Will (Lack Of) Water Be Our Undoing?

Love that line - can't spin gullibility... Way cool, thanks!

This thread has finally pi$$ed me off, big time.

Fact is, we are all pawns. We have nothing to say about our futures or our grandchildren's futures, except that they very likely will never own a house.

I'm turning this off and going to have some fun for a while.

I purchased the rights to Pres Bush's "hurricane machine". I intend to reconfigure it to generate cat 1 storms and direct them towards the midwest and other areas experiencing water shortages. Hurricanes are great water purifiers and transporters.

I'm offering stock options as a pre IPO. If anyone is interested, contact me PM

This 'Hurricane machine' seems to be something similar to what I read in a junior science fiction long ago, of a 'Snow machine'. which brews a snow storm at will.

Yes, this is a very useful concept. Actually 90 percent of rain falls over oceans. If an offshore platform or ship fitted with this contraption is afloat, it could direct rains/hurricanes to the land mass that needs rain badly.

How to apply for stock options for this new venture ?

Since I don't do CR4 on weekends, I end up at the end of some of these discussions. In longer threads, like this one, you get to see the meandering that sometimes takes place.

Aside from water shortage being a "scare tactic, there are plenty of people around the globe that just don't have access to clean, fresh water NOW. There seem to be plenty of links describing the plight, on a quick search. But since almost any link can be "linked" to some sort of "agenda," I'll leave it to anyone interested in the topic to find one that suits them... or not.

As to the original subject matter, I always come back to the fact that, as a species, we are shallow, short-term thinkers and short-sighted, when it comes to planning and managing resources. Raise your hand if you think fossil fuel will still be (or should be) the major source of energy in 500 years. Or 1,000 years. Or raise your hand if you think our species will survive that long. Live for the moment (relatively, speaking of course). That's the perspective. Some countries, like China, look further down the road, but still, overall, as a species, we don't do too well with long-term strategies. Population planning is a key factor in resource management. Would you procreate a family of 10 kids if you only made $8/hour? And if anyone does/did, they'd, ultimately, likely be seen as a burden on the rest of society.

We all like to think that our technological savvy will always save us in the end. More than technology is required. Just ask the people in Darfur or Rawanda, or...

Whether or not there is a true threat of a water shortage, as kramarat mused about, is, no doubt, debatable. It is a lot like global warming, in that, no matter what data and/or statistics one pulls up, someone will cry "foul." The planet is getting warmer. You can't spin the melting of the ice caps. Where the cause lies may be debatable. But anyone with any sense would analyze the situation and if a case can be made that we are exacerbating the situation, would try to find ways not to. The same can be said for water shortage. And as far as research, there have been several books published in the last decade or so, on a quick search (1, 2, 3 about a future shortage, and 4, ostensibly, detailing the history of water development -- or lack thereof -- in the western U.S.; showing the mistakes... can we learn from history?). There is a tendency to lump all books with a similar title together and if one disagrees with the premise, dismiss them all with one swipe. As time-consuming as it might be, sometimes you just have to read things for yourself and not rely on others critiques of such things, and then come to your own conclusions. Even if you disagree, you'll likely learn something worthwhile. (And it shouldn't be the cynical outlook, of "Yeah, don't read books like this anymore.")

Treating the subject of water shortage as a threat can be looked at as planning and as a preventive measure. I don't think kramarat is/was in a panicked state -- he's just saying, "Hey, there may be a problem here. Let's discuss."

As mentioned, there has been and is. We don't have to wait for a future time to see people dying from it. And if it ever did become more valuable than gold... well, we (as a species) have fought wars over other resources that were less immediately, life and death threatening. The housing destruction in Florida from hurricane Andrew, shows how devastating, lack of planning, and being ostrich-like, can be. And how about the warnings about the levees in New Orleans that were ignored long before hurricane Katrina? If only someone had heeded the "panicked" pleas of the "kooks."

If I were going to gamble, I think I'd learn to count cards.

