One of the most dangerous water shortages is building up in Mexico City, which has an over-use situation similar to the American West. This will be continent-wide and not pretty!
Bravo Ms, Maloney. You have taken on one of the most frightening and important topics. The availability of life-giving water. Excellent work as usual.
Switching to more drought tolerant crops is essential. Thank you for distinguishing between drought [which is temporary] and aridification [which is permanent]. A huge area of this country has been arid for a period of 1200 years. Tree ring analysis reveals this trend. It has been in only the last two centuries during which that area has been unusually wet. Coincidentally we are warming the planet during the same time that area is trending back to its original arid condition. The native people who existed for 10,000 years in the San Diego/Los Angeles corridor adapted their way of life to arid conditions. We must do the same.
The climate deniers like to say that the area is warming not because of our creation of the greenhouse effect. But, they claim, it is moving through a natural cycle. They are only half correct. Both are happening at the same time: cyclical warming and greenhouse-effect warming.
Something I never see talked about publicly are the possible effects of the Gulf Stream being disrupted from the overall warming of the planet. The warm water of the gulf stream originates in the Caribbean. If something prevents this warm water from reaching the British Isles those people are doomed. Look at the latitude of the British isles on a globe. At best, Britain would become another Iceland. Is it possible the Gulf Stream could be diverted from Britain as a result of Global warming? Yes, absolutely. Could something similar happen elsewhere on the globe? I think so.
I was stationed in California in the 80's I remember the opposition to building desalination plants in CA. They would have had to stand up some nuclear reactors to power them. California opted for Conservation and storm water collection. That choice has barely met the needs of CA, agriculture water needs, especially when they get low levels of snowpack in the sierras. The Colorado river was basically oversubscribed in 1922 when they made the first compacts. Now there are way more people than that river can handle. And with less snow pack in the rockies, makes that even worse. The are now eyeballing the datatcenters to be placed up here in Alaska, just for the issues you highlight. The cooling of them would not be as bad up here as it is in the lower 48. Plus we have way more water. But technically the interior of Alaska is a desert, we just have a lot of snow melt water that keeps it green.
Agree that people need to adapt, what I was remembering actually stemmed way back to the eariler miscalculations about the Colorado river. Then when Arizona finished projects that allowed them to take " their share" water issues between the states came up. Orange county Register was always running stories on that issue. ( I was stationed at El Toro) That is why I remember that. Today the raw number of people along that river has grown way past usage expectations first planned out in 1922.
Mr. Raffaniello. The engineers who designed the Lake Mead dam and the Lake Powell dam looked 200 years into the past as a guide for their calculations. They had no idea that area of the continent had been arid for 1200 years. The tree ring studies which reveal this aridification are relatively recent. So even if the population had not grown so large, there would not be enough water. That area is returning to its state of aridification.
You mentioned desalinization. That might be the only sensible response; given current conditions.
Solar panels? as to the energy demands by the desalination plants, but then you have the rising sea levels, due to global warming and the glacier sea ice melting, so how then, I ask myself, 🤔 is that going to work, if desalination plants was the only way to go, they would subject to being underwater, unless what, were made to somehow? be made to be floating structures, so as the sea level rises, the structures in tandem rise or having to built anew each time, that is way to costly, takes time and is very unrealistic and as to the brine issue, I think planners, did find a way to address that environmental problem, but don't quote me
The 1922 compact was based on inflated flow numbers mostly because of political decisions. That the area in question was arid was never in dispute. Once Arizona completed their projects the strain on the usage became obvious. The population along the river today is nothing the original planners envisioned. Those are the issues I am thinking about. I wonder if their would be the Political will for a desalination plant in California today. Be interesting to see what would happen if that was proposed.
Wow, strong article... I'm glad you mention the vast, destructive water-cooled data centers that will increasingly be making AI and other cloud processing possible. For us (We the People) to get control over all this will require a vast common effort... getting rid of the Dumpsters will be the first move. Next, forcing the Simple People (Proverbs 1) aka stupid, maga, etc... to stop being influenced by the Reaganists (Fox Noise, Wrong Wing universities, Stink Tanks, etc). There is very little time left to stabilize our Mother Earth... you mention "these aquifers refill at a glacial pace"... almost a play on words but no joke. At the moment we are experiencing another El Nino year (he's the hot one; she, La Nina, is the cool one)... that means more heat waves, melting glaciers, flood waters... one catastrophe piling on top of another. The oligarchs are by nature sociopaths, meaning: they have no feeling for others; they live in the moment; only care about self right here, right now... malignant toddlers wearing suits and dresses...we cannot look to them for leadership, ever... although there are a few reasonable ones among them (maybe) like Bill Gates on a better day; Mark Cuban; and more. We have months, not years, to save Mother Earth and thereby ourselves. The last ice age ended about 9,000 BCE if I remember correctly; and the previous one was tens of thousands of years before that. So let's say we (the people) vanish from the earth... it may take Mother Earth another 100,000 years or more to bring back those green hills, flowery valleys, sunny seashores... you name it, all the things we love and take for granted. Please, everybody, let's MARCH! take back our planet while we still can...
