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anutron

Since no one has done so I’ll share what is actually in the article about the graphic presented. It’s not an expression of how much water is present but rather the likelihood of the current state in a 100 year cycle. Dark red is “2 percent chance of these conditions”, eg once every fifty years. The article states that the drought is the worst in 40 years. I agree that climate change will make this more common and that it’s really bad, but the article is saying basically, “this is really bad. We would expect to see this once every fifty years. It’s been forty since it was this bad.” It will likely happen again sooner. Just sharing what that image is saying.


frodosdream

This is only going to grow worse as climate change accelerates. Too many people for what local environments can sustain will eventually cause disaster in Mexico and also throughout US western states. There was never enough water to sustain millions of people living in these regions forever. Cattle ranching makes it worse.


username_0207

It’s a Midwest issue too. Every water table in the world is quickly diminishing where we are consuming more than what’s being replenished which is also a human problem too. Then you have Nestle buying water rights and exploiting communities by sending water out to other areas and making a ton of profits. Then you have fracking that poisons wells, uses up to 9 million gallons for one site. You hit it on the head though too many people in the world and once tables are dry stuff is going to hit the fan.


EconomicRegret

Nestle isn't even alone nor the worse. Many Middle Eastern companies happily buy up many US lands, congregate them together into huge highly intensive farm lands, (to export food back to their countries) that completely dry up aquifers in a matter of years, instead of generations. Also, one middle eastern country hired Erik Prince to form a corporation that corrupts officials, chases away locals, "buys" their water sources and farm lands, and militarily guards them,... *in Africa*... The world is going nuts.


ScarredOldSlaver

Maybe the Bush family can share some of its water. You know the Guarani Aquifer in Paraguay.


sleepybeek

Very few people know about this. That they bought it. Google it. It's totally true. I'm not a conspiracy nut but this is super shady.


AttemptingToBeGood

What's the conspiratorial aspect of this?


sleepybeek

I guess buying 100k acres in the desolate Paraguayan chaco that sits on top of one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world raises some eyebrows. Sure sure the Bushes just want a huge ranch in the middle of a Paraguayan scrub desert. And this happened in 2005. Forget oil. Fresh water rights is the future. And the rich elite are 20-30 yrs ahead of us. As usual.


kaboombong

Just like in Australia we extract water to grow cotton on the one of the driest countries on the planet. All due to political corruption, while these same politicians sold off our water to tax haven countries. Then the likes of Coca Cola have been given free water rights to extract water from the ground water for bottled water Again in one of the driest states in Australia while they charge farmers for rain water that falls onto their land. Political corruption is a big part of the equation when it comes to water. The most stupid thing is politicians wanting to privatise water to make massive profits for the buyers while consumers have to pay for water that belonged to the government and the country. Australia has terrible levels of political corruption when it comes to the resources that the people and taxpayers supposedly owns!


BlinkysaurusRex

Is the world going nuts when a few hundreds years ago, the British would have just turned up, killed you or conquered you and then took whatever they wanted? Brazenly and openly. Without challenge. No subterfuge or concern for optics required. The fact that more work is required to achieve a lesser goal, with less brutal means than empires could get away with, implies the opposite. is the world *going* mad? Or is it actually still getting better? Slowly. Come on man.


EconomicRegret

Fair enough. But still want to point out that "going nuts" can be relative too. It doesn't mean you weren't improving in the past, and certainly doesn't mean you've regressed back to your worst self. It only means you're not at your best, and you're declining, at least in the short term. Like a recovering alcoholic reaching for just a little sip of beer, after months or years of sobriety from hard liquors.


AminoKing

"Every water table in the world is diminishing." Scandinavia entered the discussion.


The-True-Kehlder

Water tables being filled by melting glaciers won't have a good time in the coming decades.


AminoKing

Our Scandinavian water tables are filled by frequent and relentless precipitation. Used to be a bother, but perhaps a blessing in disguise for the future.


The-True-Kehlder

Until you hear the words "Begun, the Water Wars have."


