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More than 100 French towns without drinking water amid 'historic drought'


I've never been to Britain - always wanted to. When I worked overseas, I worked with many from 'Blighty' and knew many from other countries who had lived, studied, worked in London and Manchester. Nearly all commented on how gloomy, cloudy, rainy the weather was, so to see these kinds of atmospheric conditions persist for as long as it has is indeed nothing less than shocking. I've been to Continental Europe a few times, where they are dealing with the same extremes, obviously.

I guess the equivalent here in the States is the rainy Pacific Northwest, which is also known for its 'depressing' climate, as I can attest to having lived there for a few years until moving on. But there, too, as in the UK, the NW has in recent years dealt with searing heat and less and less rainfall.

I'm afraid that this is the terrifying opening act to decades of horrors that we will see unless we have much greater degrees of global cooperation, not only on measures to prevent climate change but also on how to cooperate globally on its near-term consequences (like massive shortages and dislocation). This is a really, really bad time for brewing rivalries between the West (particularly the US), China, and Russia. We need global cooperation now more than ever, but this period of decoupling and nationalism is horrifyingly reminiscent of Europe and Asia in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. We know what happened next.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
It's SALT fer chrissakes. Salt has value, salt has usefulness, salt can be dealt with rather easily once it is viewed as a commodity, which it is.
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OR .... even tossed right back into the ocean, if it's quantity becomes impractical to deal with!
 
We could save a shit-ton of water here in the States if we stopped "farming" lawns.
 
Gateman_Wen said:
We could save a shit-ton of water here in the States if we stopped "farming" lawns.
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Hi, Gateman_Wen.

There's quite a bit of space between 'could' and 'will' in a democratic society.

Consider how we can slow the spread of airborne infectious bacterial and viral diseases through the simple procedure of wearing a mask in public spaces. 'Nuf said.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
 
I didn't say we would, although it would be the smart thing to do.
 
Water desalination is HUGELY energy demanding and expensive. Only reason Saudi Arabia can do this, is because of oil.

Large scale desalination is not a viable option for most countries at the moment.

Not to mention it is just a band-aid on the over all problem of climate change. This week in Denmark.. 35 degrees one day, and 20 degrees and monsoon like storm with rain the next..
 
snakestretcher said:
The extreme temperatures we are seeing are most unusual for a temperate zone, but the sceptics are still telling us there's no global warming, it's just normal climate fluctuation etc.
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Normal climate fluctuation is just something you have to be able to rule out in this region because it is historically normal for this region to fluctuate between unusually warm and unusually cold periods.
 
There are three phenomenon which are at times misused in posts. They are:

1. Global warming. This is the slow increase in the average temperature of the earth's surface over an extended period of time -- many decades.

2. Climate change. This is a deviation from 'normal' for an extended area -- either hotter, cooler, drier or wetter or a combination of these -- also lasting for a period of at least several years.

3. Weather. Weather is what we experience on a given day. The day may be sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, hot or cold. There are more possibilities.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
 
multivita-man said:
It's also time to radically rethink our economics. An economy that aims for perpetual GDP growth on the assumption of resource abundance is dangerously at odds with the realities of growing resource scarcity.
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There are some alternatives emerging right now. Like for example the doughnut economic model that consider both economical and social sustainability.

How Amsterdam is embracing the ‘doughnut model’ – and why other cities should too

The Dutch capital wants to slash emissions and reduce consumption ASAP.
www.timeout.com

That at the same time countries, regions and organizations are joining the Well Being Economy Alliance.

About WEAll : Wellbeing Economy Alliance

weall.org
 
multivita-man said:
It's also time to radically rethink our economics. An economy that aims for perpetual GDP growth on the assumption of resource abundance is dangerously at odds with the realities of growing resource scarcity.
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That’s also a large business metric. “How much did we do this month compared to the same month last year?” Given the size of the business space and the number of employees the tally will have max out. At some point the only variable is the charge for the product/service that is produced at that location.
 
