(Still) A World Without Water

[stessier]

The article doesn't really say what that means. I know Google builds where there is a large supply of cheap water for cooling, but do they somehow make that 0.5 ml/search vanish or foul it in someway so that it is is useless afterwards? If they juts use it for cooling, there are ways they could return it to the environment where it would have very little impact at all.

[Smoove_B]

You're looking at it from the wrong end. The study is saying that we know how much electricity is used every time a Google search is done. Since water is used to drive turbines that provide electricity (e.g. Hoover Dam), we can estimate how much water is used daily to provide the electricity needed to power the search engines.

[GreenGoo]

You're looking at it from the wrong end. The study is saying that we know how much electricity is used every time a Google search is done. Since water is used to drive turbines that provide electricity (e.g. Hoover Dam), we can estimate how much water is used daily to provide the electricity needed to power the search engines.

I'm definitely not familiar with modern electricity generation, but what does it matter how much water it takes to generate the electricity? As you say, it goes through turbines and comes out the other end and keeps going.

Are there consequences I'm not seeing?

[RunningMn9]

I'm definitely not familiar with modern electricity generation, but what does it matter how much water it takes to generate the electricity? As you say, it goes through turbines and comes out the other end and keeps going.

Are there consequences I'm not seeing?

Indirectly. Electricity from dams presents some very bad ju-ju up and down river. But the water itself isn't consumed or otherwise fouled in the process (that I'm aware of).

[grumpy]

Perhaps we all need to stop using Google. Apparently it uses about a half a milliilter of water to generate the electricity needed every time you hit "search".

Google released a white paper a few years ago detailing how they use power from the "tap" all the way out to the servers. Pretty much anybody that's ever paid the bill for a large data center was gobsmacked by the efficiencies they were achieving.

[Smoove_B]

I just happened to see this article about waterless urinals referenced elsewhere. Before you read it, see if you can guess what the problem is.

The German’s humble innovation had the potential to save millions of gallons of water at a time when demand for the natural resource was draining aquifers dry. It would do more than any film or TV show to solve a pressing problem. Krug decided to help.

Drawing on sales skills he’d honed at the Cannes Film Festival, Krug dived into the bathroom business. He formed Falcon Waterfree Technologies with Gorges and explained to anyone who would listen that the water-free urinal would save more than just water: In California, a fifth of the electrical output was consumed by processing and pumping water. Cutting water usage would reduce our carbon footprint.

Falcon wasn’t the first to develop a waterless urinal. A company near San Diego had been struggling to sell them since 1991. But Krug made a conceptual breakthrough: The real profits wouldn’t come from the urinals themselves. They’d come from selling the replaceable cartridges that sat in each of the waterless receptacles.

[Scuzz]

I was at Cal State Northridge last week and needed to use the bathroom. The bathroom I visited had the first waterless urinal I had ever seen.

No smell....no water used at all.

Don't know how the hell they work.

[stessier]

I just happened to see this article about waterless urinals referenced elsewhere. Before you read it, see if you can guess what the problem is.

Yeah, didn't see that coming. I can't believe the "fix" that was finally agreed to.

[stessier]

Don't know how the hell they work.

Read the article. The pictures on the second page explain it. Pretty smart.

[Pyperkub]

Some more information on probable Water shortages in CA (NRDC):

Virtually all of California faces the prospect of serious water shortages by mid-century due to climate change, the National Resources Defense Council declared today in a national report on water supply.

And the full country in 2050 (est. per the NRDC):



Forgive me if this was posted earlier, I only checked the last 2 pages.

[Scuzz]

Don't know how the hell they work.

Read the article. The pictures on the second page explain it. Pretty smart.

Interesting....leave it to a union to object to what appears to be progress.......

[McBa1n]

FYI, "Gasland" premieres on HBO this evening. What, you don't want the convenience of flaming tap water?