The destruction of hurricane Andrew looked so bad because developers with deep pockets and connections, were allowed to build wood frame housing...Not only is this a mistake because of termites, they were being built to low standards....Nearly every home and structure in Florida is concrete block and has been for as long as I can remember....Wood homes may be great up north, but they don't make sense here in the deep south...If you want to see the next scenario like hurricane Andrew, look for a large group of wood frame homes down here....or even worse, trailers....Oh sorry,,,mobile homes....

I don't disagree. You've given a good example of how greed can and does override concern for others; i.e., morality.

How a foreseeable collapse was somehow unstoppable. I prefer to assume that the utmost good faith and diligence of those responsible for public safety in their district of the state still failed because the technical intelligence on such a building design was not available to them at the time they issued the building permit. It's a system failure, not moral, that could be ameliorated by a blog like this or some sort of crowdsourcing directed at technical problems in the housing industry, for example. Get more eyes on the problem.

They are still building wood frame homes here....

Do you not agree that we have to find a balance between building standards and affordability for those with smaller income.

Can we tell those who cannot afford block-on-slab homes to seek housing in another state?

I was here for Andrew as well. My company was called in to Homestead Air Force Base for remediation work prior to power restoration on the base. I saw things which shocked me. When double block structures, end-to-end, poured with concrete and rod, were gone like a ghost, I pondered a little about our building codes.

I live in a 120 MPH building code area. There are trailers (mobile homes) in this area.

I hope none of them read this thread.

I was in Chas, SC the day after Hugo went through back in 89. No one would be able to afford homes that would stand up to some of these hurricanes.

So, maybe my characterization of the failure as having a moral component is too harsh? Or N/A?

There are bound to be ways to improve the integrity of a residential structure against such natural disasters without driving the cost beyond reason. Makes me want to do a bit of poking around to see if there have been any suggestions/plans for such that have either been ignored or just aren't practical yet. Tornadoes may be the exception. A direct hit by one doesn't leave much behind. A compromise might be to have the very central part of a house be built to withstand hurricane winds which would serve as a refuge from the rest of the structure. Seems like there should be SOME way to improve outcomes.

As per SE's reply, wood homes are still being built in other hurricane prone areas, too. Is it mostly cost, as you suggest?

Yes, frame homes are less expensive to construct than block homes.

One easy way to improve a frame home's resistance to a hurricane would be to build them round. This would create a very dull structure (especially in a subdivision) as size would be the only differentiating feature, but would greatly lower the profile for wind pressure.

We all wish for that level of trust in government officials. And I would agree that most officials are trustworthy. But New Orleans officials were being warned well before the hurricane that the levees weren't up to the requirements needed. That may be a lack of tax dollars to fix the problems, I don't know. But the lack of response in any substantial way can only lead one to believe that there was a component of apathy. And that is a moral deficiency. At the least some prominent elected representatives could have made more noise in the media than they did.

Scandals will never be eliminated. The Madoff scandal shows how officials many times turn a deaf ear to warnings. There are usually enough "eyes" there just aren't too many functioning ears.

Apathy due to good faith ignorance is what could be overcome by more eyes (and ears) on the problem. Apathy due to laziness and corruption also, because with more eyes and ears, accountable public officials can't get away not doing the job they are paid for. Apathy when you know but just don't care -- that's a moral failure, like your example of the levees in New Orleans. Of course my assumption of utmost good faith and diligence is not realistic, but I just wanted to make the point that even if it were so, there would still be a problem from a lack of information and public awareness.

"Affordability" sounds like a persuasive argument for looking the other way as flimsy "affordable" homes and trailers are sold cheap in Florida. There must be some point where "affordability" is nothing but a cover for exploitation of the poor, viz. the housing bubble.

