Posted by zog
on September 12, 2009, 7:15 pm
This is why I always emphasize concentrating on your water supply first. You can have everything else be OK, and a lack of water collapses everything else.
Here's Mexico, worst drought in decades
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125270169029204249.html
Even though they got heavy rains recently, the rain fell in the wrong place to replenish their reservoirs, and even if they were full, it still isn't enough. They currently use twice as much as can be replenished from the underground aquifers that are their primary source. Meaning at some time, a city of 20 million projected to hit 30 will just slap run out...then what? They are relying on what is termed *fossil water*. Several areas of the US are also at that "fossil water" stage, including important growing areas. Yet..no national call for a massive reservoir and water distribution network so we can collectively manage our resources better. No national call for a big push for hydrponics and other water conservation type efforts to insure our food supply.
We are always going to have floods, and then droughts, while the tech exists now to mitigate both extremes and insure our supply.
Nothing exotic, just tons more reservoirs and a water pipeline system that criss crosses the nation, sort of like our national highway system. It could be run from thousands of windmills along those routes, supplying both bulk electricity and the power needed to pump water. Get a lot of those factory workers back to work in repurposed factories in the rust belt turning out some big Model A windcharger. We get huge floods for a short time in some areas, turn them babies on to pumping water on a massive scale to rteserrvoirs far away. Flood gets over, they go back to upplying the national grid for power. A big drought hits some area, they pump the water where it is needed. And that's it,. that's how it could be done, a triple use system, flood control, drought control, electricity supply.
This is a nation that from *one* factory in Detroit in ww2 put out a heavy bomber around the clock every 40 *minutes*. We just don't have the national will to do it, or the awareness of how important this really is.
And a project this size is quite literally beyond some private corporation to do it "for profit", I mean, let's get real here, so the private sector won't be doing this either, except theoretically if thousands of smaller subcontractors get involved under am umbrella organization that is tasked with one single purpose for national security, REAL national security, insuring our water supply against extremes.
I guess they pols will wait until after the crisis hits and entire regions with millions of people just run out, get put on one quart a day emergency rations per head, then they will have their normal haphazard too little too late fire drill response.. Like Katrina, it would have been some ridiculous 1/50th the cost they threw at the repairs to just build the levees better in advance. Nope, "no money". Well, they proved they had the money, just lacked the long range critical thinking skills.
Just a chunk of that wall street bailout could have afforded this.... what's more important, big banker gamblers can continue to have 10 grand lunches and live in multimillion dollar *apartments*, or the nation's water supply?
Here's Guatemala to their south, same deal, the government declared a national calamity, appeals for aid. Tons of those folks are just poor small farmers who can't irrigate and *must* rely solely on rainwater just to eat..no rain..they starve.
And what happens then also is they come north, looking for something better. Anything but starving. You get desperate, and anything becomes a consideration...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iybmfGFsKmCihfFL7wfdOZNf7hFQ
Always have stored and backup sources, and seriously consider permanent living in an area that is water rich year round traditionally. The old expression is "beat the rush".
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