The Coming Water Shortage

Make no mistake about it, water supplies are already dire in many places around the world. The poorer the country, the less access there is to clean, portable water. Thousands of people die due to easily treatable diseases that were stamped out in much of the western world a long time ago. Yet things are going to get much worse for us all if we do not drastically change the way we do things here on Earth.

From MSNBC:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday.

Wong Poh Poh, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told a regional conference that global warming was disrupting water flow patterns and increasing the severity of floods, droughts and storms — all of which reduce the availability of drinking water.

Wong said the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that as many as 2 billion people won't have sufficient access to clean water by 2050. That figure is expected to rise to 3.2 billion by 2080 — nearly tripling the number who now do without it.

Most of those numbers are especially focused on the Asian continent, where burgeoning urban populations not only strain water infrastructure but pollute the supply nearby. Rising ocean levels are also a problem for low-lying areas in South Asia. Even in one of the richest areas of the world, California, will begin to suffer as the snowpacks of the Sierra Mountains continues to dwindle year by year. Much of the arid state relies on the snowpack through the dry summer and fall months. There are countless other problem spots, but all can be dealt with if we plan ahead, conserve better and stop emitting so much damn carbon into the atmosphere.

The Water Wars Are Coming Soon

Although it is not widely known in the general populace of the west, more than one billion people do not have access to fresh water and sanitation problems exist for one out of every three people. Even when that statistic is read to westerners, it is processed with a sigh, a compassionate thought or two and then dismissed until somebody brings it up again, though each time jades the listener that much more. The problem with this is that just because water problems exist in the third world, it doesn't mean they can't come here.

In the Southeastern United States, people in Florida and Georgia got a good wakeup call to what happens with water shortages. There were no actual wars over this commodity, but tensions were definitely raised. Now it is happening again in Western Europe, specifically in regions of Spain. Things are not looking good there at all.

From The Guardian:

Already Barcelona's authorities have turned off civic fountains and beachside showers, brought in hosepipe bans, and banned the filling of swimming pools. Schoolchildren are being taught how to save water.

"We are only too aware of the crisis with the water as they have been giving my daughters classes for months on how to save water and only to use what they need," said city resident Begoña Gómez, 43, as she sipped a glass of bottled water. "But we need better management of water by the government."

As the reservoirs across Spain run dry, a "water war" has broken out, with different regions scrabbling for extra supplies.

The Socialist government, which initially opposed water transfers from one region to another, executed a political U-turn and allowed water to be pumped into Catalonia from the river Ebro in the neighbouring region of Aragon.

The move infuriated southern regions such as Murcia and Valencia, which asked for similar concessions. Both are significant agricultural areas, with a busy tourist season about to start, and expect their water supplies to be hit hard.

Both areas, run by the opposition conservative Popular party, claim Spain's Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodrìguez Zapatero denied their requests for water transfers for political reasons.

Today arguments are played out at a national political level. However in the future as the water shortages get worse and worse, things have the ability to get out of hand. Water is the most important life-giving resource and people will fight to the death over it. This isn't some crazy conspiracy theory either, or else the military wouldn't be seriously considering the potential scenarios and battles that lie ahead.

Dams Are Not the Answer

There is a growing water problem in the arid western states of our country. Part of it is the long running drought but the true problem is the rapidly expanding population in these states. If you have ever been to a city like Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, etc during two different years, it is easy to see just how quickly these places expand. Of course they aren't anything like many Eastern Seaboard cities, they grow out, not up. That causes many problems, such as a healthy tax base in proportion to the area. More importantly though, water is what brings life, and it can bring the opposite as well to this region. Naturally we want to preserve our homes and our ways of (wasteful) life, so we'll go to ridiculous extremes to keep that water flowing.

From RawStory:

"The West and the Northwest are increasing in population growth like never before," said John Redding, regional spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise. "How do you quench the thirst of the hungry masses?"

The population of the Western states grew nearly 20 percent in the 1990s, to more than 64 million, and continues to swell even as climate change poses new threats to the water supply.

Ironically, consideration of new dams comes even as older ones are being torn down across the country because of environmental concerns — worries that will likely pose big obstacles to new construction. In Oregon, a deal has been struck to remove four dams on the Klamath River to restore struggling salmon runs.

So why would we create more problems with dams when we already know they are proven losers? Well there's money in it for one. Another obvious answer is that it is a relatively quick, short-term fix to supply a whole lot of water and power. Basically it is about instant gratification, and these burgeoning municipalities to increase revenues and size while the individuals cash in on relatively inexpensive real estate.

Now what should we be doing instead? Well you can't stop population growth, but you can regulate it. Legislators should be focusing heavily on conservation, green technology, low-water appliances and building up, not out. Many of these cities have conservation programs, but they aren't enough. I lived in Tucson for several years and watched the effects of the scarcity of water. Sinkholes opened up, the water table kept dropping and yet, the city kept expanding. If we aren't careful in places like these, the results could be disastrous.