Forget Peak Oil. This is Really Frightening

[tellner]

A paper about to be published (link is PDF) by the National Academy of Sciences makes a pretty compelling case that we passed peak water in the US about forty years ago. It uses a variety of accounting methods and definitions and gets pretty much the same depressing result with all of them.

The abstract:

Freshwater resources are fundamental for maintaining human health, agricultural production, economic activity as well as critical ecosystem functions. As populations and economies grow, new constraints on water resources are appearing, raising questions about limits to water availability. Such resource questions are not new. The specter of “peak oil”—a peaking and then decline in oil production—has long been predicted and debated. We present here a detailed assessment and definition of three concepts of “peak water”: peak renewable water, peak nonrenewable water, and peak ecological water. These concepts can help hydrologists, water managers, policy makers, and the public understand and manage different water systems more effectively and sustainably. Peak renewable water applies where flow constraints limit total water availability over time. Peak nonrenewable water is observable in groundwater systems where production rates substantially exceed natural recharge rates and where overpumping or contamination leads to a peak of production followed by a decline, similar to more traditional peak-oil curves. Peak “ecological” water is defined as the point beyond which the total costs of ecological disruptions and damages exceed the total value provided by human use of that water. Despite uncertainties in quantifying many of these costs and benefits in consistent ways, more and more watersheds appear to have already passed the point of peak water. Applying these concepts can help shift the way freshwater resources are managed toward more productive, equitable, efficient, and sustainable use.

This doesn't exactly come as a surprise. The Colorado River doesn't reach the ocean any longer. More is allocated from it than it actually carries. Much of the West depends on the Ogallala aquifer which is pretty much played out. All of this was detailed in books like Cadillac Desert twenty five years ago for anyone who was listening.

I was worried about this lo these many years ago. Maybe it's because I'm from a part of the arid West where the county water commission really is important. Allocating scarce water for home use, industry, wildlife, irrigation and energy is serious business. I grew up hearing about things like the death of Pete French.

At the time my economics professors all said "Don't worry. It's just a matter of allocation and pricing. Water will always be available when it's needed. The Market will take care of it." Entire cities blown away in Western China and whole great kingdoms in Africa, the collapse of agriculture in Meso-America, ghost towns in North America where the water gave out. None of it mattered. There would always be enough water because, well, there just had to be.

The one who took me seriously was a visiting Israeli Professor Emeritus from Hebrew University who had taught at a number of universities in Arab countries under a discreet pseudonym. He told me that I was one of the very few people he'd met who got it. In his very learned professional opinion the real irreconcilable conflict in the Middle East isn't about religion or oil or tribal politics. It's about water.

Or as they said back home

Whiskey's fer drinkin'. Water's fer killin'.

 

[shesulsa]

It doesn't take a whole lot of reading to figure out the fresh water crisis is far more serious than the oil crisis.

Now we have a major disaster on our hands with our oceans as well.

And as George Carlin said, 'the Earth's not going anywhere ... WE ARE!'

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye, this has been acknowledged and ignored for decades. I remember James Burke (the chap who did the excellent series Connections and our coverage of the Apollo missions) doing a piece on it in the 70's I think!

If we can stop our ever ballooning population over here (shut the bloomin' doors, we're full!) then we should be okay for water in the UK - it rains enough after all :lol:.

 

[tellner]

Major crisis in the oceans? That's a mild way of putting it. The world's fish stocks are down 90% and falling from just a few decades ago. Whales are even worse off due to centuries of relentless extermination. Shellfish harvests all over the world are failing because we've acidified the oceans to the point where shells don't form properly.

 

[Sukerkin]

Break that enough and we (the land-lubbers) are all done for. The ocean food and resource cycling chain is the foundation of everything!

 

[dancingalone]

No easy answer to this one, other than reducing population numbers. Any suggestions for accomplishing this?

 

[tellner]

Yes. It's easy and pretty simple to reduce population.

1. Increase economic opportunities for women
2. Education
3. Access to birth control
4. Lower the infant mortality rate
5. Reduce the role of religion in public life

We've been studying demography for a long time. The Demographic Transition is well understood and firmly established. Population in the developed world would be negative if it weren't for immigration. Much of Asia is at or near replacement, and many of the formerly highest-growth countries in Africa and South America are beginning to show the expected declines.

The areas where this is not happening are precisely where the status of women is low, education is poor, economic opportunities are scant and religion runs the public sphere. This is so well-established it doesn't need any further support.

But it's not just population. The global economic system favors short-term thinking, inequity, hiding or at least socializing costs so they don't show up on balance sheets, a heavy discount rate, environmental destruction and weak governance. It's not the Right's favorite bogeyman, the Undeserving Stupid Poor. It's greed and rapaciousness which are doing us in.

 

[dancingalone]

Yes. It's easy and pretty simple to reduce population.

1. Increase economic opportunities for women
2. Education
3. Access to birth control
4. Lower the infant mortality rate
5. Reduce the role of religion in public life

We've been studying demography for a long time. The Demographic Transition is well understood and firmly established. Population in the developed world would be negative if it weren't for immigration. Much of Asia is at or near replacement, and many of the formerly highest-growth countries in Africa and South America are beginning to show the expected declines.

The areas where this is not happening are precisely where the status of women is low, education is poor, economic opportunities are scant and religion runs the public sphere. This is so well-established it doesn't need any further support.

All of this seems to suggest that there's not much a Westerner can do to directly affect population growth in undeveloped countries. Foreign aid can only do so much to help change the local societal mores. The US has poured billions into the middle east, even before the Iraq war, with little to show for it in terms of changing local customs devaluing women and emphasizing religion as a source of legal authority.

But it's not just population. The global economic system favors short-term thinking, inequity, hiding or at least socializing costs so they don't show up on balance sheets, a heavy discount rate, environmental destruction and weak governance. It's not the Right's favorite bogeyman, the Undeserving Stupid Poor. It's greed and rapaciousness which are doing us in.

I can agree with this, but realize plenty of those in power at the heads of corporations and governments are from the left also. It's a problem not tied into political ideology at all. Greed and corruption is universal.

 

[Archangel M]

"Is that so?" -Hakuin

 

[Deaf Smith]

Population control will be no problem. The Four Horsemen will take care of it.

War, pestilence, and famine will do the deed and result in death.

It’s as simple as that.

All this fancy birth control, better pay, education, etc... does not take into account the poorer countries. Now hasn't China tried and tried to stem the population increase? And to what effect has China’s policies alleviated the problem?

No the four horsemen will take care of this.

Sleep tight and pleasant dreams.

Deaf