Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Growing water wars around the world

 
           More than five years ago now we talked about the race to war and looking at Atlanta, Georgia and around the world I had to ask what the hell is wrong with the world? We were and are already in the fight of our lives! Water wars and the environment! What has changed? The environment is getting worse as is the global war situation. Wake up! What the hell is wrong with us?

I dwelled on the terrible prospect of running out of water and the prospect of water wars after thinking of Atlanta facing the prospect of running dry with no rain in sight and 9 million people. This is one city! This was happening around Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Carolina, as well as throughout the middle east, and the Great Lakes, while floods and horrific storms covered Texas and much of the rest of the country.

I was thinking about that while replying to comments I received after I got off line. Many were concerned as to what the future will bring to us and the world. Noting the world is racing to another world war and knowing our weapons are too powerful for man or the planet to survive it and the fact that the environment is turning on us and much of the world is running out of water, fresh water I first wondered why Areas such as Georgia and many of the areas around the ocean and world do not turn to desalinization as this problem did not crop up over night.

What has changed? In five years the environment has gotten worse, the mississippi is even running out of water, and we appear to be heading towards a world war because of China in Asia and Syria in the middle east. I decided to Google water wars as I know there are many problems developing daily around the world as countries harness water sources running through their land and was horrified at what I was finding. There were 136,000 stories encompassing water wars around the world. Let alone within ones own boundaries.

What the hell is wrong with the world? We are already at war! We are already in the fight of our lives, why are we racing to end them? The Washington Post had a good article. " remember, this is more than four years ago and as you know, it is getting worse. Global warming will intensify drought, and it will intensify floods: As the air gets warmer, there will be more water in the atmosphere. 


That’s settled science. Where the atmosphere is configured to have high pressure and droughts, global warming will mean long, dry periods. Where the atmosphere is configured to be wet, you will get more rain, more gully washers.” It is happening why is this denied? We can only hope Obama can get by Republicans and start doing something about this.

The droughts will be especially bad. How bad? Richard Seager, a senior researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, looked at 19 computer models of the future under current global warming trends. He found remarkable consistency: Sometime before 2050, the models predicted, the Southwest will be gripped in a dry spell akin to the Great Dust Bowl drought that lasted through most of the 1930s. Well?

Droughts and water shortages have already been driving conflict around the globe: The potential for conflict is more than theoretical. Turkey, Syria and Iraq bristle over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt trade threats over the Nile. The United Nations has said water scarcity is behind the bloody wars in Sudan’s Darfur region. In Somalia, drought has spawned warlords and armies. Already, the World Health Organization says, 1 billion people lack access to potable water. In northern China, retreating glaciers and shrinking wetlands that feed the Yangtze River prompted researchers to warn that water supplies for hundreds of millions of people may be at risk. Water wars will worsen

Water has emerged as a key issue that could determine if Asia is headed toward cooperation or competition. No country would influence that direction more than China, which controls the Tibetan plateau, the source of most major rivers of Asia. Tibet's vast glaciers and high altitude have endowed it with the world's greatest river systems. Its rivers are a lifeline to the world's two most-populous states - China and India - as well as to Bangladesh, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, Cambodia, Pakistan, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries make up 47 percent of the global population.

Yet Asia is a water-deficient continent. Although home to more than half of the human population, Asia has less fresh water - 3,920 cubic meters per person - than any continent other than the Antarctica and China is taking it. The looming struggle over water resources in Asia has been underscored by the spread of irrigated farming, water-intensive industries and a growing middle class that wants high water-consuming comforts like washing machines and dishwashers. Household water consumption in Asia is rising rapidly, although several major economies there are acutely water-stressed.

The specter of water wars in Asia is also being highlighted by climate change and environmental degradation in the form of shrinking forests and swamps that foster a cycle of chronic flooding and droughts. The Himalayan snow melt that feeds Asia's great rivers could be accelerated by global warming. Man am I naive! I couldn't understand China's wanting to control Tibet, the Himalaya's, and the Dali Lama, now I know. Asia's water wars

This is a crisis that will only worsen every day around the world . Tens of millions of Americans have or are migrating to the southern and western states where there are many areas of chronic water shortages (duh). Remember when then Governor Bill Richardson fired the first shot, suggesting a national water policy, which is shorthand for stealing water from the Great Lakes. Rust belters were outraged, some suggesting we sell Richardson water at $80.00 a barrel.

Vegas, probably the fastest growing area in the country, is sucking as much from the Colorado as it can, and will still have major shortages.
Las Vegas Accused of Engineering Massive Water Grab: Is This the Future of the West? [With Photo Slideshow]


The Great Lakes are in a low cycle and any diversion would probably be an ecological disaster. I was looking at the links that follow and the Great lakes are being fought over as we speak and America is already experiencing water wars as well as much of the world. Please look at the overwhelming amount of stories on The worlds water wars

The world is already at war with our shrinking changing environment. A war we are bound to lose. I cannot comprehend the world racing to another world war that will only serve to seal all of their demise even sooner. What is wrong with us?

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma

http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

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