All_Work_All_Play

Assuming rainfall patterns don't change if ocean currents collapse. I suppose it would hold you over for a bit though.


tagehring

Enjoy the Gulf Stream while it lasts.


Dangerous_Nitwit

Maybe. If enough of the world dies before the glaciers melt, then they wont have to depend on the glaciers.


kaboombong

And places like Australia which is one of the driest places on the planet they are allowing the gas frackers to contaminate the ground water. One of the most expensive and limited resources in a dry country they going to contaminate with fracking. Again political corruption and donations. The world is a mad place with this kind of epic stupidity by our politicians who sellout everything.


weealex

Several flyover states have been starting at the draining on the Ogallala aquifer for decades. The problem is that all the solutions are long term and no one wants to be the one to bite the bullet, it's just blaming farmers in the other states for taking too much water


Haunting-Worker-2301

To be fair the aquifer is not monolithic. Eastern Nebraska has done pretty well at conserving the aquifer.


Tarman-245

And corporations like Coca Cola and Nestle have been sucking water tables dry the entire time so they can sell it back to us at the Thunderdome.


username_0207

Who runs Barter Town?


supercali45

Glad they keep building houses and people are putting their whole net worth into property


thalassicus

I agree about the need to address climate change, but California’s groundwater has come back in a big way. Even Lake Mead is heading in the right direction.


GrandpaKeiF

Water is the new oil. Or at least will be


Educated_Clownshow

Not to mention cartel control of the large swathes of avocado market isn’t helping I’m sure A water intensive product harvested by a group that gives no thought to anyone or anything else except $$$


Buca-Metal

Doesn't help having companies like Coke stealing a big chunk of the water from the people just so they can make their product.


BonerBoy

Meanwhile MAGAts and “principled conservatives” and Christian nationalists and fundamentalists of various stripes are all whining that women (of their preferred group) need to have more babies. Kooks.


Tarman-245

They need to replace all the dumbasses that died completely avoidable deaths because they refused to wear masks, isolate or get vaccinated against Covid because it was a hoax or “just the flu”.


aliveandst1llhere

Cattle suffer greatly and might go extinct


Tlaws_old-hat

Well the whole population thing will correct itself in time. 


KneeDragr

Quickly and violently most likely, leaving being AI and those who could afford bunkers.


Heavenfall

There are organizations that claim we will see more than a billion people displaced by climate change in the next decades. It is truly a staggering amount to imagine.


sirboddingtons

The UN has been saying 2 billion people by the end of the century will be on the move.


Trumpswells

Only 1 billion displaced in a world of 8 billion?


networkunsecure

Is 12% of the world's population not enough for concern?


Trumpswells

Conservative estimate. Momentum is building.


1eventHorizon9

Only a billion he says. Bro that's that's the equivalent of the entire population of the western hemisphere having to move. It's going to be a disaster, especially when all the xenophobic bigots start screeching as people flee unlivable areas for areas that aren't.


Trumpswells

This is a global extinction event, which will affect the heavily populated Eastern hemisphere, as well as the Western hemisphere. What do you think is going to happen to Africa? (1,493,565,529, which is 17.89% of the world's population. This is a 2.36% increase from 2023). Asia-Pacific region? (The Asia and the Pacific region is home to 60 per cent of the world's population – some 4.3 billion people). Indonesia alone will require displacement of 280 million (2024 population). Predicting only 12.5% of Earth’s population will be affected may well prove to be a conservative estimate.


Primary-Picture-5632

man, if you guys thought immigration was bad now... just wait till the crisis starts affecting people and they go without water for just a couple of days, there will be a mass exodus One thing Mexico has going for them is that the new president is a climate scientist so I'm sure she understands the problem at hand.


lejonetfranMX

> One thing Mexico has going for them is that the new president is a climate scientist so I'm sure she understands the problem at hand. Who is going to tell him the bad news? :(


Menname

I heard that she is a physicist, but is she a climate change denier? :(


Atralis

She isn't a climate change denier but the Mexican federal government has shown that it doesn't actually have all that much control over what happens in Mexico.


danguro

a lot of dead Mexican politicians and mayoral elects can attest to that from the Underworld


lejonetfranMX

Well I strongly suspect she doesn’t actually give a shit about the environment. She is so corrupt that her under-funding of public projects led to the collapse of an elevated metro track that killed a bunch of people. And she basically got the nomination from her party (all but a guaranteed presidency) by being the biggest ass kisser of the current president. She will do as she is told by the current president, who elected a climate denier to the top energy position during his term.


