Why is America running out of water?
nationalgeographic.com
nationalgeographic.com
> And every American can save more water at home in multiple ways, from taking shorter showers to not rinsing dishes under a running faucet before loading them into a dishwasher, a practice that wastes around 20 gallons of water for each load.
BUT. This appears to be different from before, where there was water, just in the wrong place, now the US appears to be coming close to using 100% of the available resource.
If you reduced all consumer usage of water to zero, it would barely make a dent.
California can solve its consumer water problems with a couple of desalinization plants. Farming in the Central Valley, however, would basically need to be shut down to stop draining the aquifers.
This is equivalent to the "we have to convert to electric cars because of climate change!" which will also barely make a dent in carbon emissions (unlike, say, converting the world to nuclear power plants).
That said, replacing long distance haul with electrified rail transport would be yet better.
Even if electric cars were carbon-equivalent, moving a million point sources of pollution (internal combustion engines) to a single point source of pollution (a power plant) is way better for us all.
From the article:
California has 11 desalination plants, and another 10 are being planned
A difference which almost goes back to the topic of the NG article.
Relatedly on a more entertaining note: Chinatown..1974 movie by Roman Polanski https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown_(1974_film)
And Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert
Would it be expensive as fuck? Yes. Would it require tons of work, and new technologies to be invented? Of course!
If we really wanted to do it, though, we could. I refuse to believe that this isn't true.
Further the ocean is a delicate and unique eco system of its own. It has its own habitat and balance and equilibrium.
Desalination doesn’t come without its costs and it’s not just about the money.
Sea steading, desalination etc are not really robust solutions. Control human population or control consumption. The planet isn’t expanding and resources are not infinite.
Controlling human population and consumption simply isn't going to happen, so you might as well give up on that idea. At best, you will merely slow down the problem for a while.
It’s like sitting on the top most branch and sawing the trunk of the tree. Daft! Slow burn of resources and working with burning renewables only will ensure humanity and species survival. Otherwise the planet will survive. We won’t. Because when we hit carrying capacity, there is a dearth of resources..we will start killing each other. Oh! Oops! Already happening!