to think this is how future wars will start?

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

I have just been reading on Twitter that with current consumption Cape Town is set to run dry of water on 21/04.
Residents are currently limited to 87L each but more than 60% are using more that the restricted amount so as of 01/02 the new limit will be 50l.

Does anyone else think this will be the kind of stuff the new wars are fought over? Literally battles to exist because of a lack of water. Sanitation we be out the window, the stench will be horrendous, riots will take over and people will die of disease and dehydration.

How have we fucked this planet is so badly?

Yes I’m not sure how it hasn’t made it mainstream yet, it is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

DH read a book that suggested the religious wars in the time of Jesus was actually over deminishing water supply.

I remember 1976 and there was a lot of bad feeling in Wales because we were water rationed but people in Birmingham weren't because they had Welsh water. If we didn't know it was going to rain at some point I really think things would have become violent

@DGRossetti whilst homelessness is a horrible reality of our country it doesn't make people riot and be violent just to get some life giving water for their child/themselves.

The two are not remotely comparable. One is an avoidable failure of societal support underpinned by low government spending.

The other is a drought affecting millions of people with no possible widescale solution on the horizon for quite some time meaning the situation in Cape Town is likely to get far worse before it can re-stablise. Even money can't really resolve this problem at the moment because time is needed to build desalination plants and to replenish (if ever possible) reservoirs whereas if the millionaires/billionaires of this country or any country really wanted to they could get the homeless off the streets at night during the winter at least. They just choose not to.

I'm far more interested in fixing the domestic agenda than the international one as a rule but turning a blind eye to the problems they are having out there is naive at best.

Just research the water table levels across this country. Some are doing fine. Others are only just at OK levels. It wouldn't take much to destabilise the levels with a couple of hot summer's and dry winters.

I remember 1976 and there was a lot of bad feeling in Wales because we were water rationed but people in Birmingham weren't because they had Welsh water

I see it every day

The back story to that, is that the people running Birmingham back in the late 1800s/early 1900s were a bit odd and pretty competent at running a big city (thank goodness we don't have any weirdoes like that now, imagine the chaos !).

So when Birmingham was expanding, the council planned ahead and secured a lake in Wales (which, by the way was paid for by the City of Birmingham) and build one of the countries longest aqueducts to bring it to Brum.

The result is that Birmigham - certainly the areas served from the Elan Valley in Wales - have 100% water security.

Any other city in Britain could have done it too. Just they clearly had different priorities like gold chains for the mayor or somesuch.

That's what running a city should be about.

The people of Wales would have better directed their anger at their own politicians who were happy to take (a lot) of money from Birmingham, and clearly not invest it in their own infrastructure. Why should Birmingham be slighted for having the foresight and political will to provide for it's citizens ???

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_Valley_Reservoirs

(few Brummies know the above by the way. Which is a tribute to the quiet efficiency of it)

Of course, in a wider sense, all this shows is that water management isn't black magic, but simple engineering, and that 80% of the reasons why it doesn't happen will be political/social or economic - not geographic or geologic.

The Romans were probably better at water management than some countries today. Somehow they managed to run an entire empire from Portugal to Palestine and Scotland to North Africa (well into North Africa) for 400 years, with few water issues (interesting supposition about Palestine upthread).

Desalination takes enormous amounts of energy. Admittedly where desalination is needed is places where (for once) renewable solar energy is probably the perfect marriage. The fact it looks that simple on paper, and yet isn't in full swing suggests there are "other factors" at work ?

Possibly the same "other factors" which in the UK mean that despite there having been a housing crisis for the past 15 years, housebuilders are allowed to ration the supply of new homes to maintain their profits ?

I remember 1976 and there was a lot of bad feeling in Wales because we were water rationed but people in Birmingham weren't because they had Welsh water.

My DM talks about that. She says they went to Birmingham for a day or two during that period and the fountains were on- is that true? I would be so, so angry to see fountains on in a city whose water supply came from an area where people were taking buckets for a daily bloody ration.

Isn't there a saying that society is only ever 3 meals away from anarchy?

My DM talks about that. She says they went to Birmingham for a day or two during that period and the fountains were on- is that true? I would be so, so angry to see fountains on in a city whose water supply came from an area where people were taking buckets for a daily bloody ration.

Fountains are off now.

What about my point upthread ? Birminghams water was bought and paid for by the people of Birmingham from the Welsh people. It's not like hordes of Brummies came pouring over the hills and into the valleys and stole millions of gallons of water in empty Bovril jars.

Any disaffected Welsh folk should have gone back to Wales, collared their MP, and said "Oi ! Mate ! How come we're selling water to Birmingham, when we haven't enough for ourselves ????????"

I was in cape Town a few weeks ago. It is really serious. I just don't understand how the elderly or people with a disability or who are carers or who have to go to work are going to be able to queue for water at supply points.

Any disaffected Welsh folk should have gone back to Wales, collared their MP, and said "Oi ! Mate ! How come we're selling water to Birmingham, when we haven't enough for ourselves
I'm sure they did. But you understand how fucking galling it would have been, don't you, and why people were angry?

