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Water demand will 'outstrip supply by 40%


Still Waters

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Water demand in many countries will exceed supply by 40 per cent within 20 years due to the combined threat of climate change and population growth, scientists have warned.

A new way of thinking about water is needed as looming shortages threaten communities, agriculture and industry, experts said.

In the next two decades, a third of humanity will have only half the water required to meet basic needs, said researchers.

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Millions die ever year out of lack of clean water and, I wonder if this will be the cause for a world war.

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Millions die ever year out of lack of clean water and, I wonder if this will be the cause for a world war.

Some of the most water stressed regions are the most instable in terms of politics and violence. I would say there is no doubt that conflicts will be fought over water resources.

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well a big conflict with massive loss of life might be one way to reduce the demand for water in that region.Water conservation will prolong the situation a nd maybe a higher population,which could lead to an even greater shortage. I live in Thailand with temperatures in the low 30s. There is constant shutting down of water in the dry season. We also have 3 months of MONSOON ,so what chance do people have in backward countries where it may be hotter and no monsoon.

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China built several dams in the mighty MECONG river upsteam from Thailand. There is a great outrage every year from the farmers due to lost harvests. Noone is going to fight China for more water,giving China an excuse to invade.In this case they shout and bang fists on the table but promises get broken.

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Sounds like the World will be trying to mix water and oil. 2 scare and soon to be even more scare resources that you can almost guarantee a military outcome. I try not to be a doomsday-er, but things are certainly coming to a head in Worldly affairs. The less developed countries and average Joes like myself, are gonna have the hardest time making it through the troubled times ahead.

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Millions die ever year out of lack of clean water and, I wonder if this will be the cause for a world war.

I hope not, that would be the most ridiculous war of all time. We're surrounded with millions upon millings of litres of water in the oceans. It's just a matter of desalting and cleaning it. There's no reason except profit motives (or lack there of) that people die of thirst.

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I hope not, that would be the most ridiculous war of all time. We're surrounded with millions upon millings of litres of water in the oceans. It's just a matter of desalting and cleaning it. There's no reason except profit motives (or lack there of) that people die of thirst.

Desalination is extremely costly and require huge equipment. It would be cheaper to quit making kids.

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Desalination is extremely costly and require huge equipment. It would be cheaper to quit making kids.

you can't stop biology.

how bout every north american cut one big mac out of their diet a month. that should cover the cost.

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you can't stop biology.

how bout every north american cut one big mac out of their diet a month. that should cover the cost.

I never eat at mikydee.. ;) I did quit having kids

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Sadly, there are always those who instantly reject anything that attacks our inherently deeply-flawed and memetically cancerous ideas about expansion, growth, and consumption. There are then still those who understand the situation but think, and thus become, powerless to alter it even minimally.

Sadly, unless we act in a manner we've NEVER, not in our entire history and evolution, had to adopt. We're fighting our own biology and natural psychology on this one. So far, we're losing, and there isn't much time left to develop a plan to achieve a victory.

This is not limited merely to water but to all resources.

It seems inevitable, IMO, unless certain improbable developments occur, that we, and the other inhabitants of the Earth, plant and animal, will experience a die off. We're the only species that can limit the damage. If we don't change, AND, very importantly, reduce population, worldwide, nature will take care of it for us, through disease, famine, drought, detrimental ecological change, etc.

Exponential growth, like we've been experiencing for a century or more, is simply no loner possible, and was ill-advised to begin with. Linearly accelerating growth is unsustainable, at this point. We need to cut back population so that more people can experience a better quality of life at any given time (preferably so few people that everyone can be capable of prosperity), and also reduce our resource consumption (helped by the first goal, especially if it is intensively pursued).

I don't want to leave in a burned up, polluted, barren, arid, resource-depleted husk of a world. We've only got a small time to prevent that from becoming a reality. Reducing the population, SOMEHOW, is the only means, IMO, of averting this from being catastrophe. I think that this will happen anyway, we WILL be culled. We can do it as comfortably as possible ourselves, or, again, nature will handle it, and far less gently than we could and should have.

