Now might be a good idea to re-read Paolo Bacigalupi’s Water Knife.
There are so many population-dense urban centers across the world — including the US — that either pull their water from distant rivers, or sick it out of their Ice Age aquifers. But rivers can dry up or be diverted, and aquifers can be drained faster than they can refill.
There can be enough water to go around, but only if resiliency and efficiency are carefully baked into the infrastructure.
I feel pretty good about where I’m from, North-Central Montana. Right now a 40-year regional water authority project is underway interconnect existing water systems in an area roughly the size of the state of Maine.
No,urban planners did see this coming and have been screaming about it for years. During my undergrad in Ohio we were talking about this risk. We were taught that this would happen, why, how to avoid it, and why lots of cities won’t choose to or be able to avoid it. We’ll be seeing the same thing in Jakarta and Dhaka soon and the fallout of those will be even bigger.
This is horrible. And yeah, I’m sure it’s only the and early step in a far worse problem unless someone can figure out how to make seawater affordably drinkable. And then doesn’t withhold the technology until they “get paid, son,” because capitalism: “My money matters more than your life.”
I am lead to believe that will happen when fusion power becomes practical. No where near soon enough to help with the onrushing storm of infrastructure disasters that are headed our way. Even if NIF or the new unit in the EU were to reach positive power generation tomorrow it would probably be a generation before it was widely available, barring a Manhattan Project type effort. Which is not coming, guys.
Yes, of course. And failing that, reality will take it’s course and the number of people will be brought down in less pleasant ways than ‘procreating less’.
But probably it’s too late and that ship has sailed at least 20 years ago. Prepare for massive climate wars in the years to come.