I'm sure they did. But you understand how fucking galling it would have been, don't you, and why people were angry

Oh yes. But misdirected anger is how they got away with - and continue getting away with it (looks at todays, yesterdays and tomorrows news).

'Of course, in a wider sense, all this shows is that water management isn't black magic, but simple engineering, and that 80% of the reasons why it doesn't happen will be political/social or economic - not geographic or geologic.'

Well said DGRosetti. There is enough water in the world for at least twice the population - the world is 80% water FFS! But it suits some people to keep others powerless by ensuring that the threat of drought is always at their door.

If the world's richest people got together and decided that no one would be hungry/go without water again, they could do that, very easily and have billions left over. The only thing that stops it happening is that they don't want to do it.

If the world's richest people got together and decided that no one would be hungry/go without water again, they could do that, very easily and have billions left over. The only thing that stops it happening is that they don't want to do it.

To be fair to the Gates family, they have put an incredible amount into malaria research and prevention. Which isn't a bad thing. If I correctly remember the statistic, malaria has killed more people over time than all the wars, droughts and famines combined. Warren Buffet also splashes billions around on the sly.

Was it David Bellamy who used to travel with a brick and quietly drop it into every cistern in a hotel he used ?

With climate change and a growing population water and food security are going to become a huge problem.
We are all so wasteful with the amount of water we use in this country, none of us think twice about using expensive treated water to flush toilets, wash cars, water gardens or indeed about how much we use in the home. Even in our rainy country ground water takes ages to replenish and building new reservoirs would be very difficult to get through.

No one ever mentions food security, but that is only going to get worse. The U.K. imports huge quantities of food from all over the world, it will be a huge shock when this changes and we have to rely on mostly home grown produce. During the last war this resulted in strict rationing with only a few ounces of fat and meat per person a week. I can see this happening again as conditions worsen.

Oh, and yes, I do grow most of my own veg!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42808302

Shops, cafes and businesses will offer free water refill points in every major city and town in England by 2021.

Industry body Water UK says its scheme could cut disposable plastic bottle use by tens of millions a year.

The move comes amid growing concern about the effect of plastic waste on the environment.

Whitbread, which owns Costa Coffee and Premier Inn, is the first to sign up to the initiative and will provide water in all of its branches from March 2018.

Refill stations and public fountains will be able to be found via an app or window signs pointing people in the direction of the nearest one.

(contd).

How long before we see people filling 10x40L Aquarolls ????

Energy is the key thing. With enough energy you can transport whatever you want from anywhere in the world, you can build hydroponics systems to grow food right here without having to transport it, you can engineer new food and create water from other resources. Oil companies actively try to scupper renewable energy sources because if a country can easily collect energy from the sun then store it in batteries, they're sorted - oil can go fuck itself. It makes no sense not to plough huge amounts of effort into gathering energy from resources that are massively abundant, like wind and sunlight, it's only not done because certain people like having control over how well others can live - it gives them huge power.

It's worth remembering that it suits some people very much to make people fearful - fearful people are much less likely to step back and say 'hang on a minute, you're telling me that there's not enough water when you own three jets and 6 swimming pools?'

Ireland was decimated in the mid 19th century, not because there wasn't enough food but because the British government decided it suited them for the Irish to die/emigrate in their millions. Every single one of the million+ people who died could have been saved, but nobody with any power wanted to do it.

People kill people far more than anything else kills people.

"Yes I’m not sure how it hasn’t made it mainstream yet"

It was on the BBC News website front page a few days ago. Let's not have unjustified media-bashing.

They've previously had riots and strikes in india because states have chosen to sell water too other states for the income, even though their citizens needed it as well. There's another strike taking place today over water. Overpopulation really isn't helping matters- the UK south east will be stuffed in a few years time, our land and water supply isnt able to sustain this much high density housing for much longer.

LeCroissant

No amount of point at the sun, wind, or sea, will achieve anything until we have ways of storing and transporting that energy on the scales required. Which we don't.

That said, you're 100% spot on about energy being the key - as it always has been.

Just to show I'm not a naysayer, back in the 70s, there was a suggestion that you could launch a series of earth-girdling satellites which would direct mirrors onto earth stations to generate electricity 24/7 (even at night !).

No idea what happened, but in the 1980s a series of earth-girdling satellites was launched to provide global positioning so playboy millionaires could own a yacht without getting lost .....

(I suspect it was the size of mirrors required that made it impractical rather than impossible).

Yes, there is an issue with storing energy, which is why investment needs to be ploughed into making it work.

I didn't know that about Birmingham's water.
Not sure Wales can be entirely blamed, though, reading on in that Wiki article:

Numerous outbreaks of disease prompted Birmingham City Council to petition the British government which passed the Birmingham Corporation Water Act in 1892. It allowed the Corporation to acquire by compulsory purchase all the land within the water catchment area of the Elan Valleys

Yes, there is an issue with storing energy, which is why investment needs to be ploughed into making it work.

I like the idea of geothermal energy, more ...

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/giant-2km-borehole-project-fails-8189518

Rosetti I don't understand the brick thing. Can you explain?

Ta