I'm glad this thread hasn't died off. /rant on
Anyhow - I've seen all the films listed in the OP, and while they are all depressing and make you sick to your stomach, NOTHING has f'd with my head more than Gasland. I recommended it to just about everyone to watch. Most people's faces after seeing it are like they just saw a ghost. I suppose because the majority are in the northeast of the country and they shouldn't just be worried, they should be terrified and ready to do something about it. Oh yeah, just briefly, Gasland is about the retrieval of natural gas and a technique called 'fracking' that essentially destroys the regions it's done in, contaminating them in ways that are just shocking.

I've looked further into the issue and it's not pretty. But it seems for every 'crazy tree hugger', there's some 'scientist' that disputes the claims. Actually, something that REALLY bothered me is Forbes columnist, Ken Fisher, in the July 19th issue (god I wish my family would stop resub'n me to Forbes every year) touts natural gas and that 'fracking' is not dangerous to ground water...
You know, it just seems the issues of water and food onto themselves have become so incredibly explosive that I'm shocked more Americans don't do more about it. I don't know how much more I can do. I'm trying to make changes daily. It seems if you're fearful of the issues of food/water and want to be an activist, you're crazy. If you believe in what's going on today in corporate farming or water contamination/acquifer pillaging and think it's safe, then you're on the right team! I'm no tree hugger, but I'm slowly becomming one. People need jobs, but at what cost? Everyone has to die? Really? It's not like people are going to just stop spending money. Why not sell people something that will help them, not destroy an ecosystem or poison their body.
At what point do these actions become criminal? Further, I thought the government is designed to protect the people - not the people making money off of us dying. /rant off

[Kraken]

[ Further, I thought the government is designed to protect the people - not the people making money off of us dying.

Government protects the interests that pay for its election.

[GreenGoo]

[ Further, I thought the government is designed to protect the people - not the people making money off of us dying.

Government protects the interests that pay for its election.

Has this always been the case? Are we just another generation complaining about the same things? How far back do you have to go before this wasn't the case? Is there a point in time where it wasn't the case?

They've certainly done a great job on keeping the masses believing that the government is here to help you, but as more and more people are realizing (including myself, Rmn9), that's simply not the case. Unless you're a CEO of something big with deep pockets, in which case then maybe we can talk about help and protection.

[Scuzz]

[ Further, I thought the government is designed to protect the people - not the people making money off of us dying.

Government protects the interests that pay for its election.

Has this always been the case? Are we just another generation complaining about the same things? How far back do you have to go before this wasn't the case? Is there a point in time where it wasn't the case?

They've certainly done a great job on keeping the masses believing that the government is here to help you, but as more and more people are realizing (including myself, Rmn9), that's simply not the case. Unless you're a CEO of something big with deep pockets, in which case then maybe we can talk about help and protection.

The business of government has always been to support those in business......wars have been fought over trade rights since the invention of war......

[Kraken]

[ Further, I thought the government is designed to protect the people - not the people making money off of us dying.

Government protects the interests that pay for its election.

Has this always been the case? Are we just another generation complaining about the same things? How far back do you have to go before this wasn't the case? Is there a point in time where it wasn't the case?

They've certainly done a great job on keeping the masses believing that the government is here to help you, but as more and more people are realizing (including myself, Rmn9), that's simply not the case. Unless you're a CEO of something big with deep pockets, in which case then maybe we can talk about help and protection.

The business of government has always been to support those in business......wars have been fought over trade rights since the invention of war......

The US government was formed by propertied white males. Until after the Civil War states could restrict voting rights based on "gender, religion, race and ethnicity, citizenship, residency, tax status, wealth, literacy, mental competence, criminal conviction, and military service." Although the right to vote has expanded since then, and one can point to occasional populist exceptions, the candidates who achieve office are those sponsored by any given generation's Powers That Be.

Is this really news to anyone here?

[GreenGoo]

I agree. Of course at some points in history the government were the holders of wealth, either through taxation or business ownership directly or even conquest.

It wasn't a rhetorical question, but neither was it designed to produce a specific answer. I was hoping for a little discussion on the idea.

[GreenGoo]

Is this really news to anyone here?

Probably not, but travel back in time 10-15 years and my naive self would have been a little surprised.

