Water War 2007 - A Man-Made Disaster

Unless rain and snow comes this could turn into a serious crisis. Here is some climate data for Atlanta and surrounding areas.

Time Period / Average (°F) / Low (°F) / Precipitation / Rainy Days

Oct / 71.6 / 46.4 / 3.58 / 7
Nov / 62.8 / 37.4 / 3.78 / 8
Dec / 55.2 / 30.7 / 6.05 / 10
Jan / 53.4 / 28.0 / 5.13 / 12
Feb / 56.7 / 29.8 / 4.90 / 10


Deviation from normal precipitation





Could this be the environment's 911? Could it spark the "War on Humanity"? I hope the people in the affected area can beat this. Bring back the once a week shower.

reply to post by wingman77


Wow. Thanks (I guess ) for those very sobering statistics. No rain forecasted in the next seven to ten days either. The governors of GA, AL and FL all meet in Washington this week to go at it again.

People are starting, very quietly, to horde water. I have been doing this for several weeks now but there was a big article about it in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday so I expect it will get much worse now.

The other growing concern will be wildfires, though I hesitate to even say that out loud after witnessing what happened in SoCal.

Most of the northern hemisphere has no idea of what drought really is...There are huge tracts of Australia, areas which are responsibly for producing most of the food that sustains the nation, that have been doubt declared for upwards of 5 years...

If it gets this bad up north, I truly pity you guys, because when it REALLY hits home, food prices will go thru the roof as they have here...

Water shortages are a thing which affects people on a local level, yet need AT LEAST A Federal ( or even a multi country) effort to tackle the problem...

The thing is, do the governments of the world have the ticker to face this ? IMO, they do not, sadly

Peace

The Northern area of the Great Lakes is not experiencing any water shortages, (yet) but I have been keeping a thread active about the significant drops in water levels.

Link to thread

I was surprised by the response to this thread. I found I needed to defend what I am witnessing here. I have lived here all my life. Water shortages are unheard of with all the lakes we have here.

I feel most people will not bother to educate themselves of prepare unless it is happening on their doorstep.

Tenative agreement reached: 20% less water to be released from Buford Dam. Okay, so it's a start. We still want our 22 billion gallons of effing water back.

So the future is now for the desert southEAST.

Orme, TN Runs Out Of Water:
www.msnbc.msn.com...

The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.

Forsyth just made effective new penalties for the water ban:
1st offense - $100
2nd offense - $1000 and water is cut off
3rd offense - 2 days in jail

I've been meaning to get pictures at Lake Allatoona. Maybe I'll try and get some tomorrow and post them up. The majority, including the area of it I live near, is almost COMPLETELY dried up. It is literally a stream at this point.

And I didn't realize TN already had places where water is cut off for part of the day. Crazy. But I guess it always takes a crisis to bring about change, and maybe this can help us to be more conscious about how much we waste. We are so overdeveloping Atlanta, it's definitely no wonder we are running dry. We can all stand to do a lot better when it comes to conserving, and not being so wastful with what natural resources we have.

We are now taking up the expression... "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down." We are also turning off the shower while lathering, turning it on only to rinse.

Okay, now you can say you were warned. Everyone needs to read this link, a synopsis of the web-bot predictive linguistics program at halfpasthuman.com:

www.independencejournal.com...

Excerpt:

Here's actionable point #1 for today's report: If you have relatives in the Desert Southeast, have you got plans to put them up at your place? Find them a job? Build a spare bedroom for them? Figured out some way to store their personal goods that they'll lug along when they move in with you? The Diaspora which linguistically for months has been seen as coming to a planet near you (*look at your feet for hints which planet we be speaking of located) seems likely to impact huge numbers of people. How big is huge? How many people are in the Desert Southeast, and now multiply that times 3 and you might get a handle on it. I'm bringing this up now because if you have relatives in the SE, you might want to have a serious chat with them about what we all hope will only be contingency plans. If you live in Atlanta, and don't have your own well, you might be thinking along those lines, too. What will happen to home values in the drought area if it continues for months? What about business operations?

Hopefully Noel will bring some rain far enough inland to affect the areas hit by drought. This is a pretty crazy story and hard for me to imagine. A drought in the Northwest, in October would be insane.

thanks for pointing me to this thread, crazy how easy it is to miss stuff around here.. Great thread btw.

I hate to even think it, but with the drought conditions, fire season is going to be nasty and there ain't gonna be water to put out the fires. I saw a story on tv, where water in the town was only on for about 3 hours in the evening and that was it... with people being forced to move, guess what going to happen to the value of property in the region.. talk about a long chain of events.. it's happening and it's frightening.