The water problem is another example of apathy. Because of the primitive state of water treatment technology, which has been asleep for many years, there are no affordable solutions for the poor people. Despite the real and growing need, the big companies who dominate the water market are not developing anything new. There is no public pressure to get serious. Chemicals, membranes, and expensive high pressure equipment offer no scalable solution for Darfur, Haiti, or Pakistan, but there will always be charities and governments who will pay for the expensive chemicals and membranes that the water giants are selling because there is nothing else available to meet the emergency.

Frac flowback water is polluting the groundwater in Pennsylvania, which no longer allows it to be dumped on the environment, so now it gets trucked to a dumpsite in Ohio. The race to the bottom in water regulation also has a plausible sounding cover -- jobs.

I've built wood framed homes in SW Fla for 40 years and all of them

went through Andrew, Charlie or Wilma and none of them had any damage at all.

If done to code, nailed and glued together with the proper glue and fasteners, AS DESIGNED BY THE PROJECT STRUCTUAL ENGINEER, they will actually do as well or better than a block building!

Our current wind speed code just went up last month to 150mph where I live.

My house I designed and built in 1980 with 'bat wing' gable wall design has stood up through direct hits of every hurricane to hit SWF in all those years.

The total demolition of the hundreds of track homes by Andrew in Homestead, FL was because of their use of stranded chip board sheathing and staples which under the stress of continuous buffetting that cause the staple heads to cut through the sheating like tiny knives. Full headed nails and glueing the first two rows of the roof sheathing is now required with the nails being 4"o.c.

Basically we are now building upside down boat hulls.

So your saying, you can beat mother nature.

You don't have to beat Mother Nature, you just have to outsmart her!

Solar desalinazation plants will be the water source in the future up until the next ice age when we will be able to set up a fresnel lense on a tripod and create our own natural glacial water and have all the pure water we want.

Wasn't something of the same said about about the Titanic.

Even if you scrape ice off of an iceburg, you still have to melt it to drink it.

Yeah. It popped up on my homepage and I figured it would make for an interesting conversation................not a panic.

After solreagle's considerable effort at dragging the thread into the dirt, I think most everybody has lost interest at this point. Maybe not.

It did give me an idea for another thread though.....................I wonder how many inventions and engineering accomplishments were first broached by knee jerk "chicken littles". You know...........those grumpy crazy guys like Edison and Tesla.

As far as I know, most everything in science and engineering starts off as either a real or perceived problem, followed with digging into ways to fix it or make things generally better.

I guess that's just more negative thinking though.

Oh brother, which one are you now ?

Edison? or Tesla?

I don't think there is a loss of interest, but my comments certainly spawned a sidetrack issue. Sorry.

Maybe most people who have read the thread can't think of anything else to say at this point.

I've read back through comments and can't quite decide if the consensus here about fresh water supply being in danger is accepted, considered, or not. Even if we convert sea water to fresh water there's still the issue of transport and distribution.

No need to apologize. I don't really care where the threads go. I've been gone for a couple of days, and quite frankly, I don't think it's considered at all. Clean, potable water is one of the many things that we take for granted.................just assuming it will always be there. The head of Coca Cola's global water stewardship program, from the opening link, claims it's already a big problem. Given the vast quantities of safe, clean water that they need.................I believe him.

Yeah. And I can't help thinking about Coke (and all other "soft" drinks) being carriers for a substance (sugar) that, more and more, is being linked to health issues. (See last week's "60 Minutes" story about it.)

The reason that should be of some concern, is these beverages are used to quench thirst like water, by many. And these "private" players can take whatever amount of fresh, mostly clean, water they need, AFAIK. So, water that could be used for good, gets altered and used as if it is benign. Stop and think. What if sodas were the only form of water we had to drink? Surely, if push came to shove, water would be off limits to such companies, right?

I don't drink soda..................well, a little cola spashed on some whiskey once in a while. I wasn't saying that soda is good either, but if anybody is aware of the state of fresh potable water on the planet, I would guess that coke and pepsi are probably keeping a pretty close eye on things. Yeah, that's what they're doing. Drying up available water sources and turning it into sugar water.

http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/

Well, I didn't think you were a big soda drinker, but plenty of people do drink too much -- almost like water. I understood what you were saying about them knowing the status.