Air cooling reduces water but increases electricity demand. If a data centre switches to air cooling, water use may drop dramatically, but energy consumption often rises because fans and chillers have to work harder. That can shift the environmental burden rather than eliminate it.
There is no paucity of evidence showing that a plant-based diet, or even one that moves significantly in that direction, has a far smaller water footprint than the typical omnivorous diet of most North Americans. Eating whole foods rather than heavily processed foods reduces that footprint still further. Crops grown to feed livestock would produce significantly more food per acre, while using less water overall, if a greater proportion of the calories and nutrients produced went directly to human consumption. Less transport, less processing, and less refrigeration generally mean a smaller carbon footprint as well.
Yet in the United States, merely—and often falsely—labeling a politician a vegan can still cost votes. Incredible.
Water, of course, does not disappear. It continues to exist as a solid, liquid, or vapour. But it moves around, and it can become unavailable or unsuitable for human, agricultural, or industrial use.
One of the great misunderstandings of our time is the notion that water not directly serving a human purpose is somehow being "wasted." If it is not cooling a reactor, irrigating a commercial crop, filling a swimming pool, melting in a glass of bourbon, washing laundry, or otherwise generating a visible economic benefit, some people seem to regard it as having little value.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ask enough Canadians what resource they most fear Americans might someday covet, and I suspect the answer would not be timber, uranium, rare earths, gold, or even maple syrup. It would be fresh water.
Canada contains roughly 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater, although much of it lies far to the north, well away from where large-scale diversion would be economically practical—or, in my view, desirable. Yet even many Canadians fail to appreciate that water sitting in a wetland, a bog, a marsh, a river, a lake, or an aquifer is not wasted.
It is performing essential work.
Many Americans will remember the orange skies over New York City in 2023, produced by smoke from massive Canadian wildfires. Many of those fires burned with an intensity rarely seen historically because landscapes that had once remained wet enough to resist such fires had become unusually dry.
Water is part of an ecosystem, and ecosystems influence weather, climate, groundwater recharge, biodiversity, and fire behaviour.
Water, Water everywhere? I wish, but to the contrary, fresh water is becoming a scarcity and unless you can find a way to make more use with less water, by reclaim, recycle and reuse and by capturing more water, when it does rain, by building dams or more dams where possible, then I do not see any real resolution to the unfolding water crises and to add to that, there is the energy crises, of higher electric bills for everyday consumers and brought on by the emergence of AI data centers literally springing up everywhere and once has to ask, if these data centers are so great, then why? have so many been built in secret and so often in areas already facing historic drought and with big help by atypically Republican officials, who are the ones, who go along in the face of what would be public opposition to such projects and, who contline remain silent, and let these AI data centers be built at the expense of the people and the environment, could that be due to who is in the White House? 🤔for Trump $$$ with tech billionaires, are all in for these AI centers and with no regulations, the losers will be the people, picking up the tab and then there is the many white collar job losses that have been much talked about, but I do not see AI and its negative effects not just stopping there, if left with no real regulations placed on them
The big corporations, they are all salivating and counting the dollars or money saved, as they divest and simply dispose of workers, as a no longer needed business expense.
This toxic waste dump of an administration doesn't think about " desalination ", anymore than pulling out of its " TRIUMPH " in Iran. They're too busy getting hookers to Mar - a LARDO & planning their WE / WWE venue at what was formerly " the People's House ".
One of the most dangerous water shortages is building up in Mexico City, which has an over-use situation similar to the American West. This will be continent-wide and not pretty!
Bravo Ms, Maloney. You have taken on one of the most frightening and important topics. The availability of life-giving water. Excellent work as usual.