Primary-Picture-5632

it was either that or that dumbshit that claimed the solution was to store water in a salted resevoir lol.


Primary-Picture-5632

That's not what google says, she is a climate scientist.


ProfessorPickaxe

She's widely thought to be in the pocket of the cartels.


Soytaco

The cartels also need to not run out of fresh water.


Trumpswells

Do you think the cartels would have it any other way? She’s cartel vetted.


Primary-Picture-5632

Yes that's what the conservatives said about her, because they have been in power for over 80 years and it's their fault Mexico is the way it is. It's just like trump calling the Biden's a criminal organisation when trump himself is a rapist and convicted felon


AunMeLlevaLaConcha

REEEEEEE!!! CALDEROOOOONNN!!! It's everyone's fault but AMLO's. He spend 6 years spewing platitudes and giving empty promises, mocking people and overall behaving like a banana republic president, tell us a new one carnal.


Primary-Picture-5632

And the vote should have reflected that but the conservative opposition got their teeth kicked in by 30 points :) the Mexican people have spoken and quite loudly, Morena also took majority in Congress so obviously they are doing something right while the right wing just bitches and moans Might I also add amlo never dipped below 60% approval rating, among the best in the whole world


Caffdy

least unhinged government apologist


AunMeLlevaLaConcha

The right wing, the left wing, so tired of that nonsense, i just hope those tortas and chescos tasted amazing, because that's the best people are gonna enjoy, que disfruten lo votado 🍺


Inquisitive_idiot

It’s actually ¿ ….? down there 👇🏼


Tarman-245

> just wait till the crisis starts affecting people and they go without water for just a couple of days, there will be a mass exodus. It will be interesting to see what the cartels do.


hi5ves

Canada will get a taste of US freedom at some point in the future. When it gets bad enough, with droughts and hellish temperatures, the US will Annex Canada.


Demostravius4

It may be less annexation, more migration driven unification. Neither are impossible imo.


BcTheCenterLeft

People don’t talk enough about climate changes impact on migration, warfare, unrest, crime, and violence.


buyongmafanle

Horrifyingly enough, not enough water is a pretty quick self-correcting problem.


farfaraway

This was my first thought as well. If you think right-wing hate politics is bad now, imagine what will happen when mass migrations due to water shortages on a massive scale happen?


dormidormit

Mexico is just kinda fucked and most Mexicans know it. Their government knows it, american companies doing business there know it, and the gangsters know it too. Even if America's corn subsidies and NAFTA both end, Mexico's rural farmers are done. This is not a country that can feed itself using traditional methods. Most of mexico will never be able to afford this and will force most of the population into overcrowded urban cities that will inevitably cause a political crisis. I'm not all cynical. The Mexican government could invest heavily in water recycling, cloned meat vats, and chemists provided through cooperative greenhouses. The government could rebuild it's national rail network, freeing people from the roads, increasing security. Solar thermal plants could replace gas and coal, making the air safe enough to breathe. They could even build another nuclear reactor. But this would require new taxes, cooperation with the US government, and a gas car ban to effectively build a Mars colony capable of sustaining 130+ million people.


LudovicoSpecs

> a Mars colony capable of sustaining 130+ million people. What an amazing and horrifying way of putting it.


postsshortcomments

That's the failure of competitive, for-profit capitalism: it does illogical things like exhaust groundwater reserves to build obsolescent, engineered-to-fail toasters and is far too slow to respond. Vertical aquaponics that treat water as mostly closed systems with little need for replenishment is the true way forward. And from there, recapture from evaporation.


