm there every other week.
Re:Put a price on water - tragedy of the commons (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a tragedy of the commons. In California most of the fresh water is used by farmers
Actually, about half is used for "environmental" purposes, which is to say, it is allowed to flow out to the sea. Agriculture is the second biggest category, but there would be no shortage in our lifetimes without the "environmental" part.
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Of course, water should reach the sea.
That doesn't mean we can't use it along the way.
California water politics puts animals above people, even if it kills people, and lies about it.
Re: Put a price on water - tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
That's a typically shit take. In fact California has been putting profits first and removing the dams on the rivers up here is going to bring back the salmon (they are ALREADY being seen in the spawning grounds) which means we could one day have a viable fishing industry up here again. As well, the natives will benefit, and despite your assertion they are also human. You just only care about you.
Re:tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
There is no such thing as a tragedy of the commons.
It was invented by a eugenicist [craphound.com].
Someone [indiana.edu] looked at the facts regarding his claim, and it turns out that Garrett Hardin was wrong [investopedia.com]. Who would have thought.
It only becomes a tragedy as soon as someone puts a price on commons. In other words, the problems start when the commons are privatised. When they stop being commons.
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So California passed laws saying the farmers had to use their water or lose it. So farmers use it. If we instead allowed the farmers to sell the water then the most efficient users of water would buy it.
It's true that market inefficiencies are an issue here.
Sometimes you want to prioritize agriculture over an efficient market. If you mess it up, people die. Many other regulations are the same way: they alter the free market. It's illegal to efficiently sell your services as a hitman, no matter how profitably.
Re: Put a price on water - tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
You want to install an entire parallel water delivery system instead of having clean water, even though toilet to tap is already possible with existing technology? You are certifiable.
Re: Put a price on water - tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
Global Warming makes more rain (Score:2)
But it's delivered as storms and floods, so making the situation even worse.
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Re: Not in Scotland (Score:1)
Funny story, most populations are shrinking. Even in places like China and India. Google China overcount of population for an eye opener.
Data centers will become a focal point for water (Score:4, Interesting)
Factor in the large data centers with their massive cooling requirements, water shortages will become even more severe. And that doesn't even address the electrical requirements to run these facilities which have their own needs. A number of them are currently being installed and planned for areas in the southwest where drought conditions have been in effect for years.
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The next clickbait panic? (Score:3)
There is no "collapse", because rainfall continues just fine. What we have - and this is nothing new - are populations pumping aquifers faster than rain refills them. Rivers being pumped dry.
In the US, this has been an issue for decades in the Southwest. It is the primary reason that some coral islands are in trouble - again, for decades now.
Polluted rivers - also a long-standing problem, especially in Asia, but also elsewhere.
So, yes, a real problem. But do we have to have clickbait? "Global boiling", "Water bankruptcy", the world is ending tomorrow?
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But do we have to have clickbait? "Global boiling", "Water bankruptcy", the world is ending tomorrow?
Yes. We have to. Because it's not about crisis, it's about leading the charge (and getting rich doing it) against crisis. You can't lead the charge against crisis if there is no crisis. There will - literally - always be another crisis, 100% of the time. There's far too much money involved.
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The question of water resources is a well known problem, referred to for as "The Century of water" (21th Century's major issue will be water access, wars and global migrations related to lack of water). Similar reports were all over the press in the early 2000s. The situation hasn't changed, only the urgency to act increased.
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The situation hasn't changed, only the urgency to act increased.
If the situation hasn't changed (and it hasn't), there is no more urgency than there was before. Only the claims of urgency have, and that's because people are no longer responding to the last crisis hysteria.
Re:The next clickbait panic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The next clickbait panic? (Score:4, Informative)
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There is no "collapse", because rainfall continues just fine. What we have - and this is nothing new - are populations pumping aquifers faster than rain refills them.
This literally causes a "collapse" called "subsidence". Once the aquifers collapse, they won't hold water again.
So, yes, a real problem. But do we have to have clickbait?
You don't know what clickbait is. It's when the title and/or summary leaves out critical elements of the story so that you have to read the article to find out what's even being claimed. But the title and the summary both tell the story perfectly eloquently for a change, so this isn't that.
the world is ending tomorrow
Intelligent people address problems more than one day before they blow up.
Not the real problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Water shortage is both a) obvious, b) fixable with restraint, and c) fixable with science.
A) It's not a new or argued problem, it is obvious. There are no conspiracy idiots claiming it is a hoax. We know about and politicians on all sides want to fix it. For this reason there is already a massive amount of people working on the issue with little to no political issues.
B) The main reason for the water crisis is not really human population growth, but human greed. We can cut back on the really stupid things like data center use and the thirsty crops in drought prone areas. It is stupid to plant almonds in California and if things get really bad we can cut those trees down. If we have to cut our alfalfa, cotton and sugarcane use, it will affect us but not wipe us out. Rice is an issue - we really need it despite the water costs so that might cause some problems.
C) Finally, we are making huge strides in desalination. In the past 30 years, the cost has dropped to about a third of what it used to be. More importantly, it is both a electrical power intensive technology AND can be run in off hours. We can easily co-locate solar power plants directly on top of desalination plants, turning seawater into drinkable water during sunny days and literally storing it for a rainy day.
This IS an issue. We need to watch it. But it is not a scary doomsday event.
