Pope Francis warns of a 'major world war for water'

[Fish and Bread]

Link:

Pope Francis warns of a 'major world war for water'

 

[timewerx]

If we had war for water, it must be the most silly thing to have happened on world history.

Because there are many many simple ways to make drinkable water. One way through evaporative distillation of seawater using natural heat from the Sun.

Such distillation plants can be built in the world's hottest and unused places like deserts or right in the oceans themselves. In fact, you can have one on your roof and it's not even expensive to build. It won't take much money to build large water-making complex.

An easily solved problem.... So it would be utter silly to have war on it, it only means we did absolutely nothing to solve a relatively easy problem.

 

[pat34lee]

The problem isn't technology, it's people. There are starving people and lack of food and water because there are people like the Somali warlords and pirates and Muslims who steal and plunder and leave the helpless to starve, if they don't just kill them. Evil exists, and will not go away quietly.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Another issue that comes into play with desalinization is cost. Not just literal cost of equipment and such, but also on-going energy costs (electricity), etc.. Its not insormountable by any means, and probably sounds silly to those us in what are refered to as first-world nations, but there are countries out there that can't even afford mesquitto nets (Which are really just tightly meshed nets, nothing too special) to combat the spread of malaria, so desalinization costs could be a big deal.

I saw an estimate that if we were to provide all the water needs for the US from desalinizated water instead of fresh water, we would increase our power usage by 10% annually. That's 10% of the power consumption of a country with relatively high amounts of power use- it doesn't scale. In other words, a poor country doesn't just need to generate or pay for 10% more electricity, it has to pay whatever the actual cost of 10% of the US' electricity is if it has the same number of people- which could be some gigantic figure like 50% of their GDP.

Unfortunately, the poor get poorer globally with climate change, if it takes its likely path, because countries that already are in trouble economically due to overly plentiful desert areas and lack of abundant resources and clean water (I'm thinking Sub-Saharan Africa here, but its just an example), get more overall desert, with existing desert getting hotter, and less available fresh water. Meanwhile, coastal regions flood and that hits available monetary resources and creates refugees flooding inland. Their infrastrcuture also could repeatedly take a beating with odd climatic events that they are unprepared for.

Ideally, we'd see a massive effort to get these plants built and funded by the richer larger nations for the poorer nations, but our relief efforts for these countries in the past have been underwhelming, and this will be a much higher cost to us at a time when we'll have more of our own problems- some of them the same problems. We might be struggling to get our own domestic desalinsation plants up and running, handle refugees from our own flooding coasts, replace lost infrastructure, figure out what to do about places like Arizona that are already desert but have cities like Phoenix that are huge metropolises and get all of their water from places like the Colorado River, which may be needed for thee exclusive use of closer areas turning to desert that were not previously, as Arizona gets hotter instead of colder. I am not picking on Arizona- I lived out there for 6 months once upon a time and would love to get back out there for a vacation or something someday, I am just saying we're going to be facing a lot of huge regional and national projects that need to be dealt with in this hypothetical future, of which this is just one potential example. Also, the present trend towards increased isolationist movements in the US, UK, France, and beyond doesn't bode well for the prospects of increased foreign aid.

Doing another one these may not be enough :

Not trying to be a downer, because I do think there are some positive things we can do to mitigate the severity of these issues, but they are definitely going to be issues. They already are issues in some places.

 

[Davidnic]

Water rights issues have been coming for some time. I remember reading about the growing issues a decade ago. In some places it will not be pretty.

 

[Fantine]

Fish, thank you for always providing us with well-researched material. You are an asset to every discussion.

In many parts if the workd, water is being privatized. Here in the US, it is usually a public utility. When companies own water their shareholders matter more than the consumers.

In the US, water might get cheaper under Trump. That's what happens when safety regs go out the window. Buy your filters and change them regularly, people.

 

[archer75]

If we had war for water, it must be the most silly thing to have happened on world history.

Because there are many many simple ways to make drinkable water. One way through evaporative distillation of seawater using natural heat from the Sun.

Such distillation plants can be built in the world's hottest and unused places like deserts or right in the oceans themselves. In fact, you can have one on your roof and it's not even expensive to build. It won't take much money to build large water-making complex.

An easily solved problem.... So it would be utter silly to have war on it, it only means we did absolutely nothing to solve a relatively easy problem.

It wouldn't be the first time people went to war after doing nothing to solve an easy problem.

 

[Davidnic]

Was it the head of Nestle who said water was not a human right. I remember that was just insane. People should pay attention to the Pope. Not just because he is saying this. Others have pointed to this. But because he is one of the few voices who totally rejects Population Control as a solution to problems like this. Laudato Si is an excellent read when it comes to that.

 

[Fantine]

A local doctor just built an energy-efficient office. There is a cistern to collect rainwater, which is used to flush toilets and water grass. But in some states, governments have ruled it's illegal to do this because water belongs to the government.
Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water

Here's a list of films about privatizing water around the world:
https://www.watercache.com/blog/201...ries-provide-insight-into-future-water-crisis

I believe the one I saw with a local group was "Blue Gold."

Just looked on Amazon Prime. "Tapped" is free. "Blue Gold" is a $2.99 rental.

It would be fun to find documentaries that are available to watch for free and have a movie night with discussion afterwards, wouldn't it?

I know everyone doesn't have Prime. I find it to be a good value, even at $99. Since my family is all over the place, we ship lots of gifts. My husband's stepmother, a double amputee, lives in a nursing home in NY, and we send her Depends Silhouettes every month, and other things as needed.

But I love the huge music library I have on my phone, courtesy of Prime, Prime video (not quite Netflix, but VG), and "prime credit," (a credit account, good only on Amazon, that automatically gives 5% discounts on everything you buy.

Anyway, this isn't a commercial for Amazon prime, but I am sort of a Clark Howard wannabe and love giving people good consumer advice.

 

[archer75]

Was it the head of Nestle who said water was not a human right. I remember that was just insane. People should pay attention to the Pope. Not just because he is saying this. Others have pointed to this. But because he is one of the few voices who totally rejects Population Control as a solution to problems like this. Laudato Si is an excellent read when it comes to that.

Looks like his actual remarks were calculated to leave room for him to (sort of) walk it back although to me it seems perfectly clear what he meant.

Have read the first third or so of Laudato Si since @Davidnic posted about it. Everyone should read this.

 

[Shiloh Raven]

Two words: Mni Wiconi.

Water is life and it is sacred.

 

[Fantine]

I liked the way Pope Francis connected climate change to social justice issues and economic issues.