 "Water is destiny"
The Economic Collapse Blog
 17 Sep 2011 20:00 CDT
....
#1 Today, the United States uses approximately 148 trillion gallons of fresh water a year.
#2 According to the U.S. government, 36 U.S. states are already facing water shortages or will be facing water shortages within the next few years.
#3 Since 1998, the level of water in Lake Mead has plunged by more than 50 percent. Lake Mead supplies about 85 percent of the water used in Las Vegas, and at this point the lake has 5.6 trillion gallons less water than it used to have. Lake Mead is falling so fast that some believe that the Hoover dam could actually stop producing electricity in a few years. Needless to say, that would be a total disaster for that entire region of the country. In addition, if things continue at the current pace, it is being estimated that Lake Mead will run completely dry some time around the year 2021.
#4 According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. interior west is now the driest that it has been in 500 years.
#5 The Ogallala Aquifer, which is a massive underground lake that stretches from South Dakota all the way to Texas, is rapidly drying up. The Ogallala Aquifer is believed to be the largest body of fresh water in the world, and right now it is being drained at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute. Right now it covers approximately 174,000 square miles, and since the 1950s we have drained enough water from it "to half-fill Lake Erie". Once upon a time, the Ogallala Aquifer had an average depth of about 240 feet, but today the average depth is just 80 feet. If something is not done, we will definitely see a return of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. We need to start listening to the experts. Just consider what David Brauer of the Ogallala Research Service had to say when asked about the future of the Ogallala Aquifer....
"Our goal now is to engineer a soft landing. That's all we can do."
#6 A federal judge has ruled that the state of Georgia has very few legal rights to Lake Lanier. Lake Lanier is the main water source for the city of Atlanta. Millions more people are expected to move into the Atlanta area in the coming years, and this is creating an absolute nightmare for city officials.
#7 It is estimated that California only has a 20 year supply of fresh water left.
#8 It is estimated that New Mexico only has a 10 year supply of fresh water left.
#9 Things have gotten so dry in Arizona that now giant "dust storms" have been blowing through the city of Phoenix.
#10 Texas is has experienced one of the driest stretches that it has ever seen. Right now, approximately 81 percent of the state of Texas is experiencing "exceptional drought" conditions, and wildfires have burned an astounding 3.6 million acres in the state.
#11 Approximately 40 percent of all U.S. rivers and approximately 46 percent of all U.S. lakes have become so polluted that they are are now considered to be too dangerous to fish in, swim in or get drinking water from.
#12 Eight states in the Great Lakes region have signed a pact banning the export of water to outsiders - even to other U.S. states.
#13 It is being projected that by the year 2030, global demand for water will be 40 percent higher than it is today.
#14 Worldwide demand for fresh water tripled during the last century, and is now doubling every 21 years.
#15 According to USAID, one-third of the population of the earth will be facing severe or chronic water shortages by the year 2025.
#16 Of the 60 million people added to the world's cities every year, the vast majority of them live in impoverished areas that have no sanitation facilities whatsoever.
#17 It is estimated that 75 percent of the surface water in India is now contaminated by human and agricultural waste.
#18 If you can believe it, according to a UN study on sanitation, far more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet.
#19 In the developing world, 90 percent of all wastewater is discharged completely untreated into local rivers, streams or lakes.
#20 Every 8 seconds, somewhere in the world a child dies from drinking dirty water.
#21 Due to a lack of water, Saudi Arabia has given up on trying to grow wheat and will be 100 percent dependent on wheat imports by the year 2016.
#22 In northern China, the water table is dropping one meter every single year because of drought and overpumping.
#23 Incredibly, a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created in China every single year because of drought and overpumping.
#24 In China, 80 percent of all major rivers have become so horribly polluted that they do not support any aquatic life at all at this point.
#25 Collectively, the women of South Africa walk the equivalent of the distance to the moon and back 16 times a day just to get water.
To learn more about the coming global water crisis, check out the short video posted below....
Without enough fresh water, people cannot grow enough food. Global food prices are already starting to skyrocket, and the coming global water crisis certainly is not going to help matters....
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Comments: 16
As for the one about Arizona, I believe it. I used to live down there. Thank God I'm back in Canada!
In most parts of Africa where there is a shortage of water woman traditionally walk this distance and more each day and always have done.
Children die every 8 min this is nothing new 40 years ago when I was in Africa children were dropping like flies through drinking fowl water.