That being said, I still believe that government isn't completely corrupt/beholden to special interest groups, and that honest public works come out of them in support/for the benefit of the population in general, on occasion.

[RunningMn9]

It wasn't a rhetorical question, but neither was it designed to produce a specific answer. I was hoping for a little discussion on the idea.

In a Democracy (or Democratic Constitutional Republic), there is always the illusion that the government is of the People, by the People and for the People. There are times when it is true (when public outcry over X, Y or Z is loud enough that it takes priority over the money trail). But as a rule, it's just an illusion.

Fundamentally, governments are about one thing - allowing the people in government to keep being in government. Just like any other job. My goal here at work isn't to develop the best file i/o algorithm to deliver audio/video to cell phones as efficiently as possible. My goal here at work is to be able to keep coming to work. Whatever I do, it's towards that selfish goal.

Senators and Presidents are no different. They just have a different job they are trying to protect. Sometimes, developing efficient file I/O algorithms is the thing that allows me to keep my job, so I develop them. Sometimes protecting the interests of the People is what keeps politicians in their jobs.

[LordMortis]

That's a little black and white and works well for establishing probability but I don't think the rule is written on stone. There is fuzzy logic available in there as well. People can be about keeping their jobs and about doing their jobs and doing the right thing. People can also defy rules.

In short, I'm jaded. I'm not that jaded. OTOH, I've been ready to throw nearly every federal politician out of office for my entire voting life, and probably largely related to your guideline being too damned accurate.

[RunningMn9]

That's a little black and white and works well for establishing probability but I don't think the rule is written on stone. There is fuzzy logic available in there as well. People can be about keeping their jobs and about doing their jobs and doing the right thing. People can also defy rules.

Doing their jobs and doing the right thing are still motivated by selfishness. They do it because it makes them feel better or gives them a sense of superiority. As a walking sack of chemicals, you should know this.

[LordMortis]

That's a little black and white and works well for establishing probability but I don't think the rule is written on stone. There is fuzzy logic available in there as well. People can be about keeping their jobs and about doing their jobs and doing the right thing. People can also defy rules.

Doing their jobs and doing the right thing are still motivated by selfishness. They do it because it makes them feel better or gives them a sense of superiority. As a walking sack of chemicals, you should know this.

That sack of chemicals isn't necessarily trying to protect its job though. It probably is trying to protect its job but not nece celery.

[RunningMn9]

That sack of chemicals isn't necessarily trying to protect its job though. It probably is trying to protect its job but not nece celery.

You don't think that doing their jobs and doing the right thing are about keeping their job?

How about we just rephrase that people do what people do for selfish reasons. Whether they are janitors, engineers or Senators. Government is just a collection of people that are out for themselves in one way or another. Sometimes that results in good things for "the People". Other times is doesn't.

[GreenGoo]

That sack of chemicals isn't necessarily trying to protect its job though. It probably is trying to protect its job but not nece celery.

You don't think that doing their jobs and doing the right thing are about keeping their job?

Well, you're getting a bit circular here. People are hired to do jobs. People usually want jobs for pay. In order to receive that pay, they need to do that job. They promise to do it when hired. Yes, it's self interest but it's also the reason they are there in the first place.

There's nothing surprising about that.

What might be surprising is the number of people who believe they are in their jobs to do their jobs, and not necessarily to keep them. Some might look a little outside that simplistic view and go so far as to assume that doing their jobs means they get to keep their jobs. I wonder just how many people are like you, in that they do what is necessary to continue to get paid, even if it is counter to the job they were hired to do.

We definitely joke about that from a contractor perspective, in that doing a poor job guarantees more work for a consultant (and usually the same one, unfortunately). I just never thought about it beyond "only a really "bad" person would do that sort of thing". The reality might surprise me more than I'd like, even though I try not to be naive about people's motivations. I still am at times.

[LordMortis]

That sack of chemicals isn't necessarily trying to protect its job though. It probably is trying to protect its job but not nece celery.

You don't think that doing their jobs and doing the right thing are about keeping their job?