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Millions die ever year out of lack of clean water and, I wonder if this will be the cause for a world war.

A war would be over oil or water. More likely oil as you get dollars for barrells. It wont be long before we will pay for water.

I hope not, that would be the most ridiculous war of all time. We're surrounded with millions upon millings of litres of water in the oceans. It's just a matter of desalting and cleaning it. There's no reason except profit motives (or lack there of) that people die of thirst.

Desalination is extremely costly and require huge equipment. It would be cheaper to quit making kids.

As said you need energy to do so. For the amount of energy that goes in a limited supply of water comes out. Thats why everyone protested the one built (or being built) in sydney. It costs a lot to run to.

Reducing the population, SOMEHOW, is the only means, IMO, of averting this from being catastrophe. I think that this will happen anyway, we WILL be culled. We can do it as comfortably as possible ourselves, or, again, nature will handle it, and far less gently than we could and should have.

True its only a matter of time before a plague or something comes through. Less people are vaccinating their kids/themselves. Look what happened to the population once regular vaccination came in it exploded. stop vaccinating diseases start killing off the population.

Bring in family planning in third world countries give girls more education options. Population will lower. But although the population is high now in Australia we are told to "have kids for the country" pretty much. There is a lowering of birth rate which will cause issues down the line. As when I am retiring 40 years from now) there will not be enough people around working, paying taxes, to pay for mine and other retirees pensions eetc. So we are also being encouraged to contribute to super but thats hard to do as we need all our money to pay for living because the cost of living is going up as the cost of oil goes up. The cost of housing goes up etc. So its a catch 22 kinda thing.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Diminish the population.

Yep start a war, it's that simple. Or start taking the pill etc. It's someones choice...pity it's not the politicians.

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A quarter of all agricultural lands have measurable signs of degradation and erosion. This is a far more serious issue that we face.

Water can be managed a lot better than it currently is, and as a consequence we could adapt.

The current population relies on intensive agriculture to feed it, and if we lose production from a 1/4 of our farms that will mean mass starvation - which cannot be adapted to.

The only solution seems to be to bring agriculture back to the centre of future policy, and shift towards forms which build soil fertility and stability rather than diminish it. Such a future would be radically different from now, and I am not certain that would be a bad thing.

Br Cornelius

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A quarter of all agricultural lands have measurable signs of degradation and erosion. This is a far more serious issue that we face.

Water can be managed a lot better than it currently is, and as a consequence we could adapt.

The current population relies on intensive agriculture to feed it, and if we lose production from a 1/4 of our farms that will mean mass starvation - which cannot be adapted to.

The only solution seems to be to bring agriculture back to the centre of future policy, and shift towards forms which build soil fertility and stability rather than diminish it. Such a future would be radically different from now, and I am not certain that would be a bad thing.

Br Cornelius

You are partly right but, IMO, we need more than a policy which turns to the best agricultural policy. We must stall the population of the world and then reverse it to a sustainable level. That's not going to happen in the near future considering where priorities lie at the moment.

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You are partly right but, IMO, we need more than a policy which turns to the best agricultural policy. We must stall the population of the world and then reverse it to a sustainable level. That's not going to happen in the near future considering where priorities lie at the moment.

Agreed.

Br Cornelius

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As said you need energy to do so. For the amount of energy that goes in a limited supply of water comes out. Thats why everyone protested the one built (or being built) in sydney. It costs a lot to run to.

we could build the infrastructure for tidal powder. another costly project I know, but once they're built they would supply a near infinite amount of power needed to run the desalination plants. In my opinion there's no excuse in this day and age that people are dying of thirst. Its just a matter of getting some of the people who have way more money than they need to share their good fortune for the sake of humanity.

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we could build the infrastructure for tidal powder. another costly project I know, but once they're built they would supply a near infinite amount of power needed to run the desalination plants. In my opinion there's no excuse in this day and age that people are dying of thirst. Its just a matter of getting some of the people who have way more money than they need to share their good fortune for the sake of humanity.

You can't ignore the fact that the world has finite resources. One day they will run out if we carry on encouraging more and more people to inhabit the planet.

