‘The Water Table Is Dropping All Over the World’: NASA Warns We’re on the Path to Gl

As this will never happen in any measurable way....I stand by my statement.

 

???? Water from the ocean is free and only costs about $2,000 per acre foot to desalinate. An acre foot of gold would be like 100 gazilion dollars

 

Some are looking into this. The bottleneck, as in so many things, seems to be energy. It would cost too much to desalinate the water

If we had cheap, safe and clean energy from Fusion it would solve a plethora of problems

 

When you consider that you could put each person in a 1700 square foot house, and fit the world's population in Texas, the ability of the earth to handle exponentially more is the fact. We will have to get a lot smarter about it as time goes on and population rises.

It has been said for years that potable water will eventually present a problem in the world. But we have the technology to address that, but it might mean we would have to stop the war spending and devote that wasted money to helping out humanity, instead of killing it.

 

We got graded, and we are a D when it comes to infrastructure. But the problem is, our congress and presidents would rather waste trillions on waging war, and giving the rich more tax breaks, than to invest in our own nation. We would rather represent the interests of MNCs which are virtual states now, with an allegiance to no one, except the dollar.

And our greatest problem has its foundation in that we still see ourselves as separate from our environment, which allows us to treat the earth like a dirty whore, instead of trying to live in harmony with it, being good husbands of the earth. Instead we see it as something to be exploited for the profits of a few.

Zeitgeist has the right idea, in resource based economies with us moving back to local production of food and such, instead of wasting fossil fuel and energy in hauling it from one side of the world to the other, just so a few can max out their profits by exploiting poverty. We as a species have a long way to go in the area of rationality and intelligence being able to trump the greed of our elites.

 

Which is a downright shame, as the Earth is anything but high maintenance, something of a good time girl if we just treat her right

 

Great minds think alike did you mean fusion or fission? Fission is doable right now it creates a an over abundance of white hot waste heat which is what sea water desalinization needs. If we could get the USA and better the world to standardize nuke plant design they would be even safer than they are now, and they are even safer than coal fired plants beleive it or not. The cooling system could be designed with pure gravity feeds which would make meltdown a near no worries item. The most difficult and most feared thing (before the quake in japan) is disposing of waste. However even that waste could be used to generate even more heat. I am sure in the near future a fail-safe waste disposal technique will be found, and I would not agree to activate a plant unless a portion of its profits were earmarked for pure R&D on advanced waste deactivation and disposal. The fear of fission and other forms of nuclear applications have hobbled its use in ultra fast spacecraft propulsion (estimates of 5 to 12 % light speed) and other uses that would have benefited mankind greatly. reva

 

I agree. China is like the USA of the late 1800s early 1900s a snowballing juggernaut with little regard given to long term consequences of expansion or the impact it will have on the ecosystem. Their seeming recent desire for material goods and the governments seeming desire to suddenly act like a communist government is also driving the China borg cube. Projects such as the the 4gourge dam and others will ensure that china will not be talked into putting the brakes on anytime soon . So not china however, maybe the rain forests and aboriginal forests of other smaller nations may be preserved but does any nation have the right to dictate how natural resources are to be used? reva

 

You can have that, I like my open spaces. Georgia is much too crowded as is.

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The perhaps the world better start building those desalination plants left and right.

 

It appears that the green movement is against any and all things that will help, from energy production to GMO plants engineered to use less water.

 

Gas driven desalination produces lots of cheap power as a by-product...

I expect KSA will go to nuclear powered desalination very soon.

 

In the early 1900s, we were oblivious to the long term consequences. Consequences that China is now fully aware of.

 

There is not yet that level of need. California is spending something like a Billion dollars building the largest such plant in the US. Most locations that have the greatest need couldn't afford desalinization, and its only really feasible in coastal areas.

 

Wait just a minute! I thought water levels were supposed to RISE due to AGW.

 

True.

My understanding is that nothing CA is proposing in the way of desalinization will be used for agriculture - which is how the vast majority of CA water is used, and is the central point of the problem there.

Not even the USA can do desalinization on a scale that would be needed by our agricultural practices to feed our people.

 

We live on a planet that is 75% water. Build some desalination plants and start using that water.