Eurotrash said:
Our reservoir levels are very low here in Portugal, too. It's terrifying.
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Sorry, there's only the 'like' button, not the 'I hear you' or 'I understand you' button. But yeah, this is happening everywhere. It's obviously now becoming increasingly visible in the developed world but this is also happening in many parts of the developing world, where people have less voice and where the margins for necessary output are much, much thinner.
 

Sadly powerful economic interests have spend enormous amount of money on creating doubt and delaying action on climate change.

Exxon Knew about Climate Change Almost 40 Years Ago

A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation
www.scientificamerican.com

“Kochland” Examines the Koch Brothers’ Early, Crucial Role in Climate-Change Denial

A new book by Christopher Leonard reveals how Charles and David Koch crippled government action on climate change.
www.newyorker.com

Fossil fuel political giving outdistances renewables 13 to one » Yale Climate Connections

During the latest midterm election cycle, the fossil fuel industry paid at least $359 million for federal campaign donations and lobbying.
yaleclimateconnections.org
 
Something has to be done about this. The rich overconsume in ways that are strictly predicated on greed, not need.
 

All of the metrics we now have for macroeconomic 'success' assume that growth should be the end game. So it's no surprise that if you want to attract investors, all companies in the exchange have to compete with each other based on their growth - completely and totally irrespective of the human and ecological costs borne to achieve these outcomes. Nowhere is socioeconomic equality accounted for. Nowhere is ecological footprint accounted for either. Our political systems, in theory, were designed to adapt to changing needs, but economic systems are political systems, and our economic systems were designed to maximize profits and wealth. The elite class has interests that are in stark contrast to many of those in the 'bottom half of the system, and that is, at least in part, how large, complex civilizations collapse.
 
I was thinking on how difficult it was to come up with brand new technology to build the James Webb Telescope, which was a collaboration of scientists from several different countries, certainly we can come up with economical desalinization methods.
 
Yes when 'Sea Salt" is valued in some cases over regular mined salt.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
I was thinking on how difficult it was to come up with brand new technology to build the James Webb Telescope, which was a collaboration of scientists from several different countries, certainly we can come up with economical desalinization methods.
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I just can't buy desalinization as a long-term fix. It worries me greatly.

The Impacts of Relying on Desalination for Water

If the ocean were tapped as a source of fresh water, what impact would that have on the environment?
www.scientificamerican.com
 
EnigmaO01 said:
I was thinking on how difficult it was to come up with brand new technology to build the James Webb Telescope, which was a collaboration of scientists from several different countries, certainly we can come up with economical desalinization methods.
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The technology is already present, but desalination isn't necessarily the magic bullet we think it is. Current desal plants typically take about 5-10 to plan, construct, and move online - sometimes even longer if there are municipal disputes about costs and who has to sacrifice to get them and so forth. And even if we decided to commit to total desalination policy, that would be trading in one problem for another, as they typically have major energy requirements. We'd be paying a lot more for water for everyday use, we'd be harming marine ecosystems that are already vulnerable, and we'd be contributing big time to global warming. None of these are really the kinds of outcomes that would really be worth 5-15 years of waiting for, particularly when we don't likely have 5-15 years to save some of our most precious freshwater reservoirs.
 
My wife loves to cruise. It’s my understanding that these boats, large and small process their own water on board. If it can be done for a group of 300 people or so, you would think that the process could be extrapolated? She likes the smaller, more intimate boats, as opposed to the floating cities.
 

I mentioned solar at the top of my post. Cogeneration is the best way to do desalination. I'm sure that with the right plant design and adequate solar coverage there will be an electric surplus.
 
PeteEU said:
Not to mention it is just a band-aid on the over all problem of climate change.
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Ummm, that may be a valid point but combating climate change and NOT using desalination is not going to erase the shortage of potable water.
In fact, a lot of knowledgeable folks think we may be too late for some parts of the planet and thus some weather pattern changes may be rather long-lived.
 
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