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You can't ignore the fact that the world has finite resources. One day they will run out if we carry on encouraging more and more people to inhabit the planet.

There's better ways to control the population problem than forgetting about and letting those without basic needs suffer. We need to optimize the resources we have now for the good of the race first. Once everyone has food and water and can live happily, which we do currently have the resources for, than we can worry about our future as a race.

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There's better ways to control the population problem than forgetting about and letting those without basic needs suffer. We need to optimize the resources we have now for the good of the race first. Once everyone has food and water and can live happily, which we do currently have the resources for, than we can worry about our future as a race.

You are putting words in my mouth mate.

People are already suffering. Why keep trying to feed and water them when we know what the problem is?

We already have the means to painlessly reverse the trends of over population but where's the money in that?

That's the problem too many people with too few resources and only the rich benefiting as per usual.

It's the same with cars... Build more roads and what happens?

Every body parks their cars on the roads particularly when they need them to get to work.

Sure I'm being facetious but instead of having a rush hour we now have a couple of flow hours where by you can actually make some headway without sitting in a traffic jam.

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Canada has more fresh water lakes then the entire planet combined. I'm glad I will be an old man and ready for death when the crap storm hit's. Oil will be obsolete in the next 30 years so ya water wars. Damn why hasn't anyone made a movie about this yet.

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Canada has more fresh water lakes then the entire planet combined. I'm glad I will be an old man and ready for death when the crap storm hit's. Oil will be obsolete in the next 30 years so ya water wars. Damn why hasn't anyone made a movie about this yet.

I've been listening to a similar argument about oil becoming so scarce that it will be unobtainable in the next X amount of years since I first rode a motorcycle on the road 40 years ago.

However with the hiking of prices and the pressure from world powers to get what's left it would seem that thirty years is a bit optimistic imo. To ease the situation we are seeing the hybrid cars hitting the roads and some mixing hydrogen with petrol to make petrol more economical but what's the point when there's nowhere to drive your car? During rush hour it's faster to walk into town if you live within a three mile radius. That radius is expanding all the time.

The same goes for water. It's not a question of having it but distributing it is, so say, too expensive to make it viable.

It's the same with food. There are a lot of area's in the world which could hold more people but like the roads this will soon become full and so is not a long term solution.

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I've been listening to a similar argument about oil becoming so scarce that it will be unobtainable in the next X amount of years since I first rode a motorcycle on the road 40 years ago.

However with the hiking of prices and the pressure from world powers to get what's left it would seem that thirty years is a bit optimistic imo. To ease the situation we are seeing the hybrid cars hitting the roads and some mixing hydrogen with petrol to make petrol more economical but what's the point when there's nowhere to drive your car? During rush hour it's faster to walk into town if you live within a three mile radius. That radius is expanding all the time.

The same goes for water. It's not a question of having it but distributing it is, so say, too expensive to make it viable.

It's the same with food. There are a lot of area's in the world which could hold more people but like the roads this will soon become full and so is not a long term solution.

Oil companies will tells us anything to pacify us as a consumer and that includes food and water. If you have cash I have an investment idea for you and your children bigger than Microsoft. Vertical farming. This technology could make any major city independent of import foods and save water. This can be done anywhere on the planet we just need some backers to make it happen. Not me I'm poor and go to Costco and wall mart. However hear me now this is the future.

Vertical farming.

I'll add this vid so the UM bot may post it.

Edited by The Silver Thong
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Oil companies will tells us anything to pacify us as a consumer and that includes food and water. If you have cash I have an investment idea for you and your children bigger than Microsoft. Vertical farming. This technology could make any major city independent of import foods and save water. This can be done anywhere on the planet we just need some backers to make it happen. Not me I'm poor and go to Costco and wall mart. However hear me now this is the future.

Vertical farming.

I'll add this vid so the UM bot may post it.

I hear you but it won't help long term overpopulation... You hear me.

MANAGING PLANET EARTH - MANAGING PLANET EARTH - Experts Scaling Back Their Estimates of World Population Growth - NYTimes.com

Edited by Flashbangwollap
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