This morning I was thinking about that while replying to comments I received after I got off line last night. Many are 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.
I then 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 two 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?
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.
Droughts and water shortages 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, perhaps within months. 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
2 comments:
With not much snow this year we'll be facing water restrictions here in the northwest. In fact one county to the north of me is already on restrictions.
Then there's the amount of pollution we're still dumping in rivers. You're right if we don't change things there won't be much drinkable water left.
Despite all we know and have done we have learned nothing and everything man made and natural just gets worse. I have family in Kingman, Az. The majority of the country and the world is in serious trouble period!
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