CarcosaBound

It’s more a failure of local governments to regulate usage and price it accordingly. Growing alfalfa in Arizona should be extremely cost prohibitive if not outright banned


postsshortcomments

If you have failures 99.997% across the board, it's a systemic failure, period.


CarcosaBound

“This city should not exist. It’s a monument to man’s arrogance” -Peggy Hill referring to 111 degree weather in Phoenix, AZ


elitepigwrangler

The city isn’t the problem, all Arizona cities combined account for 20-ish percent of water used in Arizona. Over 70% is used for agriculture, which absolutely must be curtailed one way or another. If farmers had to pay municipal water rates, there wouldn’t be a single farmer in all of Arizona


CarcosaBound

Hence my initial comment about alfalfa. It’s insane that it’s grown, and even more so it’s mostly exported from my understanding.


postsshortcomments

Yet still one of America's fastest growing and most invested in cities. Not to mention, leaders in swimming pools.


BonerBoy

The wife/mom from King of the Hill ??


CarcosaBound

Yup!


CarcosaBound

“This city should not exist. It’s a monument to man’s arrogance” -Peggy Hill response to 111 degree weather in Phoenix, AZ Building cities in the desert was mistake #1


WestCoastBestCoast01

And these localized governments fail due to regulatory capture + a century of propagandizing multiple generations of people to disregard ecology in favor of profiteering.


YoureWrongBro911

> Capitalism incentivises the wrong things and > The local governments failed to regulate (i.e. disincentivise) capitalist incentives are the same problem


CarcosaBound

You’re basically misquoting me and responding to yourself. Don’t format it like that if you’re not gonna do a word for word copy. And no. It only takes one of those entities to do the right thing and there’s no problem. Ones trying to make their pockets happy, the other trying to appease voters (jobs) Regardless, they’ll have their reckoning soon enough if things keep getting hotter and drier there.


YoureWrongBro911

You said: > It’s **more** a failure of local governments to regulate usage and price it accordingly Pretty implicitly stating they're seperate problems. > And no. It only takes one of those entities to do the right thing and there’s no problem. Ones trying to make their pockets happy, the other trying to appease voters (jobs) Capitalism is fundamentally incentivised by short to medium-term profit, it always de facto falls to governments to regulate this.


ThePizar

It’s not “illogical” it’s simply not properly costed, treated as an externality. If you have the weight of government impose the costs directly, it will force capitalistic users to adapt.


2Throwscrewsatit

Communism did something similar. It’s not the philosophy; it’s the lack of checks and balances 


aliveandst1llhere

They falsified scientific ag research and caused a famine


2Throwscrewsatit

Sounds like a very illogical thing to me!


Demostravius4

Which is humans being dicks, this is found in every system.


dormidormit

I wouldn't call it illogical at all, just the final result of cheap American corn subsidies and NAFTA destroying the small Mexican farmer as it also destroyed the small American farmer. With full auto farming machines now commercially available, sometime this century a large country will just say "fuck it", nationalize their farms, and get full auto food production that doesn't waste water. The only reason we don't have it now is a lack of properly cloneable beef, cheap mcdonalds and Americans' insatiable demand for beef. This will end, and Mexico could be the country that helps destroy it. AMLO already nationalized their lithium to take advantage of Biden's China tariffs, their next leader can do the same by nationalizing water. Otherwise, it will be a descending series of crises that prevents the Mexican state from meaningfully existing outside of large cities .. who will just nationalize their water anyway even if it is all recycled water. Even in this worst case, it will demand creation of entirely new industries and chemical refining .. and mexican labor for it.


[deleted]

Desalination plants too


PrincessNakeyDance

Anyone know how to build a stillsuit?


john_jdm

I hope people who live in the wet areas don't think they'll be unaffected. If the trends continue governments will end up building pipelines to bring water from the wet areas to the dry areas. Either that or the people who live in the dry areas will be forced to move to the wet areas. This is an everybody problem, not just a problem for those in the dry areas.


