More on the Water Wars

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's another article on how water shortage leads to violence.

Water isn't just a resource. Water is life. Learn that or die. Our bodies are made of water, with a sprinkling of other materials for shape. We can't survive without it. The climate depends on it; the biosphere depends on it; life depends on it.

So of course, when it's scarce, it gets fought over. Watch the wildlife when watering holes start to dry up. They become the focus of most of the local ecosystem. The same thing has held true of human civilizations.

Breadbaskets aren't the real cradle of civilization. Water is. Until fairly recently, when humanity embarked on its imbecilic quest to build cities in places with insufficient water, all human settlements sprouted near water sources. Where there's not enough water, there are no humans or they are nomadic and have no settlements. Civilization is a thing of bays and lakes and rivers; in the desert, of oases and other special sources of water. Look at a map and you'll find towns and cities clustered where there is abundant water. Only with the advent of piping and damming have we broken that trend, and we're starting to pay the price.

Understand this: We can't keep spending water like money.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

When it runs short, the government will just print more

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Soylent water... it's made of people! O_O

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

"We can't keep spending water like money."

Unless we build a really really really BIG desalination plant :)

A tad of thinking.

[daemonfall.livejournal.com]

What people fight over, or should fight over - is more often viable energy resources of any sort and then viable resources to protect those energy resources from other people. Water, in this age of technology, is just another resource, actually, it's even easier to re-purify water then create new energy.

That said, water exists in a cycle, it never gets lost and never goes away, just a larger and larger portion of it needs more energy to be extracted and used by society. Since energy isn't cheap anymore (since oil and the likes are getting scarce, as well as most metals) and people tend to be short-sighted about that, no one has created the correct technologies to allow mass purification of water in low energy costs. And if they have, they didn't publish it since other people do not see it as a needed technology.

That's the forces of the market for you, along with the general blindness of the market. Water aren't a currency, energy is, and we are yet to find our pot-o'-gold.

Re: A tad of thinking.

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

In a place like, say, San Francisco you're absolutely right. A big part of the Water Wars has to do with the available water being saline or polluted or otherwise nonpotable. But in places like Las Vegas or the Sahara, there is very little water of *any* quality. It has to be shipped in long-distance. That does touch on your energy argument, but in a very different way. Part of the problem is that people are being careless with water quality, but part is they keep moving into arid places, far beyond what the local water table can support.

Re: A tad of thinking.

[daemonfall.livejournal.com]

More costly to move, convert and utilize water - but in the Sahara and Las-Vegas there is an ample energy source we know as the primary of "Sol" system. Or sun. The problem is as always, with technology or more accurately, the unwillingness of people to use it due to seemingly high cost. Moving water efficiently isn't a real problem even on long distances. It's recycling water that is the problem here.

We talk about high-end technology made available only in the last years, but it exists to a degree where local water-table is a matter of cost, not a real, hard limit. Of course, we might find ourselves dead long before anyone remembers to utilize those technologies on anything that resembles widespread use.

Re: A tad of thinking.

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Recycling water is actually pretty easy, if people would *do* it. I'm especially fond of swamp filters myself.

Re: A tad of thinking.

[daemonfall.livejournal.com]

And destroy all those pretty, useful, life-filled swamps? I prefer waste-water recycling myself. You get fertilizers, chemical ingredients, pure poison and potable water all in one fell stroke.
Now to just convince some bunny-headed officials...

Re: A tad of thinking.

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

No, a swamp filter is a constructed swamp. It's one of the most efficient ways to purify water, even sewage. There are at least two ways to do it: one with big tanks of shallow water, and a mix of algae and floaters like water hyacinth. The other uses a maze of shallow clay trenches and sandbanks, and marginal as well as water plants. I found some articles on the topic in a pondkeeping magazine first, but later came across others that dealt with municipal waste-handling. It just uses a natural system as a pattern for a constructed one.

Re: A tad of thinking.

[daemonfall.livejournal.com]

Huh, surely made me look like a fool.
I prefer the first method, as it conserves on ground-area. I prefer that to plain-old distillation, and prefer semi-conductive sheets and pressurized water to swamp filtering. If they get it right on industrial scale, you could probably solve most cities waste-water problems. Now just to get it right...

Re: A tad of thinking.

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Different methods work in different areas, too. All the ones we've been discussing have their uses. One reason I like swamp filters is because the later portions of modular SFs are both attractive and good habitat. Once the material comes out of the algae tanks, it's far enough along that you can cycle it outside and let wildlife enjoy it. Plus some of the best plants -- sweet flags and water hyacinths -- are lovely to look at.

I like to grow water hyacinths in my tub gardens in summer. They have these amazing long feathery black roots, and their pale lilac flowers come up on spikes that look a bit like gladioli.

But then I'm fascinated with biotechnology in general. I like using things the Earth is already designed to do. Compost is another good example. It takes nature about a hundred years to make an inch of topsoil. A determined human can make a yard of compost in about two weeks, and a lazy human can do it in one growing season.

Re: A tad of thinking.

[daemonfall.livejournal.com]

Good closer for this debate. Complementary solutions to a state. Energy remains the main problem (IMHO), while water is just an expression of it. However, conserving and moving energy is great deal more complicated then moving water.
And that's a wholly different debate.