It is up to Governments in the world to educate and bring in legislation to stop their citizens wasting water. It is up to Governments to invest in the distribution of waste water so that it can be cleaned and then sent back into the food chain and not just sent in to rivers then become polluted and if America is letting this happen then the American people should be totally ashamed of themselves.
In the UK even though we have plenty of water all waste water is sent to be cleaned very little gets distributed into rivers, and that is done by legislation making it against the law to do otherwise with dire consequences if factories do not conform to this law. Household waste always goes back to be cleaned no matter wher a person has a home.
Population is to blame for lack of water in many parts of the world and lack of investment and the education that water is a precious comodity.
Millions more people are expected to move into the Atlanta area in the coming years, and this is creating an absolute nightmare for city officials.
Again we get back to the real problems, too many people and profligate use of resources. There's no less water than there ever was, it just takes time to recycle itself.
More and more I see Warmageddonists posts confirming what we sceptcs have been saying, but I don't see any acknowledgements that we've been right all along.
Al Gore wrote about population and climate change in his most recent book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. He also wrote about the factors, which have limited population growth - mostly having to do with the empowerment of women. I understand that is not really a "conservative" value, but neither are most other facts on this issue.
textilesindepth
#5 The Ogallala Aquifer, which is a massive underground lake that stretches from South Dakota all the way to Texas, is rapidly drying up. The Ogallala Aquifer is believed to be the largest body of fresh water in the world, and right now it is being drained at a rate of approximately800 gallons per minute. Right now it covers approximately 174,000 square miles, and since the 1950s we have drained enough water from it"to half-fill Lake Erie". Once upon a time, the Ogallala Aquifer had an average depth of about 240 feet, but today the average depth is just 80 feet. If something is not done, we will definitely see a return of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. We need to start listening to the experts. Just consider what David Brauer of the Ogallala Research Service had to saywhen asked about the future of the Ogallala Aquifer....
"Our goal now is to engineer a soft landing. That's all we can do."
~ ~ ~ ~
That was created in the last Ice Age and there is no way that water can ever be replaced. We just use it and deplete it.
#22 In northern China, the water table is dropping one meter every single year because of drought and overpumping.
~ ~ ~ ~
Same problem as above. Also of note all the glacier water is melting ever since the last Ice age and will continue to be less and less available.
However in 2018 – 2020 or so as this happens quite regularly every 400 years or so and the last one was called the ‘little ace age’ is caused by the sun cooling down and should happen soon around that time frame.
That's true in my opinion also. There is going to be many wars over water in the future and billion of folk will die, however, I feel because of starvation, disease and lack of water, not by those wars. We now are in the beginning of those economic wars now as inflation is raising the cost of labor in China and many companies are beginning to look elsewhere for cheap labor, including the USA, the impact on China could be severe because of that inflation.
Until we learn to limit population growth, the most draconian conservation measures for both oil and water will be largely ineffective.
1. The amount of water on Earth is constant, and cannot be "used up". It doesnt disappear, it recycles
2. The melting of glaciers liberates more water for the water cycle, so that warming actually produces more, not less water
3. The reason ice ages are so destructive for life is not the cold, but the fact that water in ice is not available for recycling in rain, and this leads to universal global droughts
4. The water shortages being experienced in Texas and other parts of the US South are LOCAL and caused by overuse of limited aquifers due to rapid population expansion. They can be managed by control of water use and are reversible
5. The degree of water pollution is NOT increasing, byut decreasing all over the world.
6. The Web site from which most of the "information" in this article was taken is partisan, propagandistic and alarmist. It gives distorted information that is calculated to cause unwarranted concern
To say we are using up our limited water resources is scientifically nonsense. Water is not petroleum. It doesnt get used up. Droughts are naturally recurring cycles, which can be exacerbated by overuse in some areas. The American West has been dry forever. Places like West Texas, and Arizona were not meant for large scale human habitation or agriculture. Global warming can make some regions more dry, and cause flooding in others, but when it comes to total liquid, available water, global warming is our friend.
I know, everything I just said is heresy. We are all supposed to believe that for the past 70 years we have been steadily heading downhill. I keep wondering when this hill is supposed to end. Its all a big lie, and the real facts are there to prove it. I would write a book about this, except I already did, and nobody cared. So fine, keep believing we are on the edge of the precipice, everybody does, and has for the past generation. We have become expert precipice dwellers, and we really love our doom.
Current Science on Global Warming and Western Water
The Great Lakes are a world-class water resource, planet-wise!