Scientists: Looming water crisis coming to Western U.S.

Scientists: Looming water crisis coming to Western U.S.

www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A water supply crisis is looming in the western United States thanks to human-caused climate change that already has altered the region's river flows, snow pack and air temperatures, scientists said.

Trends over the past half century foreshadow a worsening decline in water, perhaps the region's most valuable natural resource, even as population and demand expands in western states, researchers led by a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography wrote in the journal Science on Thursday.

(visit the link for the full news article)


MOD EDIT - Excessive Quoting of News Source Material - Please Review This Link



[edit on 2/1/2008 by JacKatMtn]

Get ready for the next surge in cost people: WATER

This will be the next thing that will be perpetrated against us, gov rationing and huge price spiking for water. Mark my words...It's coming.

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I read also at least ten years ago in an alternative newspaper, that some corps are buying up water supplies in arid regions, banking on making a killing when supplies get short and they control most of the water.

Also this link has a lot of interesting information pertaining to your OP.

www.alternet.org...

and

www.freshwater.net...

A flag & a star, btw. Important stuff.












[edit on 1/31/08 by kattraxx]

[edit on 1/31/08 by kattraxx]

reply to post by kattraxx



This is what it has come down to: These people will figure out ANY way to profit off the american populace---No recourse is too far out there. Some of it truly borderlines on diabolical. The greed is bottomless.

How is it that there are no desalination plants there, or under construction?

On desalination plants, I would guess that would defeat the purpose of the corps cornering the market on public water resources. They've been preparing for this for years!

Most people won't have a clue until their water bill goes up 400%.

reply to post by kattraxx



I agree it's totally been calculated, and I'll take it a step further.

Beijing recently announced it's success in weather manipulation-in particular, DECREASING rainfall.

Now take a look up in the sky in the west on any given day, and what do you see? A tic-tac-toe pattern of chemical trails being billowed out of governmental aircraft, blanketing the entire sky. I notice furious action like this around the time of predicted rain. I have seen these chemical trails cut a swath through cumulus clouds on several occassions.

My feeling is that they are CREATING the drought through prehibiting rainfall.

Another way to milk the populace for billions in revenue.


[edit on 1-2-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

Please prove the following statement if you can: "thanks to human-caused climate change." No? I didn't think so.

Thank you.

[edit on 2/1/2008 by TheAvenger]

I was under the impression that the shortage was due to water tables and aquifers being lowered from too much water being taken out, due to the effect of urbanization and agriculture - NOT alleged GW.

Chem-trails. I live in the west and I can also say there is a lot of activity in the skies just ahead of a west-moving front. I've been making note of that for at least five years. I can't say I'm sure what they're doing, but I know those are not con-trails. I used to think they were studying wind patterns or something-- releasing the chem-trails out ahead of a front and watching how efficiently those west winds spread them east. But they could also be attempting to manipulate the weather.

Thing is, with or without weather manipulation, our resources will further decline simply due to an increase in population. More people use more resources.

Originally posted by TheAvenger
Please prove the following statement if you can: "thanks to human-caused climate change." No? I didn't think so.

Thank you.

[edit on 2/1/2008 by TheAvenger]

How about you disprove it? I am still waiting for a response from you to this post: link

I have seen plenty to convince me that humans do in fact play a roll in GW. You talk as if it is silly to assume this, you even went so far as to offer a link to several sources that "disprove" AGW. Still, you have shown me nothing that does just that.

[edit on 1-2-2008 by Animal]

Originally posted by kattraxx
Chem-trails. I live in the west and I can also say there is a lot of activity in the skies just ahead of a west-moving front. I've been making note of that for at least five years. I can't say I'm sure what they're doing, but I know those are not con-trails. I used to think they were studying wind patterns or something-- releasing the chem-trails out ahead of a front and watching how efficiently those west winds spread them east. But they could also be attempting to manipulate the weather.

