Who Hijacked Our Country

Monday, January 13, 2014

Peak Water

Peak water is here.

The term “Peak Oil is already a cliché.  But oil can and will be replaced by alternate sources.  Water, not so much.  As the linked article says:

But like peak oil, the low-hanging fruit of our fresh water supply has been picked and what is left requires costly environmental and financial impacts to extract."

Eighteen countries containing roughly half of the world's population are overpumping their aquifers.  This includes China, India and the U.S.

Desalination of sea water is not an option because of the environmental impacts and prohibitive cost.

In the U.S., fifty percent of all water is used for livestock production.  It takes 2,400 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat.

Needless to say, the reduced water supply is going to drive up food prices.

And there's another red flag that wasn't mentioned in the linked article:  the increasing privatization of the world's water supply.  The media is stone silent about this threat (it's not happening a lot in the U.S.).  But a lot of Third World countries are dealing with scarce and/or unsanitary water supplies PLUS a global corporation controlling their access to water and charging whatever inflated price they can get.  About the only attention this issue gets is the occasional over-the-top movie (A Dark Truth) or TV episode.  And that kind of publicity probably does more harm than good.

The article concludes with:

It is only through a massive, collective effort that we will turn this ship around, but we'll need all hands on deck.


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6 Comments:

Blogger Jerry Critter said...

Last week we discussed the impact of raising animals for food on land use. Now you are pointing out the impact on our water supply. Eating meat is a very costly undertaking in money, land, and water.

And does not even include the health impact.

January 13, 2014 at 8:27 PM  
Blogger Grung_e_Gene said...

Next World War to be fought over access/control of fresh water...

January 14, 2014 at 1:02 AM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Jerry: Absolutely right. I'm not a vegetarian, but if everyone ate less meat, the world would have more land, drinkable water and fewer health problems.

Grung: I'm afraid you're right.

January 14, 2014 at 2:21 PM  
Blogger Jerry Critter said...

And a lot fewer cow farts too.

January 14, 2014 at 2:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well if they went back to feeding Beef just more grass instead of the more expensive corn (which they don't digest) we would save a lot of money there.

David Cay Johnston talks in one of his books about the big companies (some of them foreign) that take over small local water Utilities and then jack up the rates 10 times.

I'm not worried the Koch Brothers and others will hire tugs, kidnap Icebergs from Greenland (with a US Navy Escort) then sell the water to us at 100 times the price. Or GE and Haliburton will build huge desalinization plants and poison the Oceans.

Erik

January 14, 2014 at 4:11 PM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Jerry: Interesting article. I had no idea cow farts and belches made up such a huge portion of our greenhouse gases.

Erik: Grass-fed beef is definitely preferable. No doubt Koch Industries and Halliburton will come up with creative solutions like the ones you described.

January 14, 2014 at 8:14 PM  

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