Good(??) find on the India/Coca Cola link. So I guess that future I was alluding to is already here.

And lest we think the corporate/gov't. partnership is uniquely skewed in the U.S., this paragraph from that link has a very familiar ring to it...

"So far, not only have the authorities not cooperated at all, they have consistently refused to make good on their promises of inquiries and investigations to look into Coca-Cola's practices that are depleting the groundwater and polluting the water and soil. In addition, the authorities have trumped up criminal charges against some of the key leaders of the struggle, and issued orders to these leaders preventing them from "shouting slogans or making inflammatory speeches … within 300 meters of the plant"

When are all these dang "trouble-makers" around the world going to let these poor, defenseless companies be?

Truth is, we've gotten ourselves into somewhat of a pickle by having industries that create non-necessary luxuries, but many livelihoods now depend on them. Prohibition won't work, we know that. Soda rationing... it's going to have to happen. If they can ration watering one's lawn during a drought, why not. Sounds silly, I'm sure, but other lives are being impacted, too. The other bad thing is sugar can be addictive. I don't drink sodas anymore, but when I did, I found it only took about 3 days of having one after lunch each day for that mental expectation (and palate, too) to be acquired. That goes beyond thirst.

I'm under no illusions that, left unchecked, big business will do the right thing. It's funny that while this stuff was going on in India, in the US they released white cans of coke with polar bears on them, to bring awareness to global warming................yeah right.

This is why I get so wound up over private business/government partnerships, like we are seeing with GE and the current administration. With slimebags in both, big business and government working together, the rest of us are screwed.

It is rather bizarre how a thread that is supposed to discuss water goes into topics that have no relevance to the engineering aspects.

Let this forum concentrate on ways and means of improving availability of potable water to mankind and come up with meaningful suggestions, instead of discussing cocacola, private government participation, house construction norms, hurricanes and what not.

This thread seems to weave itself into knots !

That was my original intent.

All I can say is...............welcome aboard. CR4 is a convoluted library of information. These threads can (and do) take on lives of their own. Lots of solid information here, but you have to be willing to wade through the random discussion that takes place in the meantime.

Please feel free to get us back on topic.

That's one of the things I like about CR4.

In a single thread, you can start out talking (learning) about support beams and end up talking (learning) about some obscure geological formation.

I like it too. For the most part the threads are a casual conversation that can go just about anywhere.

Yes. It's called freedom of thought which naturally leads to the unseemly desire to then express them. I can certainly understand and appreciate the goal of "staying on topic." But because we all have word and idea associations in our heads, it is only natural to stray sometimes. Unless something is intolerable to all, the OP has the right (I think??; moderators acknowledged) to accept meandering comments, or not, and say so. Anyone posting OT will, hopefully, mark the post as such and I think, also respect the request of a thread-starter to limit or stop stray comments if asked to. Hopefully, others will follow his/her lead and tolerate them, too. They usually peter out of their own accord. When they don't, it just means enough people were interested in the diversion for it to linger. kramarat happens to like it.

In the case of the link about Coca-Cola using (and diminishing) potable water as a resource in India, it seems very relevant to the discussion of how to increase the availability of potable water. The solution is being sought by the people in India who want redress of the problem as they see it. Seems pretty straight forward to me. (Maybe italics construes cynicism. If so, I apologize for misconstruing.)

Not straightforward according to what is publicly available, at least to me. Although the need is clear for more potable water, the solution would depend on accurately stating the problems involved and identifying a solutions to these technical problems. A clear plan of action, not more complaints, and especially not "move along folks, no problem here." Accurately stating the problems involved would use words like disinfection, clarification, hardness, and salinity. It would address all ultimate disposal issues for the waste products of water treatment.

A problem with rambling threads (and I support your idea of edit authority for the OP) is that sometimes they just get tedious. I had hoped that more expert commentary would come to bear on the world's water needs, but the digressions might have bored them.