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It is stupid to plant almonds in California and if things get really bad we can cut those trees down. If we have to cut our alfalfa, cotton and sugarcane use, it will affect us but not wipe us out. Rice is an issue - we really need it despite the water costs so that might cause some problems.
Rice is grown in northern California, where water is less of an issue.
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Rice is grown in northern California, where water is less of an issue.
No, we have drought cycles up here too. We are having rain this year, and we had last year as well, but we were just coming off of a sustained drought then. It persisted so long that the people who own the shithole I live in now didn't even know that water came down from up the hill and then came up under the house, and it would flood to above the tops of the pier blocks... until I had them buy a sump pump, dug a sump for it and installed it. (Somehow I keep winding up in situations where I do all the maint
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There are ways to build data centers that use little to no water. They are just more complicated, so unless they are forced to, companies don't do it.
I wish people would not just always assume that Data Center == Water Use. This is a problem trivially worked around using existing technology.
Water shortage is not a global issue (Score:1)
70% of the planet us covered in it.
It just needs to be desalinated.
California recently had atmospheric rivers washing it away.
The Thwaites Glacier is moving into the Southern Ocean and causing sea levels to rise.
And Minneapolis has too much ICE
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It just needs to be desalinated.
For variable values of "just". You of simple minds always think everything you do not understand is easy to do. In actual reality that is rarely the case.
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California recently had atmospheric rivers washing it away.
When you get that much water that quickly you cannot use most of it. It's like trying to capture lightning. That's not physically impossible [wikipedia.org] but you need a very large system to make it work. Well, it's simply not feasible to make a system large enough to capture an atmospheric river touching down in most locations. The best you can hope for is to not be washed away by it, and in some cases even that is unrealistic.
Desalination is definitely something we should do more of, but right now we "need" those solar
Singularity or Malthus was right (Score:2)
AI god is the only one who will make the Malthusian problems go away, human technology and fucks to give have hit their limit.
We need efficient reuse (Score:2)
In western countries water is pumped from a source (wells or rivers, etc), pumped through pipes, and then fast tracked into the nearest body of water and ultimately the oceans. Treating it for reuse is what we need - itâ(TM)s basically reusable an infinite number of times. Rain runoff is also fast tracked into the nearest ocean - I wonder what role that plays in ground water depletion?
Well then, we'd better spin up more datacenters (Score:2)
AI God will solve all problems, so clearly the solution to water bankruptcy is to spin up more water using datacenters in pursuit of AI God. If people need to go without water to create AI God, they should be happy to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the universe!
Typical managerial garbage. (Score:1)
We declare an emergency that says you need to give us more power and money!
We're not buying what they're selling any more. Too many lies for far too long.
We need to live in balance with nature (Score:2)
by dying.
It has always been weird how the people who are gung-ho about posting things like "respect the Earth" and "coexist in balance with Mother Nature" are the same people who are gung-ho about posting that we're all obligated to collectively provide unlimited food and medical care and climate-controlled housing to everyone on the planet. They clearly haven't actually comprehended (or don't genuinely believe) any of the ecological science they slogan-signal about.
Do you know how the other 9 million Earth
Why not drop a... (Score:2)
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.....hydrogen bomb on the North Pole? So that as much of it melts, and somewhat dilutes the oceans. Also melting much of the ice in Northern Canada & Russia, as well as Alaska, making it more inhabitable for people?
Please don't joke about this while Trump is president.
Global warming will fix it (Score:2)
Fortunately, due to global warming as posited by the learned, the increased surface temperature is increasing the evaporation from oceans, which can only result in more rainfall, thus easing concerns about global water bankruptcy.
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Are you quoting Frank.Burns?
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You’re wrong in your question. Number one, Venezuela is a major source, and the reason why is the following – and I’ve seen a lot of this reporting, and it’s fake reporting and I’ll tell you why. It says that somehow Venezuela is not involved in the drug trade because the UN says they’re not involved in the – I don’t – the UN – I don’t care what the UN says. The UN doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Maduro is indicted by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York.
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More like YOU do not know what you are talking about. Not a surprise, really. But here is the thing, willful ignorance does not solve problems.
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I learned that you're a pathetic Trump sycophant. Don't know how valuable (or new) that is.
Right now, no conversation about Greenland exists in a vacuum. That NYPost story was part of an effort to gin up some sort of rationale for Trump's obsession with Mercator projections, and you fucking fell for it.
The point of the ICWA note is that the Greenlanders are not going to to look to the US to save them from past Danish awfulness, because they are not stupid. They know that the US can be just as awful, and has
Re: A wise man once said (Score:2)
"what do those people at the dead river do when it runs dry?"
Steal the water from poorer people who live near a nearby river which can be redirected, apparently.
Re:A wise man once said (Score:5, Interesting)
but the concept of the "global water" anything is nonsense.
That's right. water doesn't flow into the ocean and mix around then evaporate back into the air to repeat the cycle. That's only what the woke DEI universities want you to think.
If you can drink saltwater and brackish water, then you don't have to worry. But when people somewhere else can't drink the water there, some of them will come to where you are and overuse your fresh water. Saudi Arabia banned the growing of food for cattle, and instead imports it from farms in Arizona. China gets almonds from California. Since global migration exists, and global food shipments exist, there is at some level a global market for fresh water. There are thoughtful logical ways to take care of this, and if they are not extremely profitable for someone, they might never come to pass.