Environment & Energy
Related: About this forum5 Crazy Schemes We May Turn to For More Water
http://www.alternet.org/water/5-crazy-schemes-we-may-turn-more-water***SNIP
1. Sin City Gets Thirsty
Las Vegas has become the poster child for water scarcity in the U.S. The manmade oasis in the desert seems to embody water opulence giant fountains, green lawns, golf courses, outside misters, canals. All the while estimates say the metropoliss water source Colorado River water stored behind Hoover Dam in Lake Mead is running low. In the next few decades it is possible that Las Vegas intake pipes in the lake, which supply 90 percent of the citys water, may be sucking air.
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2. Lake Powell Pipe Dream
The only thing making parts of the desert Southwest livable is the vast plumbing network weve concocted. And apparently were not done yet. Its not just the Las Vegas region that is hell-bent on growth, but so are parts of neighboring Utah around the town of St. George in Washington County.
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3. Friends in Wet Places
In a guest commentary two years ago in the Denver Post , John M. Barbieri and Deborah A. Palmieri suggested that Russia can and should aid the drying American west. With vast water resources, Babrieri and Palmieri say that Russia is poised to become a major exporter. And that the U.S. and Russia should harness the ingenuity, technology and resources necessary to transfer water from remote locations to a thirsty world, including to the U.S. west coast.
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4. Caution: Oversized Load
French engineer Georges Mougin is a big thinker. Especially when it comes to our global water crisis. As Fast Company reports :
There are 1.1 billion people in the world without clean drinking water. Meanwhile, billions of gallons of freshwater disappears uselessly into the ocean, the result of icebergs that break off from the ice caps of Greenland and melt into the salty mix.
lapfog_1
(29,199 posts)from Russia to the desert Southwest.
pscot
(21,024 posts)Not saying you're wrong - the article suggests that you are spot on - but was just adding
the logical follow-up to this realisation.
NickB79
(19,233 posts)Because we have teh technologiez!
hunter
(38,311 posts)Most especially when it's powered by fossil fuels.
I figure most of these water problems will be "solved" the old fashioned way: People will move.
In some places this will cause very serious refugee problems and people will die.
CRH
(1,553 posts)if you are lucky enough to live in a location that has enough water, when other areas dry up the migration will begin. Suddenly your area has two or three times the demand for water, now your oasis is drying. Yet, more refugees arrive, and with them their need for sustenance and social services. How long before fences are raised and communities go feudal, to protect their dwindling resource?
Interesting times ahead, that will test moral choices and survival instincts
Nihil
(13,508 posts)Survival instincts will win every time.
It is not going to be pretty.
CRH
(1,553 posts)the luxury of morality is certain to be suppressed by instinctual need.
Few will sacrifice their own well being for others.