I've also been thinking...since the ice at the caps are melting anyway...why not import some ice to fill the lakes? surely that's possible..

reply to post by worldwatcher

I agree, it seems like there it is getting hard to find the more important itmes here at ATS in the last couple months. The only way not to miss them would to be on 24/7 viewing and posting, which would be fine if I were getting paid to!

Flag and a Star for the OP... This is one of the more important 'conspiracies' going on in the real world. Too bad the pop culture is more interested if Britney Spears new albumb belly flops...

DocMoreau

IT'S RAINING IN ATLANTA!

Praise God!

Oh yeah, they did that yesterday on the steps of the State Capitol when the Governor held a rally to pray for rain. But I guess that's a topic for discussion in the Above Politics forum...

The latest:

This is the first rain in weeks. Lake Lanier is down 17 feet. The Corps is still releasing the same amount of water. The Govs. reached an amended water sharing agreement last week in Washington but Florida has retracted its support of the agreement. The first business casualty is in - Pike Nursuries, a 50 year local icon of landscaping has filed for Chapter 11, buisness down 35% since August due to watering ban. I am sure they will be the first of many. Lots of dead animals on the roadways as they search for water and meet up with a vehicle instead. Very sad.

So happy it's raining, I went outside just to smell it. Thank you God for prayers answered no matter what the ATS Atheists have to say about it.

Note: this is not a thread about separation of church and state, the power of prayer or any relgious beliefs. Water Wars only please.

My family has finally been able to reduce our water consumption by 50% from the same month last year. Surprisingly, it was really not that hard - just constant awareness and attention. I would love to hear what other ATS members have been able to do. You can check your water bill for the comparison. FYI - The Army Corps of Engineers as finally agreed to reduce the flow of water out of Lake Lanier, now if we could just get tons of rain.

I have found some related articles. The first is from a somewhat controversial origin but the site always provides a really good read and a compelling argument. The article below references an academic paper in which Greer posits that the decline of societies always happens in stages, a series of inabilities to recover fully from dramatic events - think 9/11, Katrina, the Mortgage Meltdown and the Southeast Drought:

thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com...

In related news, Atlanta may just be on the verge of edging out New Orleans as the poster child for climate catastrophe. Unless the crippling years-long drought over the southeast United States gives way to heavy rains very soon, Atlanta will run completely out of drinking water sometime in the new year. The city government has had to explain to worried citizens that they are out of options, and there aren’t enough tanker trucks in all of Dixie to meet the daily water needs of a big city. Nobody is willing to talk about what will happen once the last muddy dregs in the Georgia reservoirs are pumped dry, and the drinking fountains, toilet tanks, and fire hydrants of greater metropolitan Atlanta have nothing to fill them but dust…The decline and fall of a civilization unfolds in a series of crises separated by incomplete recoveries.

The next article talks about the future of water as a commodity, not a natural resource for human beings everywhere.

www.nexusmagazine.com...

Experts predict that by the year 2025 our world will be suffering from the dramatic effects of hydrological poverty. There will be great disputes and even wars over water. "Failure to act could damage the planet irreversibly, unleashing a spiral of increased hunger, deprivation, disease and squalor."

Thankfully, action has been taken--at the highest level--to avert this apocalyptic nightmare. By declaring water a commodity--an economic good, to be measured, apportioned and regulated by corporations--the tide of disaster will be stemmed. This momentous decision has been made for us by a handful of transnational corporations and members of the United Nations system of organisations. This self-appointed group have mandated themselves the custodians of the world's water resources. They concede that the full-cost pricing of water, for domestic, agricultural and industrial use, will be a painful adjustment for humanity. But they argue that this is a small price to pay for water security, for their guardianship of our most precious resource.

With the blessing of national governments, a vigorous and dynamic agenda to privatise the world's water supplies is being pursued. Traditional and indigenous rights are acknowledged, then cast aside. National sovereignty is affirmed, then eroded. Access to water--a God-given or a human right--is recognised, then suspended.

The old economy has been fuelled by oil. The new economy will be fuelled by hydrodollars. A globalised trade in water is being created2 and we, the people, are to become the consumers in this multitrillion-dollar market.

This article examines the unbelievable reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness, arrogant ignorance and alienating mindset of a group of elite planners and transnational corporations spearheading the drive to commodify our water.

[edit on 4/12/07 by kosmicjack]

This is a tragedy, one that Red Elk spoke about. He said that the water shortage would be man-made and blamed on global warming. He said that this was all about controlling the population.