Thing is, with or without weather manipulation, our resources will further decline simply due to an increase in population. More people use more resources.

Which is something they obviously know. If these chemtrails effect peoples moods and health, then maybe population control is a feasible option in the sick minds of those deeply encased in the shadow government.

The wet 20th century, the wettest of the past millennium, the century when Americans built an incredible civilization in the desert, is over.

Source | nationalgeographic.com | Drying of the West

The February issue of National Geographic Magazine has a comprehensive article on this very subject.

The article is available free online at the links I've provided

Using ancient tree ring patterns scientists have determined some very disturbing cycles of prolonged droughts being the norm, rather than the exception, in the Western USA.

On the subject of medieval megadroughts, Scott Stine of California State University found:

...drowned stumps in many other places in the Sierra Nevada. They all fell into two distinct generations, corresponding to two distinct droughts. The first had begun sometime before 900 and lasted over two centuries. There followed several extremely wet decades, not unlike those of the early 20th century. Then the next epic drought kicked in for 150 years, ending around 1350. Stine estimates that the runoff into Sierran lakes during the droughts must have been less than 60 percent of the modern average, and it may have been as low as 25 percent, for decades at a time. "What we have come to consider normal is profoundly wet," Stine said. "We're kidding ourselves if we think that's going to continue, with or without global warming."
*Emphasis mine

Source | nationalgeographic.com | Drying of the West

I highly recommend this article to those of you live, or have loved ones, in the Western USA.

For those of us who do, it looks like we're in for some rough times.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


I can attest to the water shortages here in the West.

The majority of large cities (Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix) are all draining the Colorado River for their water supply.

Instead of using rain catchment systems and local runoff for their supply, these cities tap into water hundreds of miles away.

Common sense does not seem to be the prevailing factor when the water board meets...

The rising cost of water is really hurting in my town, but fortunately I'm able to afford it.

However, the monthly tax keeps getting higher and higher as more people move to the area.

People, please stop moving to the desert. Phoenix used to be a lush riparian area and now its nothing but palm trees and sand. We have destroyed so many natural habitats and are continuing to do so with our lack of land ethic.

We are a part of the ecosystem not above it and we should start behaving that way.

People will always go where there is an abundance of what they want. They will never stop and think of population density's affect on climate before moving. Why? Because people always think of themselves.

People are so bent on getting everything for themselves, that they fail to realize they are destroying the one thing everyone is after.


This is fine by me at this point. From where I stand, Canada stands to milk the US dry of anything of value in exchange for a small portion of the massive quantities of fresh water we have up here.

We're already prepping to do the same with the oil... the US already buys it's uranium from us... in fact, it won't be long before we hold the entire lifeline of the states.

The funniest thing about it is, the US is doing this to themselves. We couldn't have planned these events this well if our lives depended on it.

The US is handing full control to us on a silver platter... and all we had to do was sit tight.

reply to post by goosdawg


I too am a western desert dweller (Fanta Se, New Mexico). The pueblo tribes who live here are the descendants of the anasazi. both the pueblo people themselves as well as the anasazi have had to relocate due to this pattern of feast and famine. Here in Santa Fe we live with many restrictions on the use of water, and water conservation is a part of everyday life. Still, like other cities int eh SW people just will not stop flocking to our city and the issue continues to become more pressing every year.

On another note though there is a history of a cycle of wet to dry here in the SW what concerns me the most is the drought in the SE. Link to Map
This is a disturbing trend that I believe to be new. One that I hope will not continue for too much longer.

reply to post by Animal


Out of respect for the OP, I will not list peer reviewed publications that question global warming, I will do it elsewhere so this thread can stay on topic.

I lived in eastern New Mexico for several years back in the 1980s, and we were quite concerned back then about all of the well water that we used for irrigation etc. I have always thought that one day clean water would become very valuable here in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. I am very fortunate that I know so many different ways of cleaning up water to make it potable again. The bottled water business has really thrived in the past decade or so.