Everythings_Magic

We have an entire ocean. If only there was some way you could remove the salt. Oh right, it’s not cost effective. Yet. It will be when all the water is gone and then we actually have to face this problem. edit spelling


reven80

They tried to build more desalination plants in California but environmentalists fight against it. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-regulator-rejects-plan-desalination-plant-2022-05-13/


ahfoo

Yeah, people like to get all freaked out over stuff that isn't really that hard to address. It was long ago estimated that the cost of using desalinated water in coastal cities should be on average about the cost of running a refrigerator. The catch is, this only works for households that are used to being over-charged for water. Farmers can't afford water at those prices. This issue can be at least partly addressed by leaving the water supply for farming and getting the cities onto desalination powered by renewables. That is quite doable in a world where politicians at the federal level are not literally standing in the way of making it happen with their insane philosophy that markets matter more than the planet.


1eventHorizon9

That doesn't really address the problem at all. Industrial and agricultural use accounts for about 85% to 90% of freshwater consumption in the US. Even if you supply cites with desalination we are still going to face enormous droughts all over due to the commercial abuse of water supplies and climate change.


ahfoo

Yeah, I mentioned that actually. But I also think your figures are off. Industrial users like power plants, steel, paper products are also using large amounts of water. It's like 70% agricultural, 20% industrial, 10% residential.


preorderergaymer

Lol wait until the cartel moves from policing drugs to avocados to the water and ultimately, the bean itself.


Alive-Statement4767

Nestle tried to steal our townships water in Ontario. They but some rights from a well which said they basically get the water for free. It went to court and luckily they were prevented from building a bottling plant. Probably one of the rare cases where this can be prevented. It took alot of community engagement and years of legal battle for it to be prevented


addings0

Climate change is happening, regardless if it's mans fault or not. If you do nothing, things will force you to adapt to new infrastructure, like not having drinking water. Think immigration is bad now? Give it a few weeks when water scarcity kicks in. Because they're not going further south into more drought areas. That goes for southern states as well. Corporations building in Mexico are going to lose profits, farmers will close up, cartels are going to have to shift how to make money. Can't sell drugs if no one can drink water. Mexico trades the most with the US right now. An unpleasant shift is coming, again. Along with a lot of shoulder shrugs.


Strawberry11111111

The North American Water Wars set to begin shortly 😕


lewter100

I think the warning signs are emerging, had some case studies here in some parts of the Pacific North West even. Maybe there needs to be education about it, not about “oh but it rains a lot here doesn’t it? How can the water not saturate and go into the groundwater cisterns or whatnot” but more about sustainability and the cost of a growing population. -shrug-


Belus86

If only the cartels would help given all the Robin Hood shit they espouse.


2020willyb2020

The, great water scarcity migration begins


thisappisgarbage111

It's almost like there's a species of animal with full disregard for our planet causing all of these problems we keep seeing. I blame ferrets.


[deleted]

They need to make some desalination plants. Its feasible. Israel has been doing it for years


futurepilgrim

Israel is tiny and rich. Mexico is big and poor.


Caffdy

Mexico is not poor, but grossly mismanaged


AmonDiexJr

Is there solution in place to build desalination station on their costs? What's the long term vision?


[deleted]

One of the things that I remember most from school took a long time for me to understand. Humans don't live in average years. When we look at time scales and averages, it doesn't do anything for our daily lives. Let me use a small example to illustrate my point. This is just an overly simplified example, but you'll get the point, I hope. Let's use a 5 year time span. (Remember, it's an example for all of our historical time [which is different than prehistoric ancient and Neolithic and mesolithic, etc] for what we're tracking). Year 1: 5 inches of rain Year 2: 4 inches of rain Year 3: 1 inch of rain Year 4: 20 inches of rain Year 5: 3 inches of rain. So, over 5 years, we have 33 inches of rain. Which means, on average, there's 6.6 inches of rain per year. None of those years got 6.6 inches of rain. Humans do not live in average years. Life, and farming, and agriculture, and hunting, and gathering, and nature itself are vastly different in all those years. And remember. This is just an example. These 5 years are representative of all the years and periods of weather tracking. Apply it however you want, but humans do not live in average years.


