I would like to share this potential global problem with other ATS members. I have read a number of reports that state within 50 years time there will be a GLOBAL shortage of clean drinking water. Southwestern states such as Arizonan will face severe fresh water shortages by 2025. And water shortages that affect around 400 million people now will affect about 4 Billion people by 2050. thats a 10 fold increase within 50 year. Does anyone have any opinions as to what we can do to solve this future worldwide problem.

Excellent question, and one that a lot of people have been urging research and action on. The problem is that for many in the First World, it "ain't our problem" until WE are the ones who turn on the taps and get little or no water. Remember what a problem we're starting to have with oil (we were aware of the potential a long time ago) -- it'll be that way with water.

What to do...? Interesting question.

One of the best things to do, IMHO, is to start getting people involved with citizen science organizations. 100 years ago, most of us would have been living on farms and the issue of bad water would be as omnipresent in our minds as the threat of terrorists is now. But we're an urban society now, and our contact there is limited.

In order to change that, we have to make people first aware of the world and next interested in changing that.

And we have to empower organizations that are willing to do something about it.

No good answers here, though perhaps some of the others might have good suggestions. But I think for me, I need to start listing out some of the citizen science organizations for folks to get involved with.

The best solution with current technology is probably a combination of ocean-based desalination plants and irrigation infrastructure. The problem is, these programs cost money, and somebody has to put up for others in order to make it happen. This is hard to accomplish.

The fact remains that the west coast is a desert, and we made it bloom with copious amounts of water. LA doesn't deserve palm trees, they're not supposed to be there, but through a combination of human desire and technological advances, we made the desert green.

It's a waste, frankly. With the amount of water spent to provide scenery for Hollywood muckity-mucks to enjoy while tooling around in their fast little cars, we could probably save billions of gallons by simply abandoning the west coast and retreating back to the arrable land.

Desertification is a problem most people associate with Africa, but it effects us here in America too. One possible solution would be to level the rocky mountains and allow the moisture from the western ocean to reach the dust bowl. Have fun with that engineering feat. Even if we accomplished that task, chances are another major seismic even would occur and throw up new mountains where the stubs of the old ones reside.

Bottom-line is probably going to come back to desalination. There's plenty of water on the planet, enough for a million generations, we just have to clean it and transport it to where it's needed.

In the far future we might be able to fly out into space and attach rocket boosters to huge chunks of water ice, to steer them into earth orbit. We could then set up a sort of high-tech bucket brigade of orbital vehicles, or, maybe even just steer the thing in to our aptmosphere until it vaporizes. The moisture should make its way down as precipitation eventually, right?

Just a thought, but it is a real problem, and you get kudos for bringing it up. I've talked about this a couple of times on ATS, and the disbelief I encounter is incredible. People act like you're telling them the earth is flat when you say we're running out of water.



[edit on 30-7-2005 by WyrdeOne]

coffeeadict (me too)
Im not going to source it now, however I Was thinking of doing an op/ed on this anyhow, but time... maybe a collabrative one? dont know if you can do that... anyhow as Oil is the King now of geopolitical affairs in a very short space of time, certainly within the lifetimes of most people alive now in the West... Water will be the reason for Wars and personal impact.

A booming global population, farming techniques, infrastructure -leakage is a huge problem!, Infrastructure is a huge problem too like dams, also, deforestation, global warming and desertification make Water the Resource of the next generation.

Then in the not very distant future as a government, or individual the availability of Fuel and heating becomes less important as a basic survival need becomes scarce.

Anyhow will post some links and data etc soon.

MischeviouslySwimmingWithDolphins