How about we just rephrase that people do what people do for selfish reasons. Whether they are janitors, engineers or Senators. Government is just a collection of people that are out for themselves in one way or another. Sometimes that results in good things for "the People". Other times is doesn't.

I don't mind that change. But the selfish motivations aren't always about job/self preservation. How does that legend of the interview with Abraham Lincoln and the ducklings go?

blah blah blah You see I always behave as a very selfishness person blah blah blah stops the stage coach to help a duckling stuck in a track in the mud "but I thought you were always selfish" "I am. If I hadn't helped that little fellow, I'd have had no piece of mind all day."

[Pyperkub]

And why was that piece of mind preserved? Where did he learn the mores to be bothered by not helping that duckling? And where will today's faceless corporations learn those mores? The 'propertied white males' who founded this country may have founded it to be friendly to their business, but the heads of those businesses had still been socialized and had social pressures, such as the church if they were to do too much harm, or stray too much from the societal mores. As Government shifts more and more towards the corporate dollar, what checks are there on those corporations spending those dollars? And when those corporate dollars are transnational, and subject to the mores of no country, then what?

Where will the checks and balances come from?

[GreenGoo]

blah blah blah You see I always behave as a very selfishness person blah blah blah stops the stage coach to help a duckling stuck in a track in the mud "but I thought you were always selfish" "I am. If I hadn't helped that little fellow, I'd have had no piece of mind all day."

I like that concept and subscribe to it myself, mostly. Unfortunately things like 4chan come along and I realize there are an awful lot of people who are able to either crush the ducklings with no remorse, or rationalize reasons for it being acceptable (hell, even preferred behaviour) to crush the ducklings.

[Isgrimnur]

While I do not frequent 4chan, the story of their involvement in finding those responsible for animal abuse makes your duckling metaphor a specious one at best.

[silverjon]

People on the internet value animals more than they do other people. Everyone knows that!

[GreenGoo]

While I do not frequent 4chan, the story of their involvement in finding those responsible for animal abuse makes your duckling metaphor a specious one at best.

Sigh. I said "things LIKE 4chan". If you need to take the metaphor (or whatever it is) literally then go find your local duckling crushing community group. They're there. Oh yes. They most definitely are.

I'm going with you're pulling my leg and leaving it at that.

[Kraken]

Government is just a collection of people that are out for themselves in one way or another. Sometimes that results in good things for "the People". Other times is doesn't.

Politicians have two imperatives: Placate the donors, and placate the voters. Their success is about finding that balance (often by skillfully lying to both). If you don't serve the donors you will never face the voters, and if you only serve the donors then the voters will sometimes turn on you.

(Most jobs have tradeoffs like that. As a store manager I had to placate the customers while mollifying the corporation while cajoling the employees. None of those factions were ever consistently pleased with me, but none were ever disgusted enough to tear me down.)

If anything, government is more accountable today than it was in colonial times, when it was openly beholden only to those with "a stake in society."

[LordMortis]

Whatever will Nestle do? I wonder if they can sue.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/arti ... into+creek" target="_blank

This is just so BP and Gulf don't feel lonely I guess.

[Kraken]

What did I learn from King Corn?

1. Americans are made of corn!
2. The same farm policy that made corn king makes it unprofitable to grow without federal payments. Thanks, Earl Butz!
3. Each strand of corn silk goes to an individual kernel.

Food Inc was the better movie. King Corn covers most of the same ground, and not as well.

I'd have liked to learn more about high fructose corn syrup and why it's more insidious than cane sugar. King Corn tells me more about farming than I really wanted to know -- barely touching on the proprietary restrictions on seed and fertilizer that Food Inc talked about -- and then swerves into fast food and beef, both of which are minor parts of my diet.

I can't recommend King Corn. Four tentacles is being charitable.

[RunningMn9]

I'd have liked to learn more about high fructose corn syrup and why it's more insidious than cane sugar.

Here.

I'm sure Big Corn disputes the findings, but that was the first one I bounced across.

