Earth to run out of water by 2050

ScumLord

If desalination becomes more necessary in the future the price of it would probably come down. But I'd hate to think what would happen to the oceans, and the knock on for everything else on earth if we're sucking up salt water and converting it into fresh water. There's bound to be some sort of disaster waiting for us if we industrialised that action on a large scale.

cowboyBuilder

I think 75% of the worlds fresh water is in the Antarctica.. but this is protected - then again if 10 billion people are parched I can't see that protection meaning anything .

screamer

Of course water supply is already an issue in over populated areas of the world, but water won't be the only thing they'll be short of. Issues like that require a lot more thinking than just building de-salination plants. Same in India they are already digging vast rivers to basically move water from more plentiful areas to drier parts, but what happens when that dries up too?

As for Ireland, well the polar icecaps are melting, and we get hammered with rain so can't see too much of an issue for us as a country. Again, areas of large population will struggle, but they'll probably just rob the resources they want from the countryside as usual.

Wibbs

screamer wrote: »

As for Ireland, well the polar icecaps are melting, and we get hammered with rain so can't see too much of an issue for us as a country.

Ireland, the Saudi Arabia of H2O. Only partially a joke. There could come a time where we make some serious cash from the fact we're a teddy bear shaped sponge.

If the world keeps spitting out kids willy nilly(and the poorer nations are the worst for it) and areas either side of the equator and elsewhere are getting increasingly arid and deserts are spreading we could certainly see people migrating towards the water. A human can live for a few weeks without food but is dead as a dodo after a couple of days without water. We could yet see environmental wars kicking off if we're not careful.

It's been quite rapid too and close enough to home too. I've photos taken from a place in Spain whose name escapes in the last few years and photos of the same place from the late 19th century and the differences are stark. Back then it was surrounded by woodland, today it's surrounded by arid stoney ground with sparse tufts of scrub. In just over a century. Italy isn't much better and even a package holiday to Greece and its islands is enlightening if you have eyes to look. Fields after field of empty stoney terraces where crops once grew.

We've seen this kinda thing back in history too. The Romans started to rapidly run out of wood after many centuries of exploiting the resource(they made quite a few animals and plants extinct, including one herb that was famous for healing and contraceptive properties. Gone now). They became obsessed with the stuff. I think it was Pliny(younger/elder, can't recall) who wrote more books on trees and where they grew than any other subject. They had the horn for the lands of the barbarians because tales of the vast central European woodlands captivated them. It could be argued that the environmental stresses on the empire was among the many reasons for its downfall. The middle east used to be far less arid. When you see flics on Jesus preaching the epistles to the apostles they're knocking about in Tunisia or wherever for that "authentic" desert feel, but back in his time the area was extensively wooded. Lebanon was famed for her cedars, these days there's only a paltry number of acres of them left. Hell Ireland was covered from tit to tail in forests up to and after the late medieval, now there are only truly tiny isolated remnants of the original old growth forest left.

ScumLord

Wibbs wrote: »

It's been quite rapid too and close enough to home too. I've photos taken from a place in Spain whose name escapes in the last few years and photos of the same place from the late 19th century and the differences are stark.

My mother lives in Spain and water is a major issue. At the moment the prices are marching upwards, there's no obvious signs of water shortages in the town she lives in, there are still nice gardens and such. She's around the Alicante area where they grow a lot of fruit/olives, grapes. But outside of the farms it's barron. And when a water shortage hits the place goes into panic mode. There's no margin for error.

They had the horn for the lands of the barbarians because tales of the vast central European woodlands captivated them.

I heard somewhere that Romans were scared of forests as well, due to unfamiliarity, they wouldn't chase the germans into the forests for example and were sitting ducks while traveling through them.


To show how much things have changed geologists think we're in a new epoch, the Anthropocene. We will now and forever more be able to see the impact of human activity in the geology of the land. We've got our very own layer. Should we take a bow, or slink away sheepishly?

prinzeugen

lightspeed wrote: »

I was watching RT (Russia Today) UK earlier

That's where you went wrong. Watching a Russian government funded state propaganda machine.

If RT was to do a piece about lizard people running the earth, gullible people would believe it.

SeanW

lightspeed wrote: »

I was watching RT (Russia Today) UK earlier and they interviewed a guy from Wikileaks commenting on a few of their latest leaks.