I agree. And although I never hit the report button, I don't think it's cool for one member to intentionally try screw up another member's thread..................but enough sour grapes.

I think that if anyone should be investing heavily in desalinization plants, it should be coke and pepsi..............................these people are destroying lives for cryin' out loud. It doesn't matter if it's in India, it's not right. And quite frankly, I think it's things like this that fuel the fires of anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, etc. The multinational companies that are based in the US have a responsibility not to screw and plunder the people of other countries, as far as I'm concerned.

The majority of Americans have no idea why we are so hated around the globe. Well, it's sh*t like this and the secret crap that the government is up to, that lead to it.

I agree. What I meant by straight forward was more to the point that it seems obvious that, if future supply of water is limited it isn't very smart (or thoughtful of those who might be suffering from lack it) to take plain water, as a privatized commodity, and manufacture a sugar beverage from it when people need unadulterated water. In the case of the link about Coca-Cola's issues in India, the claims are that it is affecting the ground water supply, as well causing contamination. If people are dying due to lack of potable water and it can be shown that even part of the problem is being caused by Coca-Cola's operations there, should it be ignored or stone-walled by elected representatives? It seems to be the case. That happens here, too, regarding other issues.

The opportunity is still there (and kramarat has reiterated it with an invitation) to have further comments on topic. Although, that is why I asked about him if he thought there is a consensus of opinion. If not enough people can agree that there is a true water shortage down the pike, no one will offer solutions to what they see as a non-problem.

I would repeat that I think population is a common sense (and straight forward), part of the solution of managing all of our resources -- not just water. Of course, that ideal of common planning is hard to realize since so many nations can't even have normal relations -- Congress all over the world. (I just wrote a long succeeding paragraph about political failures but deleted it. Most anyone can fill in that blank.)

I'm sure most of the people posting on this topic could, if asked (even if they don't think the problem is real) write in a few paragraphs what the major components of a water shortage would likely be due to. Maybe not.

That is also why I think reading some of the books on the subject may be necessary to be informed enough to even debate the issue. I've seen too many "cherry-picked" comments taken out of context on hot-button issues, to accept, without question, anyone's "summary" of an author's arguments or presentation. Some people take years doing, hopefully, honest research and writing before they are finished with a book. If I'm interested in the subject, it is only respectful of their effort to not reduce their time to someone else's summary of that effort. We all have agendas. But I'd rather read both For and Against books to know the ground that is really being debated. Besides, the suggested solutions we look forward to are included as part of any good book on a problem. Maybe the thread will be on hold until some of us do that one thing. Then if we don't agree, at least we are discussing specific, fleshed-out, ideas/reasons about the subject.

(For whatever reason I just thought of one of my favorite sections from the documentary, "Animals Are Beautiful People." I laugh a lot each time I see it. But aren't we a little like these animals? We have become somewhat drunk and addicted to overuse of our resources; and using them for many, truly, frivolous enjoyments. Then we wake up the next day and realize what we have done or are doing. For those who need life-giving resources, it is no joke, though.)

Sometimes these threads get the most interesting and thought provocative after the rest of the crew have moved on.

My bottom line is, that I don't like dishonesty in government, and I don't like dishonesty in business. At the same time, I'm all for big business and small government making sure that big business isn't screwing things up.

There most certainly are ways to make a handsome profit and not f*ck people in the process..........................we seem to be losing that mindset. Globally. I think it's going to come back to bite us all in the a$$ if we don't watch it.

Sounds old fashioned, but a promise and a handshake should still be able to close many deals.............................deals in which everyone wins. Part of our problem is that we've come to view deals as a sequence of events in which there are winners and losers. It will ultimately spell our undoing.

There was a bill in the Florida Legislature trying to privatize the control of storm water runoff...taking that to the extreme it would let a corporation eventually get control of the aquifers for profit.

Not sure if it ever made it to vote tho.