For the lazy, they don't really know WHY their results came out the way they did. Here is one consideration on the chemical differences:

High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are both compounds that contain the simple sugars fructose and glucose, but there at least two clear differences between them. First, sucrose is composed of equal amounts of the two simple sugars -- it is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose -- but the typical high-fructose corn syrup used in this study features a slightly imbalanced ratio, containing 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. Larger sugar molecules called higher saccharides make up the remaining 3 percent of the sweetener. Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.

[Kraken]

I'd have liked to learn more about high fructose corn syrup and why it's more insidious than cane sugar.

Here.

I'm sure Big Corn disputes the findings, but that was the first one I bounced across.

This would have been a good topic for King Corn to explore -- it was beyond the scope of Food Inc and is specific to corn.

They couldn't have reached any conclusions because the jury is still out -- the obesity epidemic coincides with the rise of HFCS, but there's no convincing research showing a causal relationship. Still, they could have at least explored the question after revealing that a huge percentage of their crop gets processed into the ubiquitous sweetener. Most consumers are unaware that there is anything controversial about it.

[pengo]

Reading this thread makes me think its time for a revolution

[Grifman]

Reading this thread makes me think its time for a revolution

[Smoove_B]

Hello there Aral Sea...I mean desert.

Since 1960, the Aral Sea has shrunk by over 50 percent. Once a freshwater lake, it is now over twice as salty as the average ocean. Once the source for one sixth of the Soviet Union’s seafood, it is now an aquatic graveyard. Huge boats lie marooned in the desert. The lake dried up so fast that boat owners didn’t think to relocate their ships until it was too late.

...

This crisis stands to affect 40 million people. The two rivers that feed the Aral Sea—the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya—flow from the Tian-Shan Mountains over 500 miles away. Experts worry that the hotter local climate could cause the sources of these rivers to dry up. If this happens, all of southern Central Asia will lose its rivers.

Tens of millions will be left without food and water.

But wait!

The same is true for this whole planet. No matter how horribly man wrecks it in the future, God promises that it can and will be fixed. The Aral, the Murray-Darling, Lebanon and the whole Earth can and will bounce back. With God’s supernatural help, it will become more beautiful than ever.

Once the root problem with man has been fixed, the Aral will do more than return to its former glory. It will be better, and keep getting better, as mankind looks to God, and works to give, by turning the whole Earth into a Garden of Eden.

Oh. Crap.

[Grifman]

China has bad problems:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... l?hpt=Sbin" target="_blank

In northern China this month, farm fields have developed cracks up to 10 meters (32.8 feet) deep. Farmers in Chifeng city have had to delay harvests to avoid injury, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. According to the Chifeng's hydrological bureau, 62 percent of the city's 51 reservoirs have run dry, Xinhua said. More than 250,000 people are short on drinking water.

In southwest China's Guizhou province in August, a drought affected more than 600,000 people and nearly 250,000 heads of livestock, according to Xihua. Parched soil in rice fields was covered with cracks.

Beijing's water shortage will soon reach 200 million to 300 million cubic meters, even as the city waits for a new diversion of water from southern China, according to state-run media.

Across the country, China has spent tens of billions of dollars to dam rivers, build reservoirs and dig deeper wells. Beijing also has tapped underground water to meet its needs, with the water level in the plains falling to 11 meters to 24 meters below sea level over the past decade, according to Xinhua.

Such demand for water is unsustainable. The World Bank warns that dwindling water supplies will pit rich against poor, and rural against urban, in China. Without dramatic changes in water use, tens of millions of Chinese will turn into environmental refugees over the next decade, the World Bank says.

[Smoove_B]

Why worry about the water levels in Lake Mead?

Decades of population growth have led to increased water demand in the Southwest. Take, for instance, Las Vegas, which gets 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead. Back in the 1940s, fewer than 9,000 people lived there. In 2006, the population was estimated at more than 550,000, and growing. Rapidly.

Multiplied throughout the region, that added demand means the tolerance for expected drought fluctuation becomes more brittle. And if the cycle of drought and rain doesn't behave like it has in the past—a change some scientists say you can see happening now, and others say is likely under climate change scenarios going forward—it puts more people at risk for water shortage.