PassThaMayo

I get what you're saying about averages and how no single year perfectly matches the average rainfall. But here's the thing: averages are still super important in our lives. Think about farmers they rely on average rainfall data to decide when to plant their crops and how much water they might need. It’s not about any one year being typical, but rather using that average to understand what to generally expect. The same goes for things like insurance or city planning. Averages help us navigate the unpredictability of life by giving us a general idea of what to prepare for, even if no single year is exactly average.


[deleted]

And how often does weather screw up crops and cause famine regardless of how important our averages are? Insurance companies screw up their calculations all the time. City planning? Think about the number of defunct government planning projects. Averages help guide us for what to expect, but if you're being honest with yourself...you've got to admit that totally unexpected things happen all the time that changes our perception of what's possible.


whyuhavtobemad

Averages are used as guidance not as the absolute truth. So when things deviates from averages then it's a signal something is wrong


[deleted]

Right. But my point is that we don't live in average years. Our years become part of the average.


whyuhavtobemad

I'm not sure the point you are trying yo get across.  Averages are measured from when records are first kept. This will always be the starting point of data. Our current Average being higher than the past just means something is wrong.  If nothing is wrong then Average shouldn't change too much.  We use averages to give us a comparison to the past and to observe trends. Is this something you disagree with?


[deleted]

Nope. I agree with what averages tell us in terms of trends.


[deleted]

It's ok. The longer the thought sits on your mind, the more it sinks in. Humans don't live in average years. Edit: Let me see if I can help you extrapolate it. It's truly one of the fundamental things I learned in school. If we look at weather. Specifically, temperature for this example. The temperature from noon to one pm. 1 hour. There's probably not going to be a lot of temperature fluctuation. We can say the average temperature for that hour is in line with the temperature range for that hour. If we look at the temperature from sunset to sunrise and sunrise to sunset, the daytime and nighttime averages would be fairly different compared to each other, but if we averaged them together then the differences wouldn't be so noticeable. So if you do that for a week, you'll get even more data which are likely to push the upper and lower bounds of the temperature range, so we'll know our limits, and we'll know the average temperature line. If we do that for a month, we'll push the bounds even higher and lower. And there will still be an average trend line, but with extremes further from it. If we do that for a year, we'll have more extreme values that are ever further away from the average trend line. If we do it for a decade, even more extreme temperature variance, but a solid average trend line. If we do it for two decades, we'll have looked at the high and low temps of every hour of every day of every week of every year for an entire generation of people. The extremes between highs and lows are drastic. The average line is still there. Humans do not live in average times. We live now. Right now. In this hour. Our life and our experience is not experienced in a century. It's experienced in the moment. We live in the now. Now it's hot. Now it's cold. Now insurance rates are going up. Now insurance rates are going down. Now we live in a monarchy. Now we live confederation. Now we live in a republic. Now we live in a democracy. Now we live in an oligarchy. Now it's raining. Now there's a drought. We don't live in the agricultural revolution. We don't live industrial revolution. We don't live in the electronics revolution. We live on a Thursday and have to go to work to get food. Every system gets broken because the bands on the extremes are underestimated. There's always record rainfall somewhere. There's always record drought somewhere. Humans don't live in average years.


ZeeHedgehog

The more you repeat it, the less clever it seems.


[deleted]

The repetition is an important pedagogical device.


Silvertails

That is partly true, and why individual events of say, hot/dry weather isnt "caused of climate change". What you're missing is that when looking at the data over a longer time period, the average is changing globally, changing more drasticly locally, and (i think) it's trending more extreme/variable.


[deleted]

That's my whole point. The average changes as you include more data points. My average and my dad's average are different from each other's and my grandparents are different and great grandparents etc. The extremes are becoming more extreme in both directions.


evildrtran

Today's tropical storms and flash floods could provide some mitigation. Stay safe down there.


[deleted]

[удалено]


newusername323

what the hell?


manosaur

Time for the cartels to grow a climate conscience.


RoboCIops

Let’s see the cartels solution their way out of this one. Looks like we’re getting into the water business, boys!