Switching to more drought tolerant crops is essential. Thank you for distinguishing between drought [which is temporary] and aridification [which is permanent]. A huge area of this country has been arid for a period of 1200 years. Tree ring analysis reveals this trend. It has been in only the last two centuries during which that area has been unusually wet. Coincidentally we are warming the planet during the same time that area is trending back to its original arid condition. The native people who existed for 10,000 years in the San Diego/Los Angeles corridor adapted their way of life to arid conditions. We must do the same.
The climate deniers like to say that the area is warming not because of our creation of the greenhouse effect. But, they claim, it is moving through a natural cycle. They are only half correct. Both are happening at the same time: cyclical warming and greenhouse-effect warming.
Something I never see talked about publicly are the possible effects of the Gulf Stream being disrupted from the overall warming of the planet. The warm water of the gulf stream originates in the Caribbean. If something prevents this warm water from reaching the British Isles those people are doomed. Look at the latitude of the British isles on a globe. At best, Britain would become another Iceland. Is it possible the Gulf Stream could be diverted from Britain as a result of Global warming? Yes, absolutely. Could something similar happen elsewhere on the globe? I think so.
I was stationed in California in the 80's I remember the opposition to building desalination plants in CA. They would have had to stand up some nuclear reactors to power them. California opted for Conservation and storm water collection. That choice has barely met the needs of CA, agriculture water needs, especially when they get low levels of snowpack in the sierras. The Colorado river was basically oversubscribed in 1922 when they made the first compacts. Now there are way more people than that river can handle. And with less snow pack in the rockies, makes that even worse. The are now eyeballing the datatcenters to be placed up here in Alaska, just for the issues you highlight. The cooling of them would not be as bad up here as it is in the lower 48. Plus we have way more water. But technically the interior of Alaska is a desert, we just have a lot of snow melt water that keeps it green.
Mr. Rffaniello. In regard to your comment about water scarcity in Los Angeles; see my comment to Ms. Maloney in this blog.
Agree that people need to adapt, what I was remembering actually stemmed way back to the eariler miscalculations about the Colorado river. Then when Arizona finished projects that allowed them to take " their share" water issues between the states came up. Orange county Register was always running stories on that issue. ( I was stationed at El Toro) That is why I remember that. Today the raw number of people along that river has grown way past usage expectations first planned out in 1922.
Mr. Raffaniello. The engineers who designed the Lake Mead dam and the Lake Powell dam looked 200 years into the past as a guide for their calculations. They had no idea that area of the continent had been arid for 1200 years. The tree ring studies which reveal this aridification are relatively recent. So even if the population had not grown so large, there would not be enough water. That area is returning to its state of aridification.
You mentioned desalinization. That might be the only sensible response; given current conditions.
Desalination requires substantial energy and produces brine sludge that must be disposed of.
Solar panels? as to the energy demands by the desalination plants, but then you have the rising sea levels, due to global warming and the glacier sea ice melting, so how then, I ask myself, 🤔 is that going to work, if desalination plants was the only way to go, they would subject to being underwater, unless what, were made to somehow? be made to be floating structures, so as the sea level rises, the structures in tandem rise or having to built anew each time, that is way to costly, takes time and is very unrealistic and as to the brine issue, I think planners, did find a way to address that environmental problem, but don't quote me
The 1922 compact was based on inflated flow numbers mostly because of political decisions. That the area in question was arid was never in dispute. Once Arizona completed their projects the strain on the usage became obvious. The population along the river today is nothing the original planners envisioned. Those are the issues I am thinking about. I wonder if their would be the Political will for a desalination plant in California today. Be interesting to see what would happen if that was proposed.
The value of some new subdivisions is plunging due to lack of sufficient water.
Indeed, in places like Las Vegas, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Denver and of course, California
To be honest I am amazed the areas around Phoenix and othe Southwest urban areas are still growing ans sprawlinglike they are..