It mentioned that Nestle had some study done that states the earth will run out of water by 2050.

“Nestle starts by pointing out that a calorie of meat requires 10 times as much water to produce as a calorie of food crops".

From what the guy from Wikileaks said, Nestle did have this report done for humanitarian reasons but mainly because they have over 80 or so brands of bottled water. Nestle had only circulating the report internally and did not publish it which of course i guess what qualifies it as leak.

http://www.inquisitr.com/3046643/world-will-run-out-of-fresh-water-in-2050-says-leaked-report-earth-faces-catastrophic-fate/

Nonsense. We will not "run out" of water. It will only become more scarce relative to demand.

Assuming that market forces are permitted to provide a gauge of the increasing scarcity (i.e. pricing according to demand and supply), the following will occur, not necessarily in order, following the resulting price increases.

1. Conservation measures will become more viable. Pipe repairs and other measures will be attended to more quickly than before.
2. Other sources will be brought on stream. At higher prices, things like desalinsation become viable. Damming projects, additional water recycling also get looked at again.
3. The cost of heavy water-dependent process will increase and the demand for them will fall. Meat may be the biggie here.
4. Meat consumption will fall overall maybe slightly, and there will be a large scale shift from beef to chicken and pork, which require dramatically less water than beef. Rising prices of inputs (water) will simply make beef too expensive.

In short, no-one is going to die of thirst unless they either live somewhere that water is actually scarce (like a desert) or they have absolutely no money whatsoever and cannot get any kind of charity. At worst you'll be replacing your cheeseburger with some grilled chicken and beans.

MilesMorales1

Karl Pilkington is that you?

The "we" who are going to run out of water are not Irish for starters, we have more than enough!
But in many parts of the world, "we" are using it up far faster than natural weather patterns can replenish the underground aquifers. They will eventually run dry and millions will be left thirsty (& hungry as the crops will fail).

So, the headline " Earth to run out of water by 2050" is total bollocks, but on a regional scale, it's true and will happen.

Hans Bricks

Meh. Third world problems. We're white, first world westerners. You really think such a possible scenario would even apply to us ?

Atlantic Dawn

It's shortages of Ipads and flat screen TV's that are causing most issues on the earth with migration at the moment.

DontThankMe

I'm sure by that time someone will have invented some kind of technology to manipulate the weather making it rain whenever we need it. This technology will then fall into the hands of terrorists creating weather terrorists that will wreak havoc throughout the world flooding countries.

riffmongous

Hans Bricks wrote: »

Meh. Third world problems. We're white, first world westerners. You really think such a possible scenario would even apply to us ?

Well when cheap food from these places in so longer available we will see an effect here, not to mention the immigration crisis. It might not be our problem at the moment but it is certainly in our best interests to deal with it before the knock-on effects reach here.

Capt'n Midnight

biko wrote: »

Nestle doesn't believe access to water is a human right.
Also they tried to sell African mothers breast milk substitute instead of letting them breastfeed normally.

Evil men.

And they turned Quality Street and all the old Rowentree Mackintosh into insipid muck.



And they are still at the baby milk scam.

the evasion_kid

DontThankMe wrote: »

I'm sure by that time someone will have invented some kind of technology to manipulate the weather making it rain whenever we need it. This technology will then fall into the hands of terrorists creating weather terrorists that will wreak havoc throughout the world flooding countries.

Replace terrorists with capitalists..

Capt'n Midnight

endacl wrote: »

Ever seen a picture of the earth from space? Mostly blue. Because there's not much water.

I've seen those pictures and well there's lots of white. Explain that, go on. It's not as blue as you'd like to think.

BoatMad

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I've seen those pictures and well there's lots of white. Explain that, go on. It's not as blue as you'd like to think.

70% of the earths surface is covered in water

Capt'n Midnight

BoatMad wrote: »

70% of the earths surface is covered in water

They keep telling us that , but you can't see it through the clouds. For all we know there's hidden islands full of giant gorilla's and stuff.

bb12

there's pretty much total consensus across the marine biologist community that at the current rates of over fishing and pollution, most of the worlds oceans will be empty of fish and dead/dying by 2050...and considering the oceans supply most of the worlds oxygen, that leads to a whole new set of problems

Capt'n Midnight

riffmongous wrote: »

Lack of water supply might not be in an issue in Ireland, but in China it is already a serious problem with a serious conflict between availability of water for agriculture versus human needs, the ground water table has been steadily dropping in parts of the country due to over use of water for irrigation.

The big problem in China is they are spending lots of money pumping water into an arid area to grow crops that aren't economically viable.

Same with the Aral sea. Imagine diverting the Nile into the desert to grow cotton. That's how much water is wasted in the -istan's

sheesh

Heres a crazy Idea!

lets not sell irish water and when the water shortage happens we will be quids in!

cowboyBuilder

bb12 wrote: »

there's pretty much total consensus across the marine biologist community that at the current rates of over fishing and pollution, most of the worlds oceans will be empty of fish and dead/dying by 2050...and considering the oceans supply most of the worlds oxygen, that leads to a whole new set of problems

pffftt ... depressing when put like that.

I'm also amazed how so many people think "Ireland will be grand..."

We're part of the world folks, problems especially massive scale environmental ones will affect us too!!!

Wibbs

Yep and the biggest issue is too many damn people consuming too much on the planet. Now some will say that with proper resource management that's sustainable, but let's get real here, if and when that actually comes down the pike it'll be too little too late.

For a start where's the money? It's in consumption, it's not in resource frugality. Even on the local household scale we're perfectly capable of making items that go on working and are repairable for many decades, but if anything we're going the other way with more and more obsolescence. Too many economies depend on the rapid turnover of tat. China for one.

Sam Kade

al22 wrote: »

Many reports are published but most people have no attention.

Globally - shortages of food will start in less than 40-50 years from now. Even if people will start produce an artificial food. The Earth population is growing too fast. The ocean water is a most poisonous substance on the Earth around us. We survive swimming because our skin and immune system protect us. Just one ml of ocean water is enough to kill thousands of us.

Yet there is an over supply of food now and that is before any wastage of food, this not enough food to feed a growing population is nonsense.

Sam Kade

Wibbs wrote: »

Yep and the biggest issue is too many damn people consuming too much on the planet. Now some will say that with proper resource management that's sustainable, but let's get real here, if and when that actually comes down the pike it'll be too little too late.

For a start where's the money? It's in consumption, it's not in resource frugality. Even on the local household scale we're perfectly capable of making items that go on working and are repairable for many decades, but if anything we're going the other way with more and more obsolescence. Too many economies depend on the rapid turnover of tat. China for one.

There's way too much rubbish around nowadays, we should go back to basics. Everything you buy is covered in plastic, not so long ago we used brown paper and glass bottles that were reused.

Eugene Norman

bb12 wrote: »

there's pretty much total consensus across the marine biologist community that at the current rates of over fishing and pollution, most of the worlds oceans will be empty of fish and dead/dying by 2050...and considering the oceans supply most of the worlds oxygen, that leads to a whole new set of problems

There's a fair amount of environmental panic bull****. There's over fishing but it's not new and is under control. The oceans don't supply oxygen and the fish don't exhale oxygen. They inhale dissolved oxygen actually.

Eugene Norman

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The big problem in China is they are spending lots of money pumping water into an arid area to grow crops that aren't economically viable.

Same with the Aral sea. Imagine diverting the Nile into the desert to grow cotton. That's how much water is wasted in the -istan's

Why it is wasted if it is used? And why wouldn't China try guarantee food security. California is also arid and one of the world's major crop producers.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the water cycle in this thread.

kupus

I wonder is this a reason why Irish water was pushed through very quickly with the view to be privatised in years to come?

I read a few years ago in a trade magazine that water in the future will be the new liquid gold due to intensive farming in Africa China and elsewhere and now is the time to get your fingers in the pie.

BattleCorp

kupus wrote: »

I wonder is this a reason why Irish water was pushed through very quickly with the view to be privatised in years to come?

I read a few years ago in a trade magazine that water in the future will be the new liquid gold due to intensive farming in Africa China and elsewhere and now is the time to get your fingers in the pie.

Are you suggesting Irish Water was set up with the long term goal of supplying Africa and China with water?

jimgoose

BattleCorp wrote: »

Are you suggesting Irish Water was set up with the long term goal of supplying Africa and China with water?

No, he's suggesting that IW is an attempt to turn a hitherto public water supply into a private revenue stream, in-line with much of the rest of the world as potable water suppliescome under increasing strain.