Wow, strong article... I'm glad you mention the vast, destructive water-cooled data centers that will increasingly be making AI and other cloud processing possible. For us (We the People) to get control over all this will require a vast common effort... getting rid of the Dumpsters will be the first move. Next, forcing the Simple People (Proverbs 1) aka stupid, maga, etc... to stop being influenced by the Reaganists (Fox Noise, Wrong Wing universities, Stink Tanks, etc). There is very little time left to stabilize our Mother Earth... you mention "these aquifers refill at a glacial pace"... almost a play on words but no joke. At the moment we are experiencing another El Nino year (he's the hot one; she, La Nina, is the cool one)... that means more heat waves, melting glaciers, flood waters... one catastrophe piling on top of another. The oligarchs are by nature sociopaths, meaning: they have no feeling for others; they live in the moment; only care about self right here, right now... malignant toddlers wearing suits and dresses...we cannot look to them for leadership, ever... although there are a few reasonable ones among them (maybe) like Bill Gates on a better day; Mark Cuban; and more. We have months, not years, to save Mother Earth and thereby ourselves. The last ice age ended about 9,000 BCE if I remember correctly; and the previous one was tens of thousands of years before that. So let's say we (the people) vanish from the earth... it may take Mother Earth another 100,000 years or more to bring back those green hills, flowery valleys, sunny seashores... you name it, all the things we love and take for granted. Please, everybody, let's MARCH! take back our planet while we still can...
JTC My Pensive Pen
John T. Cullen author, journalist
https://www.johntcullen.com
https://johntcullen.substack.com/p/ai-robot-per-asimov
Air cooling reduces water but increases electricity demand. If a data centre switches to air cooling, water use may drop dramatically, but energy consumption often rises because fans and chillers have to work harder. That can shift the environmental burden rather than eliminate it.
Good point.
There is no paucity of evidence showing that a plant-based diet, or even one that moves significantly in that direction, has a far smaller water footprint than the typical omnivorous diet of most North Americans. Eating whole foods rather than heavily processed foods reduces that footprint still further. Crops grown to feed livestock would produce significantly more food per acre, while using less water overall, if a greater proportion of the calories and nutrients produced went directly to human consumption. Less transport, less processing, and less refrigeration generally mean a smaller carbon footprint as well.
Yet in the United States, merely—and often falsely—labeling a politician a vegan can still cost votes. Incredible.
Water, of course, does not disappear. It continues to exist as a solid, liquid, or vapour. But it moves around, and it can become unavailable or unsuitable for human, agricultural, or industrial use.
One of the great misunderstandings of our time is the notion that water not directly serving a human purpose is somehow being "wasted." If it is not cooling a reactor, irrigating a commercial crop, filling a swimming pool, melting in a glass of bourbon, washing laundry, or otherwise generating a visible economic benefit, some people seem to regard it as having little value.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ask enough Canadians what resource they most fear Americans might someday covet, and I suspect the answer would not be timber, uranium, rare earths, gold, or even maple syrup. It would be fresh water.
Canada contains roughly 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater, although much of it lies far to the north, well away from where large-scale diversion would be economically practical—or, in my view, desirable. Yet even many Canadians fail to appreciate that water sitting in a wetland, a bog, a marsh, a river, a lake, or an aquifer is not wasted.
It is performing essential work.
Many Americans will remember the orange skies over New York City in 2023, produced by smoke from massive Canadian wildfires. Many of those fires burned with an intensity rarely seen historically because landscapes that had once remained wet enough to resist such fires had become unusually dry.
Water is part of an ecosystem, and ecosystems influence weather, climate, groundwater recharge, biodiversity, and fire behaviour.
Water is not wasted.
Water, Water everywhere? I wish, but to the contrary, fresh water is becoming a scarcity and unless you can find a way to make more use with less water, by reclaim, recycle and reuse and by capturing more water, when it does rain, by building dams or more dams where possible, then I do not see any real resolution to the unfolding water crises and to add to that, there is the energy crises, of higher electric bills for everyday consumers and brought on by the emergence of AI data centers literally springing up everywhere and once has to ask, if these data centers are so great, then why? have so many been built in secret and so often in areas already facing historic drought and with big help by atypically Republican officials, who are the ones, who go along in the face of what would be public opposition to such projects and, who contline remain silent, and let these AI data centers be built at the expense of the people and the environment, could that be due to who is in the White House? 🤔for Trump $$$ with tech billionaires, are all in for these AI centers and with no regulations, the losers will be the people, picking up the tab and then there is the many white collar job losses that have been much talked about, but I do not see AI and its negative effects not just stopping there, if left with no real regulations placed on them
The big corporations, they are all salivating and counting the dollars or money saved, as they divest and simply dispose of workers, as a no longer needed business expense.
We're getting a data in our county after I thought it was defeated.
Oh no!!!😔
University of FL has a closed water system that runs a data center. It is possible.
This toxic waste dump of an administration doesn't think about " desalination ", anymore than pulling out of its " TRIUMPH " in Iran. They're too busy getting hookers to Mar - a LARDO & planning their WE / WWE